During the Second World War, Svetloye was a place of forced settlement for Poles deported from, among other places, Kostrovich near Slonim. The deportees worked there clearing the forest and floating logs down the river; children and women sawed wood. For fulfilling their quotas, they were entitled to 800 grams of bread a day and a plate of watery soup. The hard work, insufficient food and severe frosts caused a high death rate among the deportees. Those who died included: Aleksander Sosiński and spouses Aleksander and Józefa Kowalczyk.
No trace has remained of this village to the present day. What has been preserved, however, are the graves of the dead Poles, located at the edge of the forest and very overgrown. In 1994, Jan Kowalczyk and Tadeusz Sosiński, who as children stayed in this hamlet and lost their parents here, erected a large wooden cross in this cemetery with an inscription in Polish. The inscription reads: "Cemetery of Poles from 1941-1942".

Compiled by T. Zachara / MKiDN, VIII 2025