Kanovo

The Sovetskaya County was part of the Ordzhonikidze District, which had lain outside the Pale of Settlement prior to the Russian Revolution. Hence, no Jews lived in this village in 1939. However, in the aftermath of the German invasion of the USSR on June 22, 1941, the Ordzhonikidze District came to house a large number of civilian evacuees, including many Jews from Soviet Ukraine and Belarus. With the beginning of the German summer offensive in late June 1942, the Wehrmacht launched its invasion of the North Caucasus. Kanovo was occupied by German troops on September 1, 1942. After the onset of the occupation, the Germans began to persecute the local Communists and Jews. In the last days of December 1942, they shot twenty residents of the village, twelve of whom were Jews. The Red Army liberated Kanovo on January 6, 1943.