Memoirs by Kazimierz Młyńczak "Biography of Mine"

On 18 June 1941, the ship returned to the Kola Peninsula and using rafts we landed by the Ponoj river and we were told: ‘This is your grave’. Here, under the bare sky, on ground that had thawed out, we began to wait for our lives to end, as it were. Hungry and cold, we were forced to build roads. We lived on land where there were no trees, because at the warmest time of the year, the soil thawed to the depth of half a shovel, that is, up to 10 cm. In the incessant winds, frequent daily temperature changes, snow, rain or good weather – we always lived in hope.