Evidence of Extermination in Pyatigorsk, North Caucacus

Back in 2011, Roberto included this image of a child called Svetlana in his excellent article The Atrocities committed by German-Fascists in the USSR (1). By comparing the image with this Yad Vashem page, I was able to establish that her full name was Svetlana Rudinskaya, she was killed on December 31, 1942 (or the following day), at the Mashuk Mountain overlooking Pyatigorsk in Stavropol Krai of the North Caucacus, and her body was exhumed on January 13, 1943.

The killing of the Jews of Pyatigorsk began on September 6-8, 1941, at the glass factory of Mineralnye Vody, according to the testimony of Pfeifer at his Soviet trial in 1968, after Jews from Essentuki and Zheleznovosk had been killed on September 2-5 and before Kislovodosk Jews were killed on September 9 (source: The Complete Black Book of Soviet Jewry). This was followed in October by murders in gas vans, according to testimonies here. The final action of the New Year was just prior to the German retreat and seems to have targeted professionals.