From 1939 to 1943, there was a gulag here, part of the NKVD "Kuliyhlag" gulag complex. The camp in Roczegda was established in the second half of 1939 on the right bank of the North Dvina River, near a steep escarpment. The overwhelming number of convicts settled here came from the western districts of the USSR and from the Polish territories incorporated into the USSR after 17.09.1939. The prisoners worked at clearing the taiga. As the logging progressed deeper into the taiga, more sub-camps of the Roczegda gulag were established. It is estimated that at peak times the camp (including the sub-camps) could have held up to 5,000 people, among them some 300 Polish citizens in 1940. The camp functioned until 1942/1943. The camp did not execute prisoners, but there was a very high mortality rate due to malnutrition, work beyond one's strength, harsh climatic conditions and lack of warm clothing.

Prisoners who died in the Roczegda gulag were initially buried in an area adjacent to the camp. In the spring of 1940, a new burial site was designated in a forest about 3 km away. The old burial site was built over as the settlement expanded. The new burial place was located next to the track of the narrow-gauge railway, built to export timber from the taiga. The dead were buried in mass graves, haphazardly dug among the old-growth forest. To the present day, traces of these graves remain in the form of numerous hills about 0.5 m high, scattered among the trees in an area of about 60 x 100 m. The cemetery is abandoned, the road to it muddy. The number of people buried here is unknown. It was possible to establish the name of only one Pole.

In 1996, Apolonia and Marek Sobolewski, relatives of one of the people who died in the local gulag, erected a monument in this cemetery. The commemoration was financed by the Council for the Protection of Struggle and Martyrdom Remembrance, support was provided by the Roczegda village administration. It is an irregular boulder to which two inscription plaques have been attached - with the inscription in Polish and Russian: "To fathers, brothers, sons ... / Eternal rest! / Eternal memory! / To Poles, Russians and all / who died in the Koniecgorski Gulag camp / compatriots from Poland / Roczegda, June 1996". A tall wooden cross was placed behind the boulder.