Refty NE ss. Deported Poles | Russia's Necropolis of Terror and the Gulag

Refty NE ss. Deported Poles

Card

№66-33

Date of burial
1940-1944
Show Map
Address
Sverdlovsk Region, Rezhevsky district, Refty settlement
Access outside a populated area
Private or specialised transport
Comments
On right bank of Maly Reft river, 20 kms north of Malyshev settlement (Asbest), 6 kms from the main water catchment plant on the Maly Reft river
Visiting Hours or Restrictions
Unrestricted
Type of burial
Deportees’ graveyard
Current use
Unused
Presence of memorials, etc.
No
Protected status
Not protected
Background

The Maly Reft special settlement was organised in 1940 for about 160 Poles deported from the recently annexed western territories of Ukraine and Belarus. In August 1941 restrictions on leaving the settlement were lifted and some of the Polish families left. By 1942 there were only 90 people in the settlement and in 1944 they were taken back to Poland.

There was a graveyard at Maly Reft and those who died between 1940 and 1944 were buried according to Roman Catholic rites. The number of dead has not been established. From 1944 to 1948 the settlement was used as a POW camp.

Books of Remembrance

The Memorial online database (2021) names 38,697 victims in the Sverdlovsk Region.

It lists 13,162 deported to the Region from all over the USSR: 6,276 were “dekulakised” or born in special settlements; 589 were later deported by reason of their “nationality”.

Nature of area requiring preservation
State of burialsAreaBoundaries
Subsidence over mass burials
Not established
Unmarked
Administrative responsibility and ownership, informal responsibility for the site
On land under the control of the Rezhevsky district administration
Sources and bibliography

[ Original texts & hyperlinks ]

A.L. Kopyrin, “People lived out in the woods”,  Yury Sukharev’s website [retrieved, 10 January 2025]

N. Medvedeva, “The Puzanovs, a nostalgic theme”, Rezh central library website [retrieved, 10 January 2025]

66-33