Kolonia Yakovlevo
Yakovleva, Belarus
(Hutava)

• History and Description
• Links of Interest

Location: 52° 11′ north, 25° 20′ east - It is 150 miles southwest of Minsk, on the southern outskirts of Hutava, Belarus. Now it is essentially the same place as Hutava, Belarus, since Hutava has expanded.

Before World War I, Yakovlevo was in the Kobrin Uezyd, Volochevich Volost, Grodno Gubernia, Russia.  After World War I and before World War II, Jakowlewo was in the Drohiczyn District, Polesie Region, Poland.

Other names:  Jakowlowo (Polish), Yakovlevo (Russian), Yakovleva, Kolonia, Kolonia Yakovlev, Kolonia Hutava, Kolonia Gutovo, or Gutovo. Sometimes it was referred to as a kibbutz or a moshav.

History and Description

Yakovlevo, Kobrin uzed, Volochevich Volost. Founded in 1849. It was crown land (Kazennye in Russian), meaning national property. The settlement was originally comprised of 16 families from Kobrin. Fourteen families stayed. They received all the earth. They did not receive benefits. The soil was mostly loam (loamy soil). Source: Sbornik Materialov ob Ekonomicheskom Polozhenii Evreev v Rossii, Jewish Colonization Association, St. Petersburg, Russia 1904 (Russian). Translated by Favl Weisburd.

In 1858, there were 79 males and 72 females in the settlement.
1856: 142 males
1864: 173 males

Sbornik Materialov ob Ekonomicheskom Polozhenii Evreev v Rossii; Jewish Colonization Association, St. Petersburg, (1904), Table 34, Grodno Gubernia.  Translation by Ben Weinstock, Favl Vaisbrod and Miriam Steinberg.
Source: "Selsko-Khazaistvenny Kalendar Dlya Yevreyev Kolonistov" (ii. 231, Wilna, 1902) cited in JewishEncyclopedia: Grodno

The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust;  Spector, Shmuel and Geoffrey Wigoder, eds., NYU Press (2001) pp. 557-558.Note: this book is both a translation and an abridgement of the Pinkas haKehillot Polin.

Jakowlewo   Polesie dist., Poland, today Belarus. J. was founded as a J. farm settlement in 1849. The J. population was 354 in 1898 and 155 in 1921 (total 177). Under the Germans the Jews were brought to the Drohiczyn ghetto and liquidated in the Aktions of 26 July and 15 Oct., 1942.

Yakovlevo entry in Pinkas Hakehillot Polin: Encyclopedia of Jewish Communities in Poland, Spector, Shmuel, ed., Vol. V, p. 260, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem 1990 (Hebrew). Translation by Miriam Steinberg and Shira Abraham.

Also available: "Yakovlevo" - Encyclopedia of Jewish Communities in Poland, Volume V
(Yakovlevo, Belarus)

Yakovlevo

Jewish agricultural moshav in the district and commonwealth of Drochiczyn.

The moshav of Yakovlevo was founded in 1849, in the days of the rule of Czar Nicoli the First, on the lands of the state. Most of the settlers in the place came from Slonim. Every family received 270 dunam. In the first years the settlers suffered from a lack of agricultural knowledge and an absence of funding to build farms.

In the end of the nineteenth century there was a strong agricultural situation. Every farm had a residence. The structure of the farm was 10 milk cows, work horses and more. The authority of the settlers was 3,620 dunam. On the agricultural [moshav] lived 202 people, and in the dead season in the winter months they earned wages from different jobs.  The rest of the settlers worked in labor throughout the year. The community buildings that were in this place were the Synagogue, the wash house, and the shared granary to shelter the grains after thrashing. The settlers serviced a butcher and a community prayer leader. The children learned with teachers whose levels were inferior. Attempts to open a school with the assistance of the “Group to Distribute Hascala” [the Enlightenment Movement] did not go well.

In the era of World War I the number of Jews in Yakovlevo decreased.  After the war 20 Christians were added.

In the era of the conquer, the Nazis brought the Jews of Yakovlevo to the Drochiczyn Ghetto and there they were killed together with the Jews of that place in two Aktions [round-ups]: 12 Av, 5702 (July 26, 1942) and 4 Cheshvan, 5703 (October 15, 1942).
Source: HaMelitz, March 5, 1883

Jakowlewo in The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust, Spector, S. and Wigoder, G. eds., Vol. I, pp. 557-58 New York University Press, New York 2001.

Databases

The JewishGen Belarus Database is a multiple-database search containing more than 470,000 entries from Belarus which incorporates the following databases: JewishGen Family Finder (JGFF), JRI -Poland, Yizkor Book Necrologies, JewishGen Online Worldwide Burial Registry (JOWBR), Birth Records, Marriage Records, Belarus Names Database, Jewish Religious Personnel in the Russian Empire, 1853-1854, Vsia Rossiia , Grodno Gubernia 1912 Voters List, 1897 Census for Grodno Gubernia and much more! The database is a work in progress and new entries are being added regularly.

Links of Interest

• 1856 List of Jewish Farmers in the Colony of Yakovlevo, Kobrin Uezd
• 1864 List of Jewish Farmers in the Colony of Yakovlevo, Kobrin Uezd
• Home Page of JewishGen
• Kehilalinks Directory of JewishGen
• Belarus Special Interest Group (SIG) of JewishGen
• "The Jewish Farmers in Belarus During the 1920s" by Dr. Leonid Smilovitsky
• Translations of many Yizkor Books, including Bereza, Drohitchin, Antopol, Ivanava, and Moto l. 
• Steve Morse's information on Bereza and Antopol
• The Grodno Gubernia information site of JewishGen
• Jakowlewo in Słownik Geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego Vol. XV, p. 627, 1880-1902 (Polish)
• The Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names
• Photos: Museum of the Jewish People, Beit Hatfutzot