Kobelyaki

Jews began to settle in Kobelyaki during the first part of the 19th century. The Jews numbered 2,119 in 1897, when they comprised 20 per cent of the town’s population. Pogroms took place there in 1905 and 1919. In 1930 35 Jewish families joined the kolkhoz “Khleb i Trud” (Bread and Labor), one of the largest collective farms in the Poltava District. In the 1930s the number of Jews in Kobelyaki declined. In 1939 the town’s 360 Jews comprised about 4 per cent of the total population. The town was occupied on September 15, 1941. In January or February 1942 between 110 and 126 Jews were shot outside the town. 23-25 Jewish children and several elderly women who lived in the local Jewish orphanage were poisoned in March 1942. Between March and May 1943 the Jewish cemetery was desecrated and destroyed. The town was liberated by the Red Army on September 25, 1943.