of the · 3. a brief summary of the history of the germans in russia, concluding with reasons why...

Journal

Of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia

Spring 1983 Vol. 6, No. 1

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Redactions: The Editor's Page .........................................................………………………………………..... i

The Desperate Struggle of the Soviet Germans for their Human

Rights and for Permission to Emigrate to Germany Alexander Dupper .........................................................…………………………………………......... 1

Among the Germans in the Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan

Andreas Lorenz Translated by Robert Meininger ......................................……………………….................. 9

The Song of Kazakhstan Hertha Karasek-Strzygo\vski Translated by Selma Tieszen ffieb ..........................................………………………………………......... 13

A Volga German Coal Miner in Yakutiya Victor Zhuravlyov .....................................................…………………..………………………….......... 19

A Successful Search for Relatives in Russia Adam Giesinger ...............................................................………………………………………...... 21

Miscellanea Adam Giesinger ..............................................................……………………………………………...... 22

A Travelling Revolutionary Tribunal of 1921 Adam Giesinger ...........................................................………………………………………......... 23

Alt-Emilin in Volhynia John Martin Schoenknecht ...................................................………………………….………....... 27

My Return to Russia Jacob Hieb, Sr. ..............................................................……………………………………………….... 31

Villages in Which our Forefathers Lived Adam Giesinger ..........................................................…………………………………………......... 39

Aus Heimat und Leben

David Weigum

Translated by Leona Pfeifer ......................................................………………………………….…. 43

We Sing our History Lawrence Weigel .........................................................………………………………………..…..... 47

Health Care Practices in the Life of Katherine Schrag Kaufman JoEllen Koerner .....................................................…………………………………………….......….... 49

Book Reviews: Waffen der Wehrlosen, reviewed by Donald H. Darner ............................…………………………….... 53 David Klassen and the Mennonites, reviewed by Adam Giesinger ..................……………………..... 54

Books and Articles Recently Donated to the AHSGR Archives Emma Schwabenland Haynes ................................................…………………………………........ 55

Published by American Historica Society of Gernans From Russia 1139 South 7th Street • Lincoln, Nebraska 68502-1199

Editor: Adam Giesinger © Copyright 1983 by the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia. All rights reserved.

REDACTIONS: THE EDITOR'S PAGE

In this issue we feature a number of items that give us peeks behind the iron curtain that separates us from our people in the Soviet Union.

The first is a translation by Alexander Dupper of an appeal of 1972, in the Russian language, to the Soviet Politbureau and to the United Nations, signed by 40,000 Soviet Germans, complaining about the lack of respect for their human rights in the Soviet Union and asking for permission to emigrate to Germany. The authors of this appeal, although they are convinced Marxists (or at least pretend to be), feel that they must leave the Soviet Union because their treasured language and culture are about to perish there.

A recent German traveler in Kazakhstan, Andreas Lorenz, who has described his visit in the newsmagazine, Der Spiegei, found the same firm attachment to their language and culture among the Soviet Germans that he met. Incidentally, he found in a suburb of Karaganda an active registered German Catholic parish about which we had little previous information. We gratefully acknowledge the contribution by Robert Meininger (Department of Foreign Languages at Nebraska Wesleyan University) of the translation of the Spiegei article.

There are Germans in Russia also who appear to be satisfied with their lot. Lorenz found a collective farm manager, Bogdan Gergert, who was content to be just a Sowjetmensch. The Volga German coal miner in Yakutiya also appears to have no desire to leave the Soviet Union. Undoubtedly there are many thousands of others with similar views, who accept assimilation without protest.

A recent successful effort, described in this issue, shows that it is sometimes possible to locate relatives in the Soviet Union without much difficulty. We are publishing this to encourage others of our members to make the attempt.

As in other recent issues, we have items that deal with conditions in the Soviet Union during the 1920's and 1930's: the story of a traveling revolutionary tribunal in the Volga region in 1921; a German traveler’s tour through German villages in the Slavgorod region in Siberia in 1926; Jacob Hieb's return to his ancestral village area in the Odessa region in 1928; and the sad life story of a Volhynian German, as told to a visiting Silesian artist in 1942.

