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Bereza Kartuska prison

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Left: main prison building, which housed inmates. White structure was for solitary confinement.

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The Bereza Kartuska prison or detention camp (Polish: Miejsce Odosobnienia w Berezie Kartuskiej, "Place of Isolation at Bereza Kartuska") was a Polish prison for mostly political prisoners that was operated in 1934–39 at Bereza Kartuska in the former Polesie Voivodeship (today in Belarus, near the city of Brest).

[edit] History

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.[1] The inspiration for the establishment of a detention centre for political prisoners at Bereza Kartuzka came from Hermann Göring's during his visit to Poland in 1934[2].

Individuals were incarcerated at Bereza Kartuska by administrative decision, without right of appeal, for a period of 3 months. The incarceration could be extended for another 3 months (cases are known of individuals being incarcerated for a year). The camp was created for incarceration of subversion suspects and political opponents of the ruling Sanacja (Sanation) regime such as Communists and Ukranian nationalists. Additionally, 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 and espionage for Nazi Germany were detained there.

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 prison was supervised by the voivode of Polesie Voivodeship, Colonel Wacław Kostek-Biernacki, who has often been erroneously identified as its commandant. In fact, the prison's successive commandants were police inspectors Bolesław Greffner (sometimes his given name is stated as "Jan") of Poznań and Józef Kamala-Kurhański.

[edit] Inmates

Some three thousand[3] persons passed through Bereza Kartuska over the period of its operation. These 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 resisted Polonization found themselves in the camp.[4]

The prison's first inmates arrived there on July 17, 1934 and were the activists of the ONR. A few days later, on July 17, 1934, the activists of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) arrived: Roman Shukhevych, Dmytro Hrytsai and Volodymyr Yaniv. [5]

[edit] Conditions

From 1934–1937 the prison usually housed 100–500 inmates at a time. In April 1938 the number went up to 800.[6] Conditions were exceptionally harsh and only one inmate managed to escape.[7] Only one suicide took place in the camp. On 5 February 1939 inmate Dawid Cymerman slit his throat in the toilet.[8] During the operation time of the camp 13 inmates died, most of them in a hospital in Kobryń.[8][9] The number of deaths in detention was kept artificially low by releasing prisoners who were in poor health. Over the five years of the prison's operation, the total number of associated deaths is variously given as between 17 and 20.[citation needed] This number is also repeated in modern sources; for example Norman Davies in God's Playground (1979) gives 17 as the number of deaths.[10]

Ukrainian historian, Viktor Idzio, states that according to official statistics, 176 men – by unofficial Polish statistics, 324 Ukrainians[clarification needed] – were murdered or tortured to death during questioning, or died from disease, while escaping, or disappeared without trace. Most were OUN members.[5][dubious – discuss]

In early 1938, the Polish government suddenly increased the number of inmates by sending 4,500 Ukrainians to Bereza Kartuska without right of appeal.[5]

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.[5]

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.[5]

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.[5]

[edit] Controversy

The Polish government called the prison "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 later popularized by communist propaganda,[11] 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[12]). 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.[13][14] [15] 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.[16] Polish-British 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 WWII, by Canadians for Ukrainians during WWI, 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).[10][17]

[edit] Documentary

Yurij Luhovy, a member of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television, has completed a documentary film about the prison, based on authentic photographs, documents, archival footage and eyewitness testimony from survivors.[18] His father was a 1938 inmate.

[edit] Notable inmates

[edit] See also

Sister project Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Biaroza monastery

[edit] References

  1. ^ (Polish) Andrzej Misiuk BIAŁYM ŻELAZEM, Gazeta Wyborcza, 12/07/1994
  2. ^ (Ukrainian) Союз нацистської Німеччини і диктаторської Польщі
  3. ^ Śleszyński 2003a, p. 83
  4. ^ Jan Zaprudnik, "Belarus: At a Crossroads" (1993, ISBN 0-8133-1794-0), p. 85
  5. ^ a b c d e f Viktor Idzio, Ukrainska Povstanska Armiya: zhidno zi svidchennia nimetskykh ta radianskykh arkhiviv (The Ukrainian Insurgent Army: Gleanings from German and Soviet Archives), Lviv, 2005, ISBN 966-665-268-4, p. 6.
  6. ^ Śleszyński 2003a, p. 84
  7. ^ Śleszyński 2003b, 48.
  8. ^ a b Śleszyński 2003b, 49.
  9. ^ Śleszyński gives full names of dead inmates, as well as dates of their deaths and camp numbers.
  10. ^ a b Norman Davies, God's Playground: A History of Poland, Columbia University Press, 2005, ISBN ISBN 0231128193, Google Print, p.306
  11. ^ (Polish) Wojciech Śleszyński, Aspekty prawne utworzenia obozu odosobnienia w Berezie Kartuskiej i reakcje środowisk politycznych. Wybór materiałów i dokumentów, Беларускі Гістарычны Зборнік – Białoruskie Zeszyty Historyczne nr 20
  12. ^ Richard M. Watt, Poland and Its Fate, 1918 to 1939, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1979, p. 302.
  13. ^ Timothy Snyder, The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569–1999., 2004.[1],
  14. ^ Library of Congress Subject Headings.[2]
  15. ^ Czesław Miłosz, The History of Polish Literature, New York, Macmillan, 1969, p. 383: "Pilsudski soon revealed himself as a man of whims and resentments... He founded a concentration camp, where he sent several members of the Diet." [3]
  16. ^ (Ukrainian) Idzio, Viktor (2005). Ukrainska Povstanska Armiya – zhidno zi svidchennia nimetskykh ta radianskykh arkhiviv (The Ukrainian Insurgent Army, according to Testimony in German and Soviet Archives). ISBN 966-665-268-4.[page number needed]
  17. ^ Tadeusz Piotrowski, Poland's Holocaust: Ethnic Strife, Collaboration with Occupying Forces and Genocide in the Second Republic, 1918–1947, McFarlandMcFarland, 1998, ISBN 0786403713, Google Print, p.193
  18. ^ Yurij Luhovy on the making of a film about Bereza Kartuzka.

[edit] External links

[edit] Further reading

  • (Polish) "Bereza Kartuska," Encyklopedia Polski (Encyclopedia of Poland), p. 45.
  • (Ukrainian) Idzio, Viktor (2005). Ukrainska Povstanska Armiya - zhidno zi svidchennia nimetskykh ta radianskykh arkhiviv (The Ukrainian Insurgent Army, according to Testimony in German and Soviet Archives). Lviv. ISBN 966-665-268-4. 
  • (Polish) Polit, Ireneusz (2003). Obóz odosobnienia w Berezie Kartuskiej 1934–39 (The Bereza Kartuska Isolation Camp, 1934–39). Toruń: Adam Marszałek. ISBN 83-7322-469-6. 
  • (Polish) Siekanowicz, Piotr (1991). Obóz odosobnienia w Berezie Kartuskiej 1934–39 (The Bereza Kartuska Isolation Camp, 1934–39). Warszawa: Instytut Historyczny im. Romana Dmowskiego. 
  • (Polish) Śleszyński, Wojciech (2003a). Obóz odosobnienia w Berezie Kartuskiej 1934–39 (The Bereza Kartuska Isolation Camp, 1934–39). BENKOWSKI. ISBN 83-918161-0-9. 
  • (Polish) Śleszyński, Wojciech (2003b). "Utworzenie i funkcjonowanie obozu odosobnienia w Berezie Kartuskiej (1934–1939)". Dzieje Najnowsze 35 (2): 35–53. 

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