In the summer of 1942, the 1st Polish Infantry Division named after Tadeusz Kościuszko was being formed in Sielce. Its commander was Colonel Zbigniew Berling. The soldiers were deployed in tents, barracks and dugouts; the command was placed in houses in the village. The soldiers, who were recruited from the deportees, contracted various diseases and not all of them withstood the hardships of military training. The dead from disease and exhaustion were buried near the military camp.
At the beginning of 1971, there was an unnamed mass grave of Polish soldiers in the forest at Sielce, fenced with low wooden rails. At least 14 soldiers were buried there. After a visit by the Ambassador of the Polish People's Republic, permission was obtained from the Soviet authorities to establish a Polish cemetery. In 1983, on the graves of soldiers of the 1st Tadeusz Kościuszko DP there was already the present monument, without vertical elements. The stone slabs, flush with the ground surface, bore an inscription in Russian. Translated into Polish, it reads: "1943 - Glory to the Polish soldiers killed in the fight against the fascists".

Compiled by T. Zachara / MKiDN, VIII 2025