Those settlers deported in February were taken mainly to the N.E. Region of European Russia but also to some districts in the Urals, East and West Siberia â and a small number - to Kazakhstan. From existing NKVD documents dated 1st April 1941 it appears that of the 134,491 deported settlers 38,622 (28.7%) were to be found in the Archangel region, 13,562 (10.1%) in the Sverdlovsk region, 13,339 (9.9%) in the Krasnoyarski Kray, 11,513 (8.6%) in the Ivanovsk region and 9,954 (7.4%) in the Autonomous Komi Republic. These were the main concentrations of those who had been deported in February 194038. From the total number deported in February, 61.5% (85,779 people, 17,077 families) were put to work for the People's Commissariat of the Forest Industry (NARKOMLIES), the next 16.5% (23,026 people, 4,573 families) to the woodworking plants COLES supervised by the People's Commissariat of Transport, 13.9% (19,458 people, 3,951 families) to the People's Commissariat controlling Base Metals and the remaining 8.1% to a variety of other economic commissariats.
As for the group of military settlers whose 106 stories appear in this book 72% were deported to the Archangel region, 9% to the Urals (Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk), 6% to the Vologda region, 6% to Eastern Siberia (Irkutsk), 2% to Western Siberia, 2% to the Autonomous Komi Republic and the remaining 3% to other regions of European Russia. With very few exceptions the military settlers families were located in the forests employed in felling, transporting and working timber.
The deportees were housed in special camps called, specposiolki (special posioleks). In NKVD documents two numbers are used, namely 317 and 115, in reference to specposiolki allotted to special Polish settlers. The governance of these specposiolki was in the hands of the NKVD. The management and administration of the posioleks was regulated by certain instructions and directives which set out the scope of the commandant's authority, the settlers living conditions, their duties and limitations and the expected penalties for 'offences'. The cost of the posioleks administration was born by the special settlers and 10% of their monthly wage was deducted for this purpose. In one settlement there lived 100-500 families and - according to the regulations - each family had the right to a separate room or to be given a place in a barrack of at least 3 sq.metres of living space per person. The reality was diametrically opposite to the rules but, when all is said and done, that was the usual characteristic feature of the Soviet system in every aspect and at every level.
The NKVD knew perfectly well what were the real living conditions in the posioleks, proof of this is in the Russian archives where there still exist various notes, reports and accounts from that period. In June 1940 the Committee of the Krasnoyarski Kray forwarded this information: 'As yet normal living conditions do not exist for the deportees. Families housed in communal barracks are very cramped, poorly supplied with food (even as regards basic needs) and medical care for them is sparse which leads to epidemic illnesses. Beria also informed Stalin that 'in all the posioleks of the Altay Kray the barracks are not prepared for the winter: lack of stoves and unglazed windows'. According to an NKVD official from the Autonomous Komi Republic in all the camps medical centres there was no medicine of any kind. Similar reports were sent from other regions.
According to Soviet legislation all children should go to school but as is clear from a letter written in July 1940, by V. Potemkin, the Commissar of Education to A.Y. Vyshinsky, Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, out of 510 deported children in the Chelyabinsk region only 256, about half, were in schools because no places existed for the rest. In the Gorky region it was worse because not one of the 827 children were in schooling due to lack of appropriate accommodation.
Although the official reports admitted faults scarcities and shortcomings on different levels they were still miles from the truth. In reality the conditions of the deported were considerably more dreadful. This is testified to by the numerous published memoires of those who suffered these experiences, among them the writers of stories in this book. Inhuman conditions - severe frost, hunger, laborious work - caused high death rates despite people trying to help themselves as much as they could. Whatever possessions they had brought with them from home they exchanged for food and, during the summer, they supplemented their provisions with berries and wild mushrooms gathered in the forests. All sorts of different illnesses were endemic while scurvy and night blindness were common because of the lack of vitamins. In the barracks it was very difficult to maintain conditions of hygiene because for years bugs and other vermin had multiplied there. In one account the writer very tersely but emphatically points out: 'to describe the conditions of hygiene in the posioleks'
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