Svobodny Kirkil

The Goryachevodsky County was part of the Ordzhonikidze Krai, which had lain outside the Pale of Settlement before the Russian Revolution. Therefore, no Jews lived in the village of Svobodny Kirkil (Svoboda) in 1939.

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 Jewish people from Ukraine and Belarus.

On June 28 1942, with the beginning of the German summer offensive, the Wehrmacht advanced on the Caucasus, occupying Svobodny Kirkil in early August 1942.

That month, the Germans killed the Jewish refugees from the western regions of the USSR, along with some Soviet POWs. The victims were killed at the "Elbrus" brick factory.

The Red Army liberated Svobodny Kirkil on January 13, 1943.