Helena Skarżyńska, born in 1917.
On 3 August 1939, a month before the war, I left the city of Skierniewice for the city of Stanisławów to stay with my family, and there, on 21 June 1940, I was arrested for filing an application [for permission] to travel to Skierniewice. After six weeks in prison, I heard the sentence: three years. Living conditions were very hard. On 6 August 1940, I was taken north from Stanisławów to a labor camp in the Karelo-Finnish SSR [Soviet Socialist Republic]. There were about 1000 Poles in this camp, with whom I was working in the forest, felling. I was working without warm clothes. Those who did not make the quota were put in detention without food. We were living in barracks, which were very dirty, full of vermin, and rats.
A lot of people died, mostly men. In February, I was deported to another labor camp in Niedźwiedzia Góra [Medvezhyegorsk?]; there, I worked in a factory, in a sewing room, finishing padded pants. The quota was 170 pieces.
After the amnesty on 7 September 1941, I went to Uzbekistan to the Chila kolkhoz, where I worked at the cotton batting harvest. From there, after three months, I went to Jalalabad, from where I left for Persia as a civilian on 6 August 1942. On 6 September, I joined the Women’s Auxiliary Service in Pahlevi. I left Pahlevi for Tehran, and from there for Iraq, where I’ve been staying until now.
10 March 1943