Special settlement No 61 (Ulskoe) in the Kholmogorsky district came into existence in 1930. From spring 1940 onwards Polish citizens deported from the western territories occupied by the USSR began to arrive here. On 1 January 1941 there was a population of 652 people: 413 Poles, 74 Ukrainians, 141 Belorussians and 24 of other nationalities.

The graveyard was a kilometre southwest of the village and burials had taken place there since 1930. Poles who died in settlement 61 and in Babrikha, 6 kms from Ulskoe, were buried there. There are no lists of the deceased, only a few names are known. In 1980 V.A. Durasov, a former inhabitant of Ulskoe removed the name plate from the grave of Antony Janiszewski to prevent it from further damage and it is preserved in the Kholmogory village museum.

In 2010, a Polish expedition, which included representatives of the Polish Consulate in St Petersburg and the Arkhangelsk Region Polonia society, investigated the cemetery. Trees had grown up on the site and most of the nameplates had disappeared. 22 burial mounds and 4 crosses (3 wooden, one metal) were discovered. None of the crosses bore a name.