In mid-June 1941, a prisoner-of-war camp was established here under the administration of the NKVD. It was 4 km from the town of Ponoj, located on the left bank of the river of the same name. Approximately 4,000 Polish soldiers were held here, initially interned in Lithuania and Latvia and then housed in camps at Kozelsk and Pavlishchev Bor. The prisoners of war worked in the construction of the airfield and in unloading building materials from the harbour and transferring them to the camp. The living conditions in the camp were harsh - the food was inadequate, there was a shortage of drinking water, and some of the prisoners stayed outdoors. Following the conclusion of the Sikorski-Mayski Treaty in 1941, Polish prisoners of war were evacuated from the Ponoi camp and allowed to join the Polish army being organised in the USSR under the command of General Władysław Anders.
The cemetery where Poles who died in the camp were buried is located on the left bank of the Ponoj River. In the 1990s, there were still a few stone gravestones with engraved Polish inscriptions in the cemetery. There were also a dozen or so wooden posts to which inscription plaques were once attached. The cemetery had a fence made of wooden elements, already damaged in many places. The necropolis was then difficult to access and easy to miss, as the area was overgrown with bushes and grasses. The present state of the cemetery is unknown.

Compiled by T. Zachara / MKiDN, X 2025