Budennovsk

Budyonnovsky County was part of the Ordzhonikidze Kray District, which was outside the tsarist Pale of Settlement. Only 41 Jews lived in the village in 1939. However, with the German invasion of the USSR on June 22, 1941, the Ordzhonikidze Kray District became a destination of civilian flight or evacuation, including of many Jews from Soviet Ukraine and Belorussia. With the summer offensive of the German military at the end of June 1942, the Wehrmacht started the invasion of the North Caucasus. German forces occupied Budyonnovsk on August 18, 1942. In Budyonnovsk was located headquarters of Einsatzkommando 12, when it was operating in the Caucasus area. This force entered headed Stavropol, Pyatigorsk, Budyonnovsk, and Arzgir to murder Jews, political opponents of the German rulers, and Gypsies, who lived in that area. In Budyonnovsk several murder operations were carried out against the Jews and members of the Communist party. The vast majority of such mass murders took place in August and September 1942. Members of the Einsatzkommando and volunteers from the local auxiliary police forces shot the Jews and political opponents in the yard of the German headquarters on the outskirts of Budyonnovsk and at the airfield near Budyonnovsk. Approximately 1,750 (one source indicates 1,742) people were murdered in Budyonnovsk, the majority of them were Jews. The Red Army liberated Budyonnovsk on January 11, 1943.