Mikoyan Shakhar

In 1939 the Jewish population of Mikoyan Shakhar amounted to 49 people or less than one percent of the total population. After the war broke out numerous refugees, Jews included, arrived in the town. Mikoyan Shakhar was occupied by the Germans on July 11 (or July 23), 1942. In late August 1942 the Jews then living in the town, most of them evacuees from Leningrad, Ukraine, and other places, were forced into a barrack located near the Teberda River. According to some sources 22 Jews who were staff members of the orphanage of Nizhnyaya Teberda village were also brought to the same barrack. According to some sources a group of 60 Jews, most likely women and children, was shot in mid-September 1942. Some Jews were tortured to death by the Gestapo, while others were shot on the way from the town to Teberda village. the barrack inmates were shot in mid-January 1943. Mikoyan Shakhar was liberated by the Red Army on January 21, 1943. In 1957 the town's name was changed to Karachayevsk.