In 1940 and 1941 some of the Polish citizens from the territories occupied by the USSR were deported to special settlement No. 87 (Zharovaya). [The first to arrive were refugees, deported on 13 June 1940, Dembowska, 2011.] On 1 January 1941 there were 171 deportees registered in Zharovaya. Those who died were buried in a cemetery organised 500 metres away from the settlement. The numbers buried there are unknown and lists of names are not available. The identity of five Polish deportees who died in Zharovaya is known.
After the settlement ceased to exist the cemetery was abandoned. Today trees have occupied the site and a few burial mounds have survived. In August 2010 members of a joint Russian-Polish expedition erected a commemorative cross in the cemetery. Soil was taken from the cemetery to add to a symbolic common grave for the Polish deportees in the Verkhnetoemsky district of the Arkhangelsk Region.
| Date | Nature of ceremonies | Organiser or responsible person | Participants | Frequency |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
nk
|
Civil rites
|
nk
|
nk
|
From time to time
|
| State of burials | Area | Boundaries |
|---|---|---|
|
Characteristic subsidence over burials
|
not defined
|
not delineated
|
[ Original texts & hyperlinks ]
Polish deportees in the Arkhangelsk Region: A database compiled by the Information Centre of the region’s Internal Affairs department (REC Memorial, Moscow, 1997)
Yevgeny Shirokolobov, “Tracing the Poles …”, Lessons of History [Uroki istorii] website, 5 December 2011 [retrieved, 28 May 2022]
A. Dembovska, The Poles in the Russian North: An album of Polish sites of remembrance, St Petersburg, 2011
*
“Zharovaya special settlement graveyard”, Virtual Museum of the Gulag [retrieved, 28 May 2022]
Reply from the Verkhnetoemsky urban district administration (03 April 2014) to a formal enquiry by RIC Memorial (St Petersburg)
