|
|
Kolonja Izaaka
Colonist Families & Farms  Colonists
at Kolonja Izaaka, 1934. Photo from Salomon Salit, Kolonja Izaaka.
The original colonists of Kolonja Izaaka were largely poor Jews from Odelsk and other nearby towns - Sokolka, Krynki, Amdur - who responded to the state's offer of land for farming. According to Pinkas Hakehillot, the settlers in 1849 comprised 26 Jewish families, a number of whom nearly immediately left the colony due to the poor farming conditions. Salomon Salit, in his book, Kolonja Izaaka: Wies Powiatu Sokolskiego (Warsaw 1934), identifies 15 Jewish families as original settlers who established farms alongside 8 Christian families. The size of the land grants varied based on the number of sons each landholder had at the time of the land distribution. Each unit, or ucząst in Russian, represents 16.4 hectares or 40.53 acres of land. The chart below shows the original 15 Jewish landholders and the disposition of the property at the time of Salit's study, published in 1934. Click here for the full Salit chapter, detailing the passing of the parcels from generation to generation.
In 1934, at the time of Salomon Salit's study of Kolonja Izaaka, there had been, as one can see above, very significant changes in land ownership. Most of the parcels had been subdivided. Some subdivisions had been sold - usually to family members, sometimes to Christian neighbors. Two new farms had been added. Presumably, the ownership of farms looked somewhat like this at the time of the community's destruction in 1942. Copyright © 2008 Irwin Keller
|
