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When they found out I was from Poland they sent me to Uzbekistan, to a mine.
In Uzbekistan I was sent to a tungsten mine. I worked as a miner, down in the mine, underground. The work was hard and the place isolated. A holed up world. There were a few Jews there too, a few dozen of them, mostly exiles from Poland. I got friendly with a few - I still remember the names: Epstain, Grossman. I spent nearly five years in that mine - when I arrived it was August or September 1941, and by the time I left it was June 1946.
At first we lived in a huge shack - the whole group of scores of men, mostly Jews. The sanitary conditions were negligible. Not far away there was a stream, and that was our source of water. And later, when I met my wife, we just lived in a mud hut. There was no way of building anything else more civilized.
In Uzbekistan I was sent to a tungsten mine. I worked as a miner, down in the mine, underground. The work was hard and the place isolated. A holed up world. There were a few Jews there too, a few dozen of them, mostly exiles from Poland. I got friendly with a few - I still remember the names: Epstain, Grossman. I spent nearly five years in that mine - when I arrived it was August or September 1941, and by the time I left it was June 1946.
At first we lived in a huge shack - the whole group of scores of men, mostly Jews. The sanitary conditions were negligible. Not far away there was a stream, and that was our source of water. And later, when I met my wife, we just lived in a mud hut. There was no way of building anything else more civilized.
Period
Interview
Jankiel Kulawiec
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