PUSTOSHKA
[End Page 1814] Pre-1941: Pustoshka, town and raion center, Kalinin oblast’, RSFSR; 1941–1944: Pustoschka, Rear Area, Army Group North (rückwärtiges Heeresgebiet Nord); post-1991: Pustoshka, Pskov oblast’, Russian Federation
Pustoshka is located 190 kilometers (118 miles) south-southeast of Pskov. According to the 1939 census for Pustoshka, the Jewish population stood at 308, comprising 11.9 percent of the total.
German units of Army Group North captured the town on July 15, 1941. During the intervening three weeks since the start of Germany’s invasion of the USSR, many of the Jews had managed to evacuate to the east, and eligible males were ordered to report for military service in the Red Army. Around 20 percent of the pre-war Jewish population remained in the town at the start of the German occupation.
During the entire period of occupation, from July 1941 to February 1944, a German military commandant’s office (Ortskommandantur) ran the town. The German military administration created a local authority and police force (Ordnungsdienst), recruited from local residents.
Soon after the occupation of the town, the German Ortskommandantur ordered the registration and marking of the Jews with badges. The Jewish population also was forced to perform various types of heavy labor. In early February 1942, all the remaining Jews in the town were moved into a ghetto, consisting of a single building, which was either fenced in or guarded.1 The ghetto existed for several weeks, until late February 1942, by which time all the Jews had been shot. According to one source, the total number of Jewish victims was 58.2
SOURCES
Documentation regarding the persecution and murder of the Jews of Pustoshka under German occupation can be found in the following archives: GAPO (R-481-2-65) and GARF (7021-39-334).
