In 1965, on the 20th anniversary of the Soviet victory in the »Great Patriotic War«, a commemorative stele honouring the Holocaust victims of south Russian Elista was erected at the Gashun ravine.
Elista, at the time capital of the Kalmyk Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, was occupied by German troops on August 13, 1942. At the end of August, the newly established Sonderkommando »Astrachan« (mobile killing unit) under the command of Hauptsturmführer Rolf Maurer reached the town. In September, the twelve members of the Sonderkommando began registering all the Jews in Elista. At the end of September, Sonderkommando »Astrachan« took 80 to 100 Jews into the steppes where a mass grave had already been prepared and shot them there. According to Soviet accounts 93 families counting around 300 members were murdered. Maurer and his men shot all the town's Jews – family after family.
Time and again Sonderkommando »Astrachan« also shot civilians, who refused to collaborate with the Germans, under the pretext of being »partisans«.
Time and again Sonderkommando »Astrachan« also shot civilians, who refused to collaborate with the Germans, under the pretext of being »partisans«.
Between 80 and 100 Jewish children, women and men - according to Soviet accounts 300 - perished in the murder operation of Sonderkommando »Astrachan«.
In 1965, sculptor Dzhangar Pyurveev designed a commemorative stele to honour the »over 800 murdered civilians and partisans« of Elista.
- Name
- Pamjatnik na meste unitschtoshenija ewreew goroda Elisty
- Address
-
Balka (ravine) Gashun
359180 Elista - Phone
- +7 847 225 857 1
- Open
- The memorial is accessible at all times.