Kropotkin

Prior to the Russian Revolution, the town of Kropotkin had lain outside the Pale of Settlement; hence, its Jewish community was relatively small. In 1939, the town was home to 109 Jews, out of a total population of approximately 41,500. Following the German invasion of the USSR on June 22, 1941, the North Caucasus turned into an area of civilian evacuation. Many Jewish evacuees ended up in Kropotkin and failed to escape for the second time in the summer of 1942. German troops occupied Kropotkin on August 4, 1942. In late August and September 1942, Einsatzkommando 11 murdered some 700 civilians, most of them Jews, in the Kazanskaya Hill neighborhood of Kropotkin. The Red Army liberated Kropotkin on January 28, 1943.