Volunteer Jadwiga Kijowska, 20 years old, born in Tłusteńskie, residing in [illegible], Kopyczyńce district, Tarnopol voivodeship.
I am the daughter of a farmer. On 10 February 1940 my entire family and I were deported to Russia for unconfined exile. We travelled for three weeks. We received 200 grams of bread and soup once a day. We arrived in Altai Krai, Troitsky region, and were unloaded there. Then they loaded us onto a sleigh and took us fifteen kilometers into the forest. There were barracks there and we were placed in them.
We had been only two hours in the barrack when my grandmother died. We were driven out to the forest for li[e]sovalki [?]. They paid us very little, and it was impossible to meet the work quotas. We had to sell our clothes to buy some potatoes. We were entitled to bread rations: 700 grams for every worker. Those who didn’t work received 400 grams. And so we lived until 28 September 1941.
Then we were released and everybody wanted to leave. All the Poles gathered together, and we sold all we had. We paid for the wagons: 75 rubles per person. We travelled for three weeks and arrived in Tashkent, where we were unloaded. We spent three days in the open air. We received 200 grams of bread and soup once a day. When these three days had passed, we were put into wagons and taken to the train station in Farab, where we were unloaded and put onto barges. We were issued bread for eight days: 200 grams of bread per person. We travelled on the Amu Darya, and finally we arrived at a riverside kolkhoz. We received 400 grams of sorghum. My father worked digging canals, and my brother and I picked cotton. We spent ten days there, and then we were taken back. We travelled for 21 days on a barge, and many people died then. We arrived at the station in Kitab, and from there we were taken to the Karl Marx kolkhoz. There was a great deal of hunger; we received 300 grams of proso millet flour and were driven out for work.
We carried earth. Those who didn’t work didn’t receive any flour. A lot of people fell ill due to starvation, and seventeen people died during three months. I was ill with typhoid fever for five weeks. I didn’t receive any flour then; I lay in the barrack. When I recovered, I went to work carrying earth. I carried it for a few days, and then several Polish soldiers arrived at the kolkhoz and told us to get ready to go. We went with them and arrived at the train station in Kitab. Our compatriots took care of us there: they loaded us into a wagon and took us to Persia, to Tehran. My parents went to Africa, and I joined the Women’s Auxiliary Service.