Rozhdestvenskoye

In 1939, the village of Rozhdestvenskoye (Rozhdestvenskaya) and the Libknekhtskiy County were part of the Ordzhonikidze Krai, which had lain outside the Pale of Settlement before the Russian Revolution. Therefore, no Jews lived in this area prior to the outbreak of 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, 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 Rozhdestvenskoye on August 5, 1942. Following the occupation of the village, the Germans and the local police searched the surrounding area for Jews. A total of 425 Jewish people from the Nevinnomyssk County were killed in Rozhdestvenskoye. The arrested Jewish civilians were taken to the Put’ Khleborobov collective farm. They were then killed by local policemen and German soldiers at two different sites. On September 27, 1942, 350 Jews were shot at a Soviet military bunker on a hill, while another 75 Jews were murdered in gas vans and buried in a pit. The Red Army liberated Rozhdestvenskoye on January 21, 1943.