The Bereza Kartuska detention camp (Polish: Miejsce Odosobnienia w Berezie Kartuskiej, literally "Place of Isolation at Bereza Kartuska") was a Polish prison, principally for political prisoners of the sanacja regime, that was operated in 1934–39 at Bereza Kartuska in the former Polesie Province (today in Belarus, near the city of Brest).
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The Polish government called the institution "Miejsce Odosobnienia w Berezie Kartuskiej" ("Place of Isolation at Bereza Kartuska"). From the facility's inception, the Sanation regime's opponents openly criticized the legal basis for its establishment and operation, calling it a "concentration camp." This term was also used by Western media sources such as The Times, both during the interbellum [1] and immediately after World War II.[2] It was later popularized by communist propaganda,[3] which cited the prison as evidence that Poland's prewar government had been a "fascist" regime (despite the fact that Piłsudski had regarded fascism as a menace and that some of his government's most immoderate attacks had been directed against home-grown fascism.[4]) A number of modern non-Soviet sources have also characterized the facility as a concentration camp, including Yale University professor Timothy Snyder, the Library of Congress, and the Polish Nobel prize-winning author Czesław Miłosz.[5][6][7] Ukrainian sources such as Kubijovych and Idzio representing the Ukrainian Nationalist camp of the interpretation of history also categorize Bereza Kartuska as a concentration camp.[8] Polish-American historian Tadeusz Piotrowski who also calls it a concentration camp notes that the establishment of the facility was a norm of its times, similar to camps established by Americans for Japanese during World War II, by Canadians for Ukrainians during World War I, and – as also noted by Norman Davies – on a much smaller scale than those projects (not to mention the giant German or Soviet networks of concentration camps).[9][10] In 2007, the Polish Embassy objected to the use of the term in a plaque in Paris memorializing the inmate Aron Skrobe. Its objections were successful and the plaque instead described the facility as a seclusion camp.[11]
The institution was created on July 12, 1934, in a former Tsarist prison and barracks at Bereza Kartuska on the authority of a June 17, 1934, order issued by Polish President Ignacy Mościcki. It was intended to accommodate persons "whose activities or conduct give reason to believe that they threaten the public security, peace or order." The event that directly influenced Poland's de facto dictator, Józef Piłsudski, to create the prison was the assassination on June 15, 1934, by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), of Polish Minister of Internal Affairs Bronisław Pieracki.[12]
Individuals were incarcerated at Bereza Kartuska by administrative decision, without right of appeal, for three months, although this term was often extended while Colonel Wacław Kostek-Biernacki served as its commander.[13] The camp was created for incarceration of suspected subversives and political opponents of the ruling Sanation regime. Additionally, detained there were financial criminals and persons suspected of such crimes (including a substantial proportion of Jews), common criminals (especially recidivists) and, in the prison's final phase, persons suspected of sabotage or espionage on behalf of Nazi Germany.
The Bereza Kartuska prison was organized by the director of the Political Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Wacław Żyborski, and the head of that Department's Nationalities Section (Wydział Narodowościowy), Colonel Leon Jarosławski. The institution was later supervised by the Governor of Polesie Province, Colonel Wacław Kostek-Biernacki.[13] In the view of some historians, Kostek-Biernacki did not serve as commandant; they identify its commandants as police inspectors Bolesław Greffner (whose given name is sometimes stated as "Jan"), of Poznań, and Józef Kamala-Kurhański.[14]
Poland estimates the number of prisoners as high as 16,000, while Polish historian Sleszynski claims that some three thousand[15] persons passed through Bereza Kartuska over the period of its operation. According to incomplete data from Soviet sources, at least 10,000 people had gone through the prison.[16] Prisoners included members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), Polish Communist Party (KPP) and National Radical Camp (ONR), as well as members of the Peasant Party (SL) and Polish Socialist Party (PPS). The detainees included Bolesław Piasecki and, for some dozen days, the journalist Stanisław Mackiewicz (the latter, paradoxically, a warm supporter of the prison's establishment). Also a number of Belarusians who had resisted Polonization found themselves in the camp.[17]
