Divnoye

The Apanasenkovsky County was part of the Ordzhonikidze Krai, which had lain outside the Jewish Pale of Settlement prior to the Russian Revolution. Thus, only seven Jews lived in this area before the Second World War. However, following 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 Soviet 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, occupying Divnoye on August 10. Immediately after the occupation of the village, the German authorities began to humiliate the local Jewish residents. Some Jews were dragged out of their apartments and murdered by German soldiers. Later, on September 28, 1942, the Germans and their collaborators murdered some 360 people, the vast majority of whom were Jews, in two pits at the Put Kommunizma collective farm. The Red Army liberated Divnoye in early January 1943.