Gunner Franciszek Janczak, born on 15 February 1916, Bartochów village, Sieradz district, Łódź Voivodeship, farmer, single.
I lived in the Staniewicze settlement, Kosów Poleski district, until 1939. Then, until 3 September 1939, I served in the army. I was on the front line until 17 September, when I was taken prisoner by the Germans. I was in custody until 25 September, when Germans handed us over to the Soviets, who then released us home. I returned on 27 September and I was with my family until 10 February 1940. On that day, the Soviets deported us to Siberia. On 24 March I arrived in poselok Sergeevka [?]. I lived in a barrack; there were five families in one living space, 20 people altogether. The apartment was five meters by four meters.
I worked in the forests, in the mud and swamps, from 7.00 a.m. until 6.00 p.m. – there were two hours for obieda. Living depended on just 80 [800?] grams of bread, salt and water, and once a week they would give us a kilo of fish. When it came to cleanliness, it wasn’t bad, but the bedbugs and cockroaches wouldn’t let us sleep. The quota was 8 cubic meters per person, but nobody could fill it, because the forest was scant and the snow was waist- deep during winter; in the summer, the mud was knee-deep. One had to go to work – if they didn’t, they faced progul [punishment for failure to report for work] and tyurma [prison].
There were 300 Poles and 60 Ukrainians in that poselok, of whom 55 Poles and 7 Ukrainians died. Ukrainians were so mean to Poles. Whatever Poles said of Soviets that they overheard, they would inform about it; they also preferred to stay there [in the USSR]. There was a Pole among them – who informed the Soviet commandant about everything – and he stayed there too, saying he felt better there than in Poland.
Medical assistance was on site.
I released myself from there on 7 September 1941, and arrived in Uzbekistan on 10 December. I worked in Uzbekistan on a kolkhoz until 10 February. I joined the Polish army on that day, and what I had to live through roaming about in Russia – the vermin – isn’t worth to waste breath on. Not only would the bugs crawl on people’s bodies, but also on walls and on the floor. For work in the poselok, they gave us a kufajka, padded trousers, walonkis, and light shoes for the summer.