The first inmates - Polish ONR activists - arrived on July 17, 1934. A few days later, OUN activists arrived: Roman Shukhevych, Dmytro Hrytsai and Volodymyr Yaniv.[18] By August 1939, Ukrainians constituted 17 percent of prisoners.[19]
All political prisoners, including prominent Ukrainian political activists such as Mykola Lebed and Stefan Bandera, were released from prisons by Polish authorities in early September 1939. The intention was to spare prisoners the trials of German captivity.[20][21]
From 1934–37, the facility usually housed 100–500 inmates at a time. In April 1938 the number went up to 800.[22] Conditions were exceptionally harsh, and only one inmate managed to escape.[23] Only one suicide occurred; on 5 February 1939, inmate Dawid Cymerman slit his throat in a toilet.[24] During the facility's operation, 13 inmates died, most of them at a hospital in Kobryń.[24][25] The number of deaths in detention was kept artificially low by releasing prisoners who were in poor health. The total number of deaths, over the five years of the facility's operation, is variously given as between 17 and 20.[26] This number is also repeated in recent sources; for example, Norman Davies in God's Playground (1979) gives the number of deaths as 17.[9]
Ukrainian historian, Viktor Idzio, states that according to official statistics, 176 men – by unofficial Polish statistics, 324 Ukrainians – were murdered or tortured to death during questioning, or died from disease, while escaping, or disappeared without trace. Most were OUN members.[18]
In early 1938, the Polish government suddenly increased the number of inmates by sending 4,500 Ukrainians to Bereza Kartuska without right of appeal.[18]
OUN members who were incarcerated at Bereza Kartuska have testified to the use there of torture. There were frequent beatings (with boards being placed against inmates' backs and struck with hammers), forced labor, constant harassment, the use of solitary confinement without provocation, punishment for inmates' use of the Ukrainian language, etc.[18]
Prisoners were accommodated within the main compound, in a three-story brick building. A small white structure served for solitary confinement (in Ukrainian, "kartser"; in Polish, "karcer"). South of the solitary-confinement structure was a well, and south of that was a bathing area. The whole compound was encircled by an electrified barbed-wire fence.
Across a road from this compound were the commandant's house and officers' barracks.
In the prisoners' building, each cell initially held 15 inmates. There were no benches or tables. In 1938 the number of inmates per cell was increased to up to 70. The floors were of concrete and were constantly showered with water so that inmates could not sit.[18]
By the time they were released from Bereza Kartuska, many Ukrainians had had their health destroyed or had died. Taras Bulba-Borovetz, who later became otaman of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), developed epilepsy as a result of his stay in Bereza Kartuska.[18]
In 2007, Yurij Luhovy, a member of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television, completed a documentary film about the prison, based on authentic photographs, documents, archival footage and eyewitness testimony from survivors (http://www.yluhovy.com/MML/Movies.html).[27] His father was a 1938 inmate. The multi-award winning film Bereza Kartuzka was narrated by Paul Almond.
| Polish nationalists | Polish communists | Ukrainian nationalists | Ukrainian communists | Belarusian nationalists | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zygmunt Dziarmaga | Henryk Bromboszcz | Taras Bulba-Borovets | Viachaslau Bahdanovich[28] | |||||||
| Władysław Chackiewicz | Leib Dajez | Dmytro Dontsov | Uladzislau Pauliukouski | |||||||
| Jan Jodzewicz | Abram Germański (died there) | Dmytro Hrytsai | Juljan Sakovich | Edward Kemnitz | Jan Mozyrko (died there) | Orest Kazanivsky | Janka Shutovich | |||
| Bolesław Piasecki | Marek Rakowski | Dmytro Klyachkivsky | ||||||||
| Mieczysław Prószyński | Aron Skrobek | Hryhory Klymiv | ||||||||
| Henryk Rossman | Szymon Dobrzyński (Eckstein) | Włodzimierz Sznarbachowski | Bohdan Kravtsiv | Panasevych Josyp | ||||||
| Bolesław Świderski | Omelian Matla | |||||||||
| Witold Borowski | Roman Shukhevych | |||||||||
| Stanisław Mackiewicz | Mykhailo Yaniv | |||||||||
| Adam Doboszyński | Volodymyr Yaniv | |||||||||
| Leon Mirecki |
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