Staro Maryevka

The Staromayevsky County was part of the Ordzhonikidze Krai, which had lain outside the Pale of Settlement before 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, 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 Staromayevskoye in early August 1942. In September that year, the Germans gassed 233 Jewish civilians to death in gas vans. The victims were buried in the vicinity of the "Stalin" collective farm. The Red Army liberated Staromayevskoye in late January 1943.