Zheleznovodsk

In 1939, 105 Jews lived in Zheleznovodsk, making up 1.4 percent of the total population. Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, the Stavropol Krai came to house a large number of evacuees from the western regions of the USSR, many of them Jews. Some of these came to Zheleznovodsk, and the number of the Jews in the town grew significantly, reaching about 600. Many of them were highly educated professionals. Many of the evacuees, as well as local Jews, had managed to escape eastward before the Wehrmacht occupied Zheleznovodsk on August 12, 1942. Einsatzgruppe D, which had been following in the footsteps of the army, moved into the Stavropol Krai and arrived in Zheleznovodsk. The German command proclaimed that the Jews were to be registered and wear a Star of David on their chest. The Jews were forced to perform hard and arduous tasks, mainly roadwork and cleaning. In late August 1942, the German military announced that Jews were to prepare for relocation to less densely populated areas. One morning in late August 1942, approximately 87 people assembled at the building of the town laundry. The Jews were then loaded onto vehicles and taken to a glass factory in the town of Mineralnyye Vody, where they were murdered in an anti-tank trench next to the factory. The Germans spared the lives of 6 highly skilled Jewish professionals who worked for them – but these Jews, too, were eventually killed. The murder of the Jewish professionals took place in Pyatigorsk in December 1942, shortly before the end of the occupation of the town. The Red Army liberated Zheleznovodsk on January 11, 1943.