Novo Grigoryevskoye

The Vorontsovo-Aleksandrovskoye County was part of the Ordzhonikidze Krai, which had lain outside the Pale of Settlement prior to the Russian Revolution; therefore, no Jews lived in this area before World War II. However, in the wake of the German invasion of the USSR on June 22, 1941, the Ordzhonikidze Krai came to house a large number of civilian evacuees, including many Jews from Ukraine, Bessarabia (present-day Moldova), and Belarus. With the beginning of the German summer offensive in late June 1942, the Wehrmacht launched its invasion of the North Caucasus. German troops occupied Novo Grigoryevskoye in early August 1942. On September 3 that year, the German authorities ordered the Jewish refugees to get ready for evacuation to their hometowns in the western regions of the Soviet Union. However, they were shot on the northern outskirts of the village on September 5, 1942. The Red Army liberated Novo Grigoryevskoye in mid-January 1943.