[7][8][9] Bereza Kartuska Prison was established on 17 June 1934 by order of President Ignacy Mościcki[10] to detain persons who were viewed by the Polish state as a "threat to security, peace, and social order"[10] or alternately to isolate and demoralize political opponents of the Sanation government such as National Democrats, communists, members of the Polish People's Party, and Ukrainian and Belarusian nationalists.

Prisoners were sent to the camp on the basis of an administrative decision, without formal charges, judicial sanction, or trial, and without the possibility of appeal.

[13] It was created on July 12, 1934, in former Russian barracks and prison at Bereza Kartuska on the authority of a June 17, 1934, order issued by Polish President Ignacy Mościcki.

The event that directly influenced Poland's de facto dictator, Józef Piłsudski, to create the prison was the assassination of Polish Minister of Internal Affairs Bronisław Pieracki on June 15, 1934, by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN).

[14] It was intended to accommodate persons "whose activities or conduct give reason to believe that they threaten the public security, peace or order.

[16] Officially, Bereza Kartuska was not a part of Poland's penitentiary system, and the staff was composed of policemen, sent there as a punishment, rather than professional prison guards.

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.

[19] The camp de facto ceased to exist on the night of September 17–18, 1939 when, after learning about the Soviet invasion of Poland, the staff had abandoned it.

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).

Taras Bulba-Borovets, who later became otaman of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), developed epilepsy as a result of his stay in Bereza Kartuska.

[36] The Polish government called the institution "Miejsce Odosobnienia w Berezie Kartuskiej" ("Place of Isolation at Bereza Kartuska").

From the facility's inception, the Sanation government's opponents openly criticized the legal basis for its establishment and operation, calling it a "concentration camp.

[41][42] In 2007, the Polish Embassy objected to the use of the term in a memorial plaque in Paris for the Bereza Kartuska inmate Aron Skrobek.

[43] Modern scholarship has characterized the facility as a concentration camp,[44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52] including Yale University professor Timothy Snyder,[53] the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum,[54] the Library of Congress,[55] Polish Nobel Prize-winning author Czesław Miłosz,[56] and historian Karol Modzelewski, who was political prisoner and one of the leaders of the democratic opposition in the communist Poland.

[35][59] Describing Bereza Kartuska as a concentration camp may be against the Polish Holocaust law, according to historian Tomasz Stryjek [pl].