Krasnodar, capital of Krasnodar Krai (territory) in Northern Caucasia, in the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic. In 1926 the total population of Krasnodar was about 174,000 and its Jewish population was 1,746, which presumably had increased by 1941. By the time the city was occupied by the Nazis on August 9, 1942, thousands of refugees from the southern part of the Ukraine and the Crimea, Jews and non-Jews, had flocked into Krasnodar, in an effort to escape from the Germans.

In the wake of the German army, Sonderkommando 10a of Einsatzgruppe D entered the city. On August 16 an officer of that unit went to the home of a Jewish professor, Vilik, and put him in charge of the Jewish population of the city. The following day, Professor Vilik was told to inform the Jews that they must report for registration. A few weeks later the Jews were ordered to assemble at a certain point in Krasnodar. From there they were taken outside the city and killed, some by means of Gas Vans. Seven thousand persons, mostly Jews, were murdered by the men of Sonderkommando 10a.

Krasnodar was liberated by the Soviet army in February 1943. From July 14 to 17, 1943, a trial was held there of thirteen Soviet citizens who had served in a Sonderkommando 10a auxiliary unit and had participated in the mass murder.