We also look back at the "old days": the founding and development of Alt-Emilin, a German village in Volhynia, and life in Ludwigstal in the Crimea in the 1800's, as described by David Weigum. Of special interest to folklorists are an article on health care practices among the Volhynian Mennonites and another song from the Lawrence Weigel collection.

Our readers will have noted, from the long list of mini-reviews that appear in each issue of the Journal, that our Archives collection is growing very rapidly. Since the founding of the society in the fall of 1968, one person in particular has been working ceaselessly to gather materials for this collection. That person is Emma Schwabenland Haynes, known to all of you either in person or through correspondence or through our publications. The splendid array of materials that we now own is a monument to her. All members of the society can add to her happiness by helping to make the Archives collection ever bigger and better. Donations on the history and folklore of our people, in the form of books, periodicals, family histories, documents and letters, are gratefully accepted and will be cared for in perpetuity in our new Heritage Center.

Many thanks to those of you who have helped me so much in producing this first Journal of 1983!

/^

Be CM ^TicHaM UK KIICC H JIII^HO: rcHepaJisHOM^ oeKpeiapK) UK KUCG TOBJI.W.LpeKHeny, ^JieHy ilOJiHTdiopo UK KnCC TOB.CYCJIOBy.

BoeM ^JienaM lIpesHAiiyMa BepxOBHOro Coaera H JIHHHO; npeaoeaaTeJiB UpesH.WMa BepxOBHOro Cosera, ^Jieuy Ho-

J[HTdi3po TOB.ri*3.no^ropHOMy. BoeM ^neHaM CoEeTa MMHRCTPOB CCCP H JiHqno: UpeAQeAaTeJDo CoBera MHHHGTPOB CCCP, ^JieHV HoJiMTdropo

TOB.A.H.KocurnHy. ' llpeAOeAaTeJiB odeiix naJiai DepxOBHOro CoBeTa CGCP;

IIpeôeAaTeJilo CoaeTa Coiosa n UpeAce.n.aTeJic CoBeTa Hanno- HaJIbHOGTeR.

KOlII'Ifl: reHepaîLHOMy CeKperapa OOH Kypry Ba^wafiM^ qepes npeacTaBHTeJtfl KoMHTeTa no saiqme npas qeJaOBeJta B CCCP.

OT ?.eJieraTOB Heêa, npo%HBaiomnx B CCCP, nooJiaH-HUX ôâTailCTBOBaTL aepe% iIapTiieH H iIpaBHTeJihCTBOM CoDeTOKOro Coioaa, Ha ooHOse J3eKJiapaunn QpaB ieJio-EeEa ao Bonpool CBOtioôro liuesAa 'Heêa B repMa-, HHX) (rBP n u?Pr) o ueJn>K OJinflHBfl co QBOeft nannea, ooxpaHeHHfi poôro asuKa H K^JiBTipy,

3AHB31EHME

UpocHM npi™Ti) HBC ao Eoapooy paspeuieHUfl npodJieMu OBO-rioôro Bue3.na a-"a BGex HeMuea, aeJiaiomHX BKexerb E repyaHHC

HB nOCTOJiHHOe )[tHTeJlLOTBO. UpHJiaraeM: 1) CUHCOK iiieJiauiUHx BuexaTh M3 CCCP B repMBHMD (ode ee qacTH) c JiinHOU ao^nHGi)B

rJiaay KaMAOft oeMBii, 2) Konitt) OdpameHim B OpraHiisamuo Odse^KHeHHKx HaunH. 3) Konnio odocHOBaHim. noêMy rpantAaHe neMeuKoa HauHO-HaJiBHOCTtt, nposcnBaiomHe B

UCCP, CTpeMnroa oeaâc K oMHTpanMH.

/^ ^/W^y ^^^^^^ ^//'^-^^^l/^^-/ ^7^f;/^<^_ //^//.<r^ Hcf ^l^^t ^-A/- ^ /7^-.^^^- ^/•^/<-C7 O^ctfif €f l\-^ ^VA^' ^^^r //'-'/ ^^^•^^-/.•

n^-i^^ t Jfnc^f\- ,//. /J^/y^ //^y^^^./.r-/..-:^---/ ^ Cfi^n^c- /^7r//<--/Y//- /C^^ ^^'Au^ ^ y//a7^7^.

