Arbeytgeym

The Jewish village of Arbetgeym was founded in the mid-1920s, along with 25 other villages, close to Jewish colonies that had been established in the mid-19th century. In 1929 Arbetgeym joined the newly established Jewish autonomous region of Novozlatopol. A Jewish rural council functioned in the village. At the end of the 1920s a Jewish kolkhoz named Royter Poyer (Yiddish for "Red Farmer") was founded near Arbetgeym. In 1940 the Soviet authorities discovered a Zionist group in the village and arrested three of its members. It took German troops several days (from October 5 to October 9, 1941) to occupy Novozlatopol County, including Arbetgeym. At the end of that year several Jewish families of the village were killed by the Nazis. Arbetgeym was liberated by the Red Army on September 18, 1943.