After the Third Reich attacked the USSR on 22 June 1941, Hungarian troops initially entered Stanislawow. Shortly after the Hungarians left the city (after a month's occupation) and were replaced by German troops, on 8 and 9 August the Germans launched an operation to arrest the Polish intelligentsia, mainly teachers, but also doctors, lawyers, barristers, engineers and clerks, with the help of the Ukrainian police. The head of the Gestapo in Stanislawow at the time was Hans Krüger. Detained Poles were taken to the Gestapo headquarters or prison, and after a few days were taken to the Black Forest near Stanislawow and shot there. The date of the execution of the teachers is most often mentioned as 14/15 August 1941. However, it is possible that the executions had already begun on 12.08.1941 and continued until September 1941. In the August action of exterminating Polish intelligentsia in Stanislawow, about 80% of the teachers from Stanislawow were killed. The total number of victims is estimated at about 700 people, the personalities of 447 people have been established.

For many years after the end of the war the site was not commemorated. In 1990, in cooperation with the Ivano-Frankivsk "Memorial", Poles erected a cross with a crown of thorns here.

On 15.09.1991, a commemoration funded by the Council for the Protection of Memory of Struggle and Martyrdom was unveiled. In 2011, the same institution financed the erection of a new, more impressive commemoration, which included plaques with the established names of the victims. An inscription in Polish and Ukrainian was engraved on the cross-monument: "To the memory of the representatives / of the Polish intelligentsia / from Stanislawow and the surrounding area / murdered by / the Nazis / in August 1941 // Council for the Protection of Remembrance / of Struggle and Martyrdom / Society of Culture / Polish "Friendship" / Families / 2011".

A plaque from the former memorial was placed on the pedestal below the cross, with the inscription reading: "If I forget them - You God forget me / A. Mickiewicz // A place hallowed by the blood of the inhabitants of Stanislawow and the surrounding area - murdered by the Nazis in August 1941. - Compatriots". Boards with the names of the victims engraved on them were arranged radially around the cross.

Behind the monument there are 8 mass graves. Each of them is fenced with a metal fence and paved with concrete blocks, on which a granite slab with the image of the cross has been laid.