Krasnodar

Jews started to settle in Krasnodar (then Ekaterinodar) in the mid-19th century. They were mostly former solders of the tsarist army and they and their family members were allowed to live outside the Pale of Settlement. These Jews knew Russian and were basically merchants or artisans. By 1926 the Jewish population of Krasnodar numbered 1,746 and comprised approximately one percent of the entire population. The Germans occupied the city on August 12, 1942. The Jews had to report for registration on August 21, 1942. They were taken to the area of the measurement-equipment factory, to the Grove of the 1st of May and murdered there. A total of about 500 to 600 Jews of Krasnodar were shot or gassed to death during the German occupation. The Red Army liberated Krasnodar on February 12, 1943. Immediately after the liberation, the Soviet authorities organized a military trial of eleven collaborators who were accused of assisting the Germans in murdering members of the civilian population. Eight of the accused were hanged; the others were sentenced to 20 years imprisonment. In 1963 the Soviet authorities organized another trial of collaborators. The latter had collaborated with Sonderkommando 10a. As a result all the defendants were sent to prison. In 1972 a West German court put on trial Kurt Christmann, the organizer of the mass murdered of civilians in Krasnodar. Many of those victims were Jews.