On 11 September 1941, just weeks before the occupation by German troops, by personal order of Joseph Stalin, 157 political prisoners incarcerated here were executed just outside Oryol, in the Medvedev Forest massacre.

During the occupation by the Nazi Germany (since October 1941 to June 1943) here was established a concentration camp.

Prisoners of war (from Germany, Hungary, Romania) were exterminated by starvation, shooting, exposure, and poisoning.

[citation needed] A former prisoner, Latkovska-Wojtuskiewicz, described the scene at Easter in 1951 as "a veritable hell: the room was full of people, half-naked women languished and we, the new arrivals, wallowed on filthy straw, from which rose a stinking dust which choked one's breath.

"[1] At present, in the buildings of the former prison there is an investigatory isolation ward No.