1. Personal data (name, surname, rank, age, profession, marital status):
Volunteer Anna Jankiewicz, 40 years old, teacher, married.
2. Date and circumstances of arrest:
10 February 1940, as a wife of a military settler.
3. Name of the camp, prison, forced labor site:
Ukhta, Arkhangelsk Oblast, Pechora region, forest settlement.
4. Description of a camp, prison:
Taiga, wooden buildings where workers (Russian exiles) lived, insect infestation; no way to speak of hygiene, as it was below any standards.
5. Composition of POWs, prisoners, exiles:
There were 1,200 exiled people (families), mostly Byelorussians, who were favorable to the Bolsheviks; since they had neither education nor clear views, they tried to curry favor with the Bolshevik authorities, often to the Poles’ disadvantage.
6. Life in the camp, prison:
Men worked hard on logging, loading [the wood], and carrying. Soviets didn’t pay any attention to one’s health, they told everyone to work hard and fill the quotas. Remuneration was very low, enough for only a couple of days. There was no way to buy clothes [for the salary we had], and it wasn’t possible anyway, because there weren’t any in the shop. There was no cultural life at all – everybody was so miserable and exhausted that they didn’t think of entertainment.
7. Attitude of the local NKVD towards the Poles:
The methods of interrogation were really rough. For not calling in for work, they would put us in a cold cell for several days. They would tell us terrible things about Poland, for instance that in Poland a landlord would harness the peasants to pull a cart and had them take him to the church.
8. Medical assistance, hospitals, mortality:
There was a Russian doctor, who only excused people from work in the most severe of cases. He was coarse, distrustful. Mortality rates were high. Józef Sułkowski, Adam Stolarczyk, and many others died.
9. Was there a possibility to communicate with one’s country and family?
We received letters and food parcels from our families, which saved us from being starved to death.
10. When were you released and how did you manage to join the army?
I was released on 11 November 1941. I set off towards Tashkent with my family. I arrived in Tehran on 7 April 1942. I joined the Women’s Auxiliary Service on 15 June 1942 in Tehran.
Place of stay, 6 January 1943