Novo Minskaya

Since the town of Novo Minskaya had been outside of the tsarist Pale of Settlement no Jews lived there even before the Soviet-German war. However, with the German invasion of the USSR on June 22, 1941, Novo Minskaya County became an area of civilian evacuation or flight, including of many Jews. Many Jewish families began working on kolkhozes in the Kuban area. German forces occupied Novo Minskaya between August and September 1942 and few Jews succeeded in fleeing. The Germans arrested several Jewish families on October 1942; one family was arrested on the Demitrovo kolkhoz on October 26, 1942. Soon all the Jews in the town were imprisoned in the basement of the Kommunar kolkhoz building. On November 15, 1942 the Germans shot 42 Jews to death in the southern part of the town. The Red Army liberated Novo Minskaya in February 1943.