WuJ-.^fCi ^^///^/ //^///^ .^/Y^^^.^^^X /^/\^/'^/'f^ ^ ^^- '/A'-i^/i^ ^ YA'r'/.^ r ^••^^*/ //y^^..

THE DESPERATE STRUGGLE OF THE SOVIET GERMANS FOR THEIR HUMAN RIGHTS AND FOR PERMISSION TO EMIGRATE TO GERMANY

Alexander Dupper

The following is a translation of a document written in Russian by Germans living in the USSR, who are seeking permission to emigrate to Germany. The exact date and the authors of the document are not known to us, but judging from clues contained therein, we think it was written around 1972. There was a handwritten anonymous note on the first page with the following message:

"To this petition was attached a list of 40,000 Germans, signed by the head of every family'. Everything was deposited at the main post office in Moscow, 2 Kirov Street. But it did not reach the addressees, because the KGB seized it and destroyed the list. This material was taken with great difficulty from the archives of the Lenin Library in Moscow."

A copy of the document was mailed from Moscow by a Soviet German to a member of AHSGR in America. We express our sincere thanks to Mrs. Mary Morrow for providing AHSGR with a copy.

Since this document was written, all the leaders of the Communist party of the USSR mentioned in it have passed away.

Understandably, the document is written within the guidelines of the Marxist-Leninist philosophy, the official ideology of the Soviet Union. Even so, if bears witness to the plight and desperate struggle of the Germans still living in the USSR for their human rights and the permission to emigrate to Germany. There are some controversial and even provocative statements in the document. After all, not everyone subscribes to the Marxist-Leninist theory of dialectical and historical materialism. But we have to bear in mind that the document was written by Germans still living in the USSR as a plea to the Soviet authorities.

The document consists actually of three documents: 1. A petition to the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Supreme Soviet of the USSR; 2. An appeal to the United Nations; and 3. A brief summary of the history of the Germans in Russia, concluding with reasons why they consider it necessary to

return to their historical homeland, Germany. Nothing has been omitted or altered in the process of translation.

I. Petition to the Politbureau and to the Supreme Soviet To all members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and personally to the

Secretary-General of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Comrade L. I. Brezhnev. To the member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union,

Comrade Suslov. To all members of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, and personally to the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet and

member of the Political Bureau, Comrade N. V, Podgornyi. To all members of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, and personally to the Chairman of the Council of Ministers

of the USSR and member of the Political Bureau, Comrade A. N. Kosygin. To the Chairmen of both Chambers of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the Soviet of the Union and the Soviet of

Nationalities, Copy to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kurt Waldheim, through the representative of the Committee for

Protection of Human Rights in the USSR. From delegates of the Germans living in the USSR, sent to petition the Party and the Government of the Soviet Union

in the matter of applying the principles of the Declaration of Human Rights to resolve the problem of unimpeded departure of Germans to Germany (GDR and FRG) for the purpose of merging with the nation of their ethnic origin, and the preservation of their native language and culture.

Petition: We ask permission to be heard on the issue of resolving the problem of free departure of all Germans who desire to leave for permanent residence in Germany.

Attached: 1. A list of persons wishing to leave the USSR for Germany (both parts), with the personal signature of every head of family.

1

2. A copy of the appeal to the United Nations. 3. A copy of the document showing the reasons why the citizens of German nationality, living in the USSR, desire to

emigrate now.

II. Appeal to the United Nations by the Citizens of German Nationality Living in the USSR

Copy to the Soviet Government. We, the undersigned, citizens of German nationality living in the Soviet Union, appeal to the Organization of the

United Nations, and through it to all governments which signed and abide by the principles of the General Declaration of Human Rights, to the committee for the Protection of Human Rights at the UN, personally to the Secretary-General of the UN, Kurt Waldheim, and to all people of good will.

It is now 31 years since the day when the decree of 28 August 1941 was proclaimed, in which the Germans of the Soviet Union were indiscriminately accused of helping and co-operating with the Fascists, and were deported from their native settlements. There looms before us the problem of our ethnic self-preservation.

