COLONIA FATIMA:

Founded in 1906 as Colonia Rusa by Jews from the Russian town of Shumiachi, fifty years before Rio Negro became an official colony, the original settlers were involved in viticulture for kosher wine (Glanz and Kaspin.) In the center of the Alto Valle of Rio Negro, the town is 47 km from Cipolletti and 58 km from Neuquin. Eight km east of General Roca in Cervantes district, no sign on Route 22 indicates site. Find it by a big willow tree where you leave the main road and turn left to the "old road" 1000 km dirt road runs parallel. By the 1930s, 50% of the seventy Jewish families' land was fruit orchard. Lithuanian and Polish Jews had joined the original settlers. In the early 1960s, only ten families remained. Some kept their farms and moved to the city. In 2000, only two original family descendants remain. Jewish burials were in General Roca. [December 2003]