Nevinnomyssk

In 1939, the town of Nevinnomyssk and the Nevinnomyssk County were part of the Ordzhonikidze Krai, which had lain outside the Jewish Pale of Settlement prior to the Russian Revolution; therefore, only 65 Jews lived in this area before World War II. 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 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 Nevinnomyssk on August 5, 1942. Immediately afterward, Jews began to be sent to forced labor. In September 1942, the German administration and the local police force ordered the Jewish evacuees to assemble at the local House Building Plant (DSK). The Germans proceeded to execute the Jews. Most of the victims were suffocated with carbon monoxide in a gas van. Some of them were killed with blunt weapons. The Red Army liberated Nevinnomyssk on January 20, 1943.