After the Germans occupied the Smolvensk area in 1941, the local patriotic Polish youth and scouts gathered around their teacher (probably the head of the school in Turmonts, Mr Chowański), forming the nucleus of an underground independence organisation. The young boys had a plan to create self-defence in the area. On the day of an indulgenced feast (most probably St Anne's Day), they arrived in Turmont on bicycles to persuade the locals to launch an armed action and establish Polish rule in Turmonts, taking advantage of the escape of the Soviets and the absence of German authority structures. There must have been a conflict between the young conspirators and the local Lithuanian police, as there was a sneaky disarming of the active Poles and imprisonment in one of the buildings. The next day, 26 July, the prisoners were shot at the edge of the town in a muddy meadow and their bodies were buried there. Some time later, through the efforts of Father Adolf Trusewicz, the bodies were exhumed and moved to a grave on the edge of the town. This grave gave rise to the new cemetery in Turmontach. A wooden cross with a statue of Christ was erected at the burial place of those shot in 1941. This cross was destroyed during the Soviet era. The setting up and consecration of a new cross on the grave of the victims took place in 2001. Today, a stone cross of black granite stands on this grave, with slabs with inscriptions on both sides. On the left side: "Mother of God! Virgin! /Of a free people's blood / Bring before God's throne. /To bow before strangers, / To us in our own strength; / We shall live in our own land / And in our own graves to sleep". On the right: "Here rest 18 young Poles - Patriots, / who in tragic moments for the Fatherland / undertook an armed struggle in its defence and fell / on 26 July 1941 / from the treacherous bullets of collaborators. / To their memory ! / In tribute to the Union of Poles in Lithuania / A.D. 2016".