WŁADYSŁAW GORDZIEJKO

1. Personal data (name, surname, rank, age, occupation, marital status):

Gunner Władysław Gordziejko, born in 1922, secondary school student.

2. Date and circumstances of the arrest:

14 December 1939 in Liga, at the secondary school.

3. Name of the camp, prison, place of forced labor:

Tomsky Region, Simizariewski [?] Liesmechpunkt, 109th point.

4. Description of the camp, prison:

A small clearing in the forest (taiga), with a few barracks at the bottom and the NKVD headquarters at the top. One barrack had more or less 20 rooms, three by four meters in size, with 10–12 people in each. The rooms were not covered in lime, were generally dirty, full of bed bugs, and sanitary inspections were poor.

5. Social composition of POWs, prisoners, deportees:

The prisoners in our point were mostly Poles, except for the NKVD and work supervisors. The deportees had committed the following crimes: speaking out against the Soviet authorities, politics, crossing the Polish-[illegible] border and the Polish-Hungarian border. The mutual relations between Poles were generally good.

6. Life in the camp, prison:

In summer, we worked from 3.00 a.m. to 9.00 p.m. In winter – from 6.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m. Our work in summer consisted in extracting resin from pines. The quota was 260 kg for ten days, and the pay depended on the quota – 40 rubles. In winter, our task was to arrange wood and building material; the quota was 6 m3, for which we were paid 2 rubles and 40 kopeks, for 1 m3 of the material – 48 kopeks. As for clothes, then for my entire time there I received a padded jacket, padded pants, and [illegible].

7. Attitude of the NKVD towards Poles:

The NKVD were very strict. People were locked in punishment cells for three days whenever they refused to work. Interrogations took place as follows: if the guilty person did not confess, everybody in turn was locked in a punishment cell for a few hours until the culprit was found. The communist propaganda was very strong. The only news about Poland that we heard was that Poland would never rise again and had ceased to exist as a country. The Soviets also kept telling us that people in Poland were extremely poor and ate oak bark instead of bread.

8. Medical assistance, hospitals, mortality:

There was no hospital, only a female feldsher who did not help us at all. Only severely sick people were taken to another point, 60 km away, where they had a small hospital. Solski from Hornia [?] forest management near [illegible] disappeared without a trace.

9. Was it possible to keep in touch with the home country and your family?

We had no contact with the home country at all; we were only allowed to read the “Komsomol” newspaper.

10. When were you released and how did you join the army?

I was released on 15 December 1941, I managed to make my own way to the army from the village of [illegible] to Lugovoy.