Until now the Soviet government has not wanted to resolve positively the issue of our national identity, and therefore dooms the Germans of the Soviet Union to their inevitable annihilation as a nationality.

A series of punitive measures comparable to genocide (enacted between 1941 and 1948) led to the mass extermination of nearly one and a half million Germans through hunger, cold, and vicious mockery and derision in the Labor Army, the prisons and places of forced settlement. That amounted to fifty per cent of the entire German population living in the USSR.

The remaining 1.8 million citizens of German nationality have been deliberately scattered over the enormous expanse of Siberia, Central Asia, Kazakhstan, and other regions. The decrees of 1955 and 1964 have politically rehabilitated the Germans of the USSR, but have also confirmed the exile. Increasing migration in search of a homeland during the last ten years has further intensified the process of forced assimilation.

As a result of that policy, the Germans of the Soviet Union have been deprived of the opportunity of preserving and developing their native tongue and culture.

We share the opinion of the UN, that a people's immortality is in its language and culture, that any people wants to be not only well fed, but also to last forever, and that no one wants to vanish from the face of the earth without leaving a trace (UNESCO, the magazine "Courier", October 1972, Ch. Aitmatov).

We, also, don't want that. The language of a people is a phenomenon of the greatest value and importance, upon which no other nation or

government may infringe. Any infringement upon the language and culture of an ethnic minority, and its destruction through forcible

assimilation, is a crime against humanity. With the charter of the International Military Tribunal, a bold precedent in international justice concerning crimes

against humanity was established. The International Tribunal prosecuted representatives of fascism for their inhumanity. Is not the extermination of one and a half million citizens of German nationality in the Soviet Union, and the

permanent eviction of the surviving 1.8 million from their earlier habitations (decree of 26 November 1948), the destruction of their self-government, and condemning them to forced assimilation, a crime against humanity of equal gravity? This is the same kind of crime, only in a more refined form and stretched out over a longer period in time. But that was done by fascism, and this is being done by the most progressive country, a land of socialism, a land of human ideals, a country which officially more than any other stands up for equal rights for all peoples and all nations, large and small.

Since the repeated appeals of the Germans in the USSR to the Soviet Government, regarding the issue of restoring national self-government, remains "a voice crying in the wilderness", we have come to the conclusion that it will be necessary for us to depart to the historic homeland of our ancestors, Germany (GDR and FRG), where we hope to find all the conditions for national development,

For a long time the Germans of the Soviet Union have had their best human feelings, national pride and sense of homeland, hurt. The phenomenon of the Germans striving to find their own native homeland is thus a logical and normal consequence of the long years of groundless accusations and oppression.

Although actively creating with their labor a definite part of the national income and participating in the creation of the economic basis for the USSR, the Germans have been deprived of their economic basis

2

and of the opportunity of maintaining and further developing their national language and culture. For the total population of nearly two million Soviet Germans, there is not one national theatre, palace of culture, or school, not one national monument, and so on, while other nationalities with similar population numbers, or even less, have their own union republics, with all their privileges.

The Germans of the Soviet Union, like all other people on earth, profit from the general achievements of the world's cultural-technical progress: they have radio, television, and visit cinemas, but all these amenities have nothing to do with the character of their national culture.

Today there are no conditions whatever for the existence and development of the Germans in the Soviet Union as a nation; they are deprived of the basic essential, national self-government, or autonomy.

We have therefore come to this conclusion: for that part of the Soviet Union's German population which does not want to disappear like ethnographic matter under the conditions of forced assimilation, there is only one possibility, only one way out, departure from the USSR to where the main body of the German people is living, to their historical homeland, Germany.

Regrettably, at the present time the Soviet Government refuses to permit the departure of large numbers of Germans who have received a **Vyzov" (call) from relatives in Germany, and they won't even talk to those who have not received a call. This is obviously not in agreement with the principles of the General Declaration of Human Rights, which was signed also by the Soviet Union.

Germans who dare to speak up in defense of their national and human rights are subjected to intimidation, persecution and oppression by local authorities, creating unbearable conditions and low morale at working places; they are defamed and vilified in front of their own people.

