Bereza. Bereza-Kartuz concentration camp victims Monument.

In the center of the regional town of Bereza, Brest region, there is a memorial sign dedicated to the victims of the concentration camp that existed during the interwar period of Poland. After the Peace of Riga in 1921, Western Belarus fell under Polish rule until 1939.

And a concentration camp for political prisoners was created in Bereza, which operated from 1934 to 1939. The concentration camp was established in the summer of 1934 by order of Polish President I. Mastitsky. The penal institution was located in the buildings of the former military barracks of the times of the Russian Empire. Physical and psychological abuse was used in the concentration camp. Over the entire time, about 16,000 people have passed through the camp.

Belarusians, Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Polish Communists and others served their sentences here. The camp was open until September 1939, when the Red Army came here.

Already in the post-war period, the collection of information about these crimes began. In 1966, a book was published called "They did not kneel," which told about the prisoners of the concentration camp. And in 1967, a meeting of concentration camp prisoners who came to the city from different countries took place in Bereza. A monument in memory of the victims was erected near the building where the camp administration was located.

There were many famous Belarusian figures among the prisoners in the concentration camp, for example, Vyacheslav Bogdanovich (1878 – 1939), a Belarusian artist and composer.