The obelisk was established in 1967 to commemorate the Bychkovo and Pochinok villagers executed by the Shelon punitive battalion. On 12 December 1942, partisans attacked a German caravan of nine carts near the village of Bychkovo. In response, the Nazi command ordered the execution of all residents in the neighbouring Bychkovo and Pochinok villages. On 19 December 1942, the Shelon punitive battalion opened indiscriminate fire, killing over 200 men, women, old people and children, who had been forced onto the ice of the Polist River. The artillery guns, tanks and machineguns were placed barely 150 metres from the innocent victims.
