During the Second World War, Poles from Ukraine and from the Polish territories occupied by the Red Army between 1939 and 1944 were deported to the Orenburg region.
In 1942, some deportees from other places of deportation, freed from the camps under the Sikorski-Mayski agreement, also arrived in the city. Among others, the Sosiński family (Józefa with her daughter Halina and son Tadeusz) arrived here, staying in the Swietłoje hamlet until February 1942. Halina and Tadeusz left the town to enlist in the Polish army, while Józefa remained in Orenburg. She died here in 1945 during a typhus epidemic. She was buried in the town's cemetery, then located on the outskirts of the town.
Nowadays, this necropolis is located among new houses and busy thoroughfares (near highway No. R239 and Mira (Peace) Street and Montazhnikov Street). Józefa Sosińska's grave is the only Polish burial in this cemetery. In 1994, the son of the deceased, Tadeusz Sosinski, founded a permanent tombstone on this grave.

Compiled by T. Zachara / MKiDN, X 2025

Teresa Zachara (MKiDN)