Blagodarnoye

Blagodarnoye County was part of the Ordzhonikidze Kray District, which had been outside the tsarist Pale of Settlement and only few Jews resided in the town during the Soviet period. In the town of Blagodarnoye, there were only 13 Jews among the 16,100 residents of the town; the former comprised less than one percent of the entire population. However, with the German invasion of the USSR on June 22, 1941, the Ordzhonikidze Kray District became turned a destination of civilian evacuation or flight. The refugees included many Jews. With their murder squads, the German forces occupied Blagodarnoye on August 16, 1942. Although the Germans did not establish a ghetto, they ordered the arrest of the Jewish refugees and the original Jewish inhabitants of the town in October 1942. 187 Jews were taken to the town's railway station and held there. Afterwards, they were shot to death at the local quarry and airfield. The Red Army liberated Blagodarnoye on January 13, 1943.