Based on all the above-mentioned facts, we urgently ask the United Nations for help in solving the problem of free departure to the historical homeland, Germany, of all Germans who want to leave the Soviet Union, in compliance with the Declaration of Human Rights. Enclosures:

1. List of persons wishing to leave the USSR for Germany (both parts) with the personal signature of every head of family.

2. Several decrees of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, regarding the German population. 3. A brief summary of the history of the Germans in Russia, concluding with reasons for the necessity of returning to

their homeland, Germany.

III. A Brie/Summary of the History of the Germans in Russia, concluding with Reasons for the Necessity of Returning to their Historical Homeland, Germany.

"Being determines consciousness." K. Marx. The method of research and the principal starting point in examining the issue under consideration is the well-known

theory of dialectical materialism — the materialistic dialectic. The scientific dialectical method will help us to discover the principal moving powers in the origin and development of the emigration idea among the Germans of the Soviet Union.

The Marxist-Leninist philosophy teaches that everything in the world is interconnected, everything is interdependent, and therefore the issue of the emigration of the citizens of German nationality residing in the USSR will be examined in its total interconnection with all the forces influencing it, and its making and dynamic development will be studied.

But before we begin to analyze the idea of emigration, it is necessary to present briefly the historical facts.

How the Germans Settled in Russia The appearance of the first Germans in Russia dates back to ancient times. Historically there are indications that there

were many Germans among the fighting men of the Kiev princes, and it is not by chance that Prince Vsevolod Yaroslavich, who spoke five languages, knew German very well. But history has left no clues as to whether any of the German fighting men settled in Kiev-Russia during that distant time.

The next mention of the appearance of Germans in Russia is related to the trade connections of the so-called Gothic and Hanseatic commercial treaties of Novgorod. According to the treaties of Novgorod with the Germans (the islands of Gotland and the Hanseatic League) of 1185-1189, 1229-1263, and 1270, Germans came to Novgorod, where they had their own trading office and emporia. This trade was very lively until the year 1494. Only in 1494, after Novgorod was joined to Moscow (in 1478), did Ivan III close the Hanseatic trade office. It is not certain whether Germans did or did not settle permanently in Russia at

3

that time; indirect data indicate that they did not. The next commercial influx of Germans into Russia came in the year 1550, when the Moscow Principality started

trading with the Netherlands. But the merchants stayed only temporarily in Russia, and usually did not settle. The first Germans who did settle in Russia were 123 specialists and professionals, whom the Russian government had

invited. It happened like this: Hans Schmitte, who had come from Brandenburg in 1547 to serve the Russian Grand Duke, was sent to Germany with the official assignment to engage master craftsmen and scientists into Russian service. This task was stated in his commission issued by Ivan IV. Schmitte succeeded in gathering the 123 persons quite quickly; among them were military specialists and even four theologians. But this did not exhaust the duties of the Russian government's secret agent. Simultaneously with the search for specialists, he was almost more actively occupied with "higher politics", negotiating with the Emperor Charles V and the Vatican,

For the children of these foreigners a school was opened at the Lutheran Church. The first indication of that school's existence dates from the year 1584.

Gradually the tendency to recruit specialists from the West increased, and with the number of foreigners in Russia the number of schools for their children also increased. We find mentioned in historical documents in 1705 the German school (Gymnasium) of Glueck, and in 1711 the Swedish school in Tobolsk, for the children of prisoners of war (after the war with Sweden).

An unprecedented stream of Germans poured into Russia after the deceptive manifesto of Empress Catherine II, of September 22,1762. The first attempts of Catherine II in 1763 to entice Germans into Russia were not successful. The German authorities counteracted the manifesto of the Russian empress with all their means. On 18 March 1764 the Russian government again gave consideration to the issue * 'of granting land for growing grain between Saratov and Astrakhan to foreigners." The Council of Foreign Affairs, on 13 April 1764, considered a petition from foreigners "about the matter of free residence in Russia," and on 30 April the issue "of appointing commissars in Oranienbaum to welcome and support foreigners arriving by sea in Kronstadt, for (permanent) settlement in Russia." On 14 July 1764, the Council considered the issue of extending the "most gracious manifesto of 22 September 1762 only to those foreigners who have already become Russian subjects.'^*

Thus Russia intensively lured a considerable number of German settlers, the majority of whom were peasants and craftsmen, to the horror and indignation of the patriotic newspapers, and to the outrage of the government of Germany. Altogether 27,000 people arrived in Russia, of whom 24,000 settled along the Volga and 3,000 settled near Petersburg. Thus, in 1764 the historical destiny of the settlers from Germany, Austria, Sweden and Prussia in Russia began to take shape, and their common material and spiritual way of life developed within a common territory and language.

