Kugulta

In 1939 the village of Kugulta and Shpakovsky County were part of the Ordzhonikidze Kray District, which before the Russian Revolution was outside of the Pale of Settlement. As a consequence, no Jews were living in this area before World War II. However, with the German invasion of the USSR on June 22, 1941, the Ordzhonikidze Kray District became a destination of civilian evacuation and flight, including of many Jews from Soviet Ukraine and Belorussia. With the summer offensive of the German military at the end of June 1942, the Germans started invading the North Caucasus. The Wehrmacht occupied Kugulta in August 1942. In November 1942 Wehrmacht soldiers and German military police forces arrested 29 civilians, of whom 28 were Jewish, took them to a collective farm near the village, and shot them to death. The Red Army liberated Kugulta on January 19, 1943.