Novo Krestiyanovskoye

In 1939 Novokrestyanovskoye village, along with the rest of Vorontsovo-Aleksandrovskya County, was part of the Ordzhonikidze Kray District, which before the Russian Revolution was outside the Pale of Settlement. Consequently, no Jews lived in this area before the Soviet-German War. However, with the German invasion of the USSR on June 22, 1941, Ordzhonikidze Kray District became a destination of civilian evacuation or flight, including of many Jews from Ukraine, Bessarabia (today Moldova), and Belorussia. With the "summer offensive" of the German army at the end of June 1942 the Germans began their invasion of the Northern Caucasus. The Wehrmacht occupied Novokrestyanovskoye at the beginning of September 1942. On September 11 the Germans and the local police forces shot 62 Jews to death on the Maxim Gorky collective farm. The Red Army liberated Novokrestyanovskoye in January 1943.