The last wave of German settlers seeking permanent residence in Russia came during the period of the Napoleonic wars. These arrivals were settled by the Russian government primarily in the Zaphorozh Seen, the southern Ukraine, and the empty steppes north of the Caucasus. These settlers did not establish themselves in scattered homesteads, but in closed villages and even whole counties, particularly in the southern Ukraine. Their common language was German, the children in the school were taught in the German language, and all local affairs were also conducted in the German language.

How the Economy and the Consciousness of the German Settlers in Russia Developed before 1917

The Marxist-Leninist philosophy has irrefutably proved that all forms of social consciousness reflect the social existence: social being influences social consciousness through political relationships and views.

The government of the Tsar did not know the laws of evolution, but to ensure consolidation of the German settlers in the local settlements, it granted them communal territories. This allowed settlers, thanks to a common language, to lead a communal economic life.

Entirely incontestable is the fact, that the German settlers in Russia subsequently not only changed their way of life, but changed themselves as well, because consciousness always appears as the reflection of the material world.

"•This story of Catherine's recruitment of Germans in the 1760's is inaccurate and incomplete. Presumably the writers did not have access to the correct and fuller information.

4

The life of the settlers in the early years was not very pleasant. Crop failures, corrupt officials, and constant raids by nomadic tribes resulted in the deaths of almost half of the settlers, and brought the (survivors) to extreme poverty and despair: in their consciousness dissatisfaction grew. It is therefore no accident that we find in the archives of A. S. Pushkin the following: "Pugachev followed the course of the Volga. All foreigners who were settled here flocked to him . . ."; this confirms their solidarity with other oppressed peoples in Russia.

The German settlers repeatedly appealed to the Tsar's government requesting protection from the raids of nomadic tribes, from robbery, mass murder, captivity, and being led into slavery. But the Tsar's government, from the very beginning of the settlement of foreigners on the arid steppes of the Volga region, desired not only to develop that area, but to use German settlers as a barrier against the raids of the nomadic tribes against Russia. Therefore the Tsars did respond to calls for help. The necessity of protecting themselves from the raids of the nomads united the settlers; they gradually got accustomed to their new places of residence.

A new life style arose, a new consciousness was formed, and gradually a division into rich and poor came into being. Various industries now appeared on the Volga, and large estates in the Crimea and the Ukraine.

The common life under the new conditions, together with the newly formed interrelationships, also brought about a new cultural life, which developed over a period of more than 150 years.

The beginning of the twentieth century was marked by the hectic development of capitalism and the contradictions and antagonisms caused by it.

With Russia's unfortunate involvement in World War I, the lot of the Germans in different regions of the Russian Empire worsened: in 1915 the Tsar's government prepared a decree ordering the deportation of Germans to Siberia, which would result in their mass destruction.

The Bourgeois Revolution in February 1917 suspended the execution of this decree, and the October Revolution took it off the agenda, shelving it until (what a paradox!) 1941.

flow the Economy and the Consciousness of the Germans in Russia Developed from 1917 to 1941.

During the years of the Revolution and the Civil War the Germans in Russia fought shoulder to shoulder with all the peoples (of the Empire) for the Soviet cause. History records thousands of examples proving this fact. The Germans did not abandon their new homeland in trouble, but defended it with all their strength against the interventionists.

These were not the German settlers of 1764. This was a changed people, with a new consciousness, which had been formed under well-known socio-economic conditions.

In the spring of 1918 the working majority of the Volga Germans sent a delegation to V. I. Lenin to request help in establishing ethnic self-government. The Soviet government granted autonomy to the Germans, the first example of an authentic people's self-government in the RSFSR.

