Levokumskoye

In 1939, the village of Levokumskoye, and the Levokumskoye County as a whole, were part of the Ordzhonikidze Krai, which had lain outside the Pale of Settlement prior to the Russian Revolution. Therefore, no Jews lived in this area prior to 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 Soviet Ukraine and Belarus. With the beginning of the German summer offensive in late June 1942, the Wehrmacht launched its invasion of the North Caucasus. Levokumskoye came under German occupation on August 18, 1942. After occupying the village, the Wehrmacht, together with collaborators from other nearby villages, started robbing the local population, and the German military began a registration of the villagers, separating the Jewish evacuees from the non-Jewish locals. In late September 1942, the Germans arrested the Jews. On October 2, 1942, 286 Jewish people were taken to the brick factory on Proletarskaya Street and shot dead. The Red Army liberated Levokumskoye on January 13, 1943.