1. Personal data (name, surname, rank, age, occupation, marital status):
Gunner Jan Grzesik, 19 years old, secondary school student.
2. Date and circumstances of the arrest:
Deported on 13 April 1940 to the Kazakh SSR.
3. Name of the camp, prison, place of forced labor:
Forced labor in the town of Ayagoz (Semipalatinsk Oblast) in a field and in a slaughterhouse.
4. Description of the camp, prison:
The slaughterhouse area was hilly, the buildings were made of clay, the housing conditions were very bad, and the hygiene was bad.
5. Social composition of POWs, prisoners, deportees:
Poles, Russians and Kazakhs worked in the slaughterhouse. The level of intellectual standing was mediocre, mutual relations were good.
6. Life in the camp, prison:
Average day’s routine: 12–14 hours of work, bad working conditions, very high quotas, low pay, poor own clothes, good social life.
7. Attitude of the NKVD towards Poles:
Long and exhausting investigations, communist propaganda, negative news about Poland.
8. Medical assistance, hospitals, mortality:
Mediocre medical help, good hospitals.
9. Was it possible to keep in touch with the home country and your family?
Poor contact with the home country.
10. When were you released and how did you join the army?
I was released on 30 August, but I continued working in Ayagoz, where I left my mother and two sisters. On 17 February 1942 I arrived in Lugovoy and was enlisted into the 10th Division.