Full of enthusiasm, the Volga Germans started to build a new life and culture, national in form and socialist in content. Such a change in the life of the Germans was a phenomenon characteristic of the children of the Soviet Land, when they started to build socialism. Industry in the Volga region boomed in unprecedented fashion, agriculture achieved bountiful harvests, stock breeding thrived, public education grew, schools, technical secondary schools, and colleges were built, metropolitan and local newspapers were published, book publishing developed, a German national theater, many cinemas, houses of culture and clubs were built; German writers created literary works, describing the Germans' new way of life in the Volga region and presenting a new type of person in literature; the people's culture was growing with a new socialist consciousness. The success of the Volga German Autonomous S S R was so remarkable, that in the central press the republic was called a flourishing Stalin republic.

This was the cultural center not only for the Germans of the Volga region, but also for the Germans in the Caucasus, the Ukraine and other regions of the country. Here, truly, the Marxist-Leninist principle of development of national language and culture was transformed into life. The Germans of the Volga region in that period of their development felt that they possessed complete national equal rights and regarded themselves as equal members of the multinational country of the Soviets.

But this flowering did not last long. At the meeting of the Central Committee on 25 August 1941, L. Beria demanded the resettlement of the Germans into various regions of Siberia, mainly with the purpose of destroying them as a nation, which was applauded by all the members of the Central Committee. The Volga Germans could not suspect that on a late summer morning their central paper "Nachrichten" would print in its last issue the death sentence of their fairy-tale world of a booming economy and a people's creativity;

5

on that Saturday, 30 August 1941, no one reading the historically unheard-of slander of a whole people, the Volga Germans, could assume that the execution of the decree of 28 August 1941 would be the beginning of the end of national-political independence for the Volga Germans. It never occurred to the Germans of the Soviet Union that the time would come when their children would be ashamed to acknowledge themselves as Germans, would not speak German on the street or even at home among themselves or with their parents, because, although innocent of the ruthless crimes of the fascists, they were mistreated with whatever weapons were at hand and undeservedly called fascists, only because they were descendants of Germans.

The decree of 28 August 1941 became the fatal turning point in the life of the Germans in the USSR,

From the Idea of Reconstructing the Volga German ASSR to the Idea a/Emigration.

In the Constitution it is written: "defending the Fatherland is the sacred duty of every citizen of the USSR." The decree of 28 August 1941 evicted the Germans of the Volga and of other regions they inhabited, confiscated their

communal and personal property, and deprived them of the right to defend the Fatherland; but he, from whom the right to defend his Fatherland has been taken, has also been deprived of his Homeland.

On the morning of 30 August 1941, the editorial staff of "Nachrichten" first heard of that genocidal decree from the mouth of their editor, Fadeeva. They stood as though petrified, deprived of the power of speech and the ability to comprehend what had happened. In fact, it was incomprehensible to all the Germans in Russia.

And now, 24 hours later, there was train after train of cattle cars, filled to capacity with people maddened with grief, people who 24 hours earlier had been somebody, and now, senselessly, had been reduced to nothing, humiliated, insulted and unjustly defamed beggars.

The dreadful sight of abandoned villages, with enormous heaps of grain and neglected cattle roaming aimlessly, remains forever in the memory of the evicted Germans.

After arriving at their place of exile with nothing but suitcases of belongings hurriedly packed, they exchanged them during the winter for a morsel of bread or a bowl of potatoes, and then, toward the spring, many of them died, swollen with hunger. In January 1942 the men were taken into the labor forces, where they found themselves under conditions worse than in a concentration camp: hunger, cold, illness, insult, mockery, abuse by the guards and authorities, and back-breaking work took their toll — daily dozens, even hundreds, died; it was impossible to bury them all. Women who had children over three years of age and those without children shared the same fate. Why did these people perish? Only because they were Germans.

It would not have been so degrading if they had been killed in a battle defending the Fatherland, or in another useful occupation, but to perish senselessly in the labor force, through a meaningless death by hunger and abuse, was such a humiliation after the unprecedented flowering of the Volga German Autonomous SSR, that the majority of them, no[ sparing their last ounce of strength, wanted with their labor to accelerate the victory of the Soviet troops so that they could return sooner to their homes on the Volga, the Ukraine, the Caucasus, and other regions, and be liberated from the shameful decree.

