Voroshilovsk

The Jewish community of Voroshilovsk (until 1935 and from 1943 the city was known as Stavropol) began to grown at the end of the 19th century. In 1897 1,236 Jews lived in the city, comprising about 3 percent out of the total population. Among them were Ashkenazi, Mountain, and Georgian Jews. At the beginning of the 20th century the Jewish community established its own schools, libraries, and a kosher butcher shop. During the civil war in Russia, the Jewish community took in several hundred Jewish refugees. In 1939 3,500 Jews comprised less than one percent of the total population. Following the German attack on the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, the Stavropol Kray District became a destination of civilians who were evacuated or fled from the western regions of the USSR. Many of the refugees were Jews, of whom a number ended up in the Voroshilovsk as the capital of the District. The Wehrmacht captured the city on August 5, 1942. Following the Wehrmacht Einsatzgruppe D entered the Stavropol Kray District and set up their regional headquarter in Voroshilovsk. The Germans forced the Jews to organize a Jewish council. On August 12, 1942, the mobile death squad killed about 3,500 Jews who had been evacuated or fled the from western part of the country at the military airfield south of Voroshilovsk. At the night between August 14 and August 15, 1942, the Germans killed about 500 Jews at the psychiatric hospital of the city. The last 250 Jewish skilled workers, who had been kept alive to maintain the German headquarters, as well as Jews who were found in hiding were murdered later. The Red Army liberated Voroshilovsk on January 21, 1943.