Fernheim Colony

Fernheim Colony is a German speaking settlement of Mennonites originally from Russia of about 5000 in the Chaco of Paraguay. Refugees from the Soviet Union founded it between 1930 and 1932. Filadelfia is the administrative center of the colony, seat of Boquerón department and is considered the 'Capital of the Chaco'. In the late the 1920s, some Mennonites sought to escape persecution of Christians and so-called "Kulaks" in Stalinist Russia, that meant the total destruction of the Mennonite religious and cultural life. They left their home villages and gathered in Moscow. For humanitarian reasons they were admitted into Germany, because of their German ethnicity. Because there was no place in Germany where they could settle together as a community, they moved to Paraguay a year later. There already was a large settlements of Mennonites with the same ethno-religious background in Paraguay: Menno Colony. This first Mennonite settlement in the Chaco was founded by conservative Chortitza, Sommerfeld and Bergthal Mennonites from Canada in the 1920s. The Mennonite refugees from the Soviet Union settled nearby, founding Fernheim Colony.