When the war ended, the surviving Germans eagerly waited to be sent back home; instead came the decree of 6 November 1948, in which the Soviet government affirmed the exile for all time, and imposed a punishment of twenty years of hard labor for every German over 14 years of age, who dared to walk beyond the confines of the village in which he lived, without the permission of the commandant. This happened in a time when any surveillance by a commandant was no longer necessary, because the war had been over for a long time and the General Assembly of the UN was affirming (10 December 1948) the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The children of the Soviet Germans did not have the opportunity to study, because they were not even allowed to walk to the neighboring village's seven-year (elementary) school. They couldn't even dream of a secondary or higher education. It is not by chance that there is at present among the Germans a very low percentage of people with higher or special mid-level education, compared with other nationalities of the USSR.

The older generation of our German intelligentsia lies in the graves of the labor force, and most of the few who survived were disqualified or disabled. They began, at that time, to avoid talking in German on the streets, public places, and even in the family, being ashamed of it.

People waited, in silence, patiently they waited for deliverance from the capricious despotism of the commandants' surveillance, which loomed threateningly over everyone, from young to old. People waited one

year, waited two years, year after year, but the decree of 1941 and that of 1948, were still hanging over the Germans of USSR.

At last, on 13 December 1955, came the long-awaited end of the degrading surveillance by the commandants. But the decree still prohibited the return to the homes from which they had been exiled, thus still enforcing the exile. At the same time, by a resolution of the Soviet government, the national autonomy of many peoples who were previously exiled, such as: Balkars, Ingushs, Kalmyks, and Karachaevs, was restored. Naturally the question arose: why was the national autonomy of the exiled Germans not restored? The answer is again the same — only because they were Germans.

In the consciousness of some Germans the thought ripened that they could find a homeland only in Germany. These were mostly people who had been repatriated from Germany after the war.

The majority of the exiled Germans, however, again waited, waited for the hour of liberation and rehabilitation, for a just restoration of their national rights. Another nine years of agonizing waiting was to pass, before the Soviet government was pleased to issue the decree of 29 August 1964 (after 23 years of exile), in which they admitted: ". . . life has shown that those indiscriminate accusations of aiding fascism were unfounded, and were a manifestation of despotism under the conditions of the Stalin cult."

But, alas, the Soviet government maintained without any justification that "the German population has taken root at their new places of residence." With this decree the Soviet government, though recognizing the total innocence of the German population, nevertheless condemned them to eternal exile, and, consequently, to their inevitable destruction (as a people) through forced assimilation, and the extinction of the German language and national culture.

The years that have passed since then, lived under such conditions, amply demonstrate why there could be no question of any effective educational work in their own, or even in the Russian language. The prevailing system of crude tyranny, which often caused the most flagrant, and always unpunished, abuses, such as mockery, humiliation, insults, intimidation, persecution, victimization, vicious psychological attacks, etc., directed at them by the surrounding population and the government, brought about in many Germans feelings of social inferiority, even a slavish submission to fate and expectation of doom. Afraid to say a word in self-defense, they often experienced moral and emotional breakdowns, leading to inevitable spiritual decline.

The hypocritical decree of 1964 tore the last thread of patience of the Germans living on the territory of the USSR. The long years of patience came to an end and people realized that the time had come not to wait any more, but to request for themselves and their innocent descendants the restoration of the Volga German ASSR, and full rehabilitation; after all, V. I. Lenin had helped to bring about the autonomy of the Volga Germans in 1918. The Soviet government should not permit the further distortion of Lenin's national policy.

The Germans sent a delegation to Moscow asking for the restoration of their statehood and full rehabilitation. The refusal in January 1965 stated: "We don't have any territory." (A. Mikoyan)

A half year later a new delegation again received a refusal.* What can one think after that? What can one do after that? In the localities from which the delegates came, they soon experienced repressions, persecutions, and psychological

attacks; they were called to account in their labor collectives, where they were accused of nationalism and all sorts of transgressions were attributed to them; distorting references were presented, removals from work often followed, and altogether unbearable work conditions were created.

In 1967 another delegation went to Moscow. And again they were refused and then evicted from Moscow within 24 hours.

The German population of the Soviet Union, which up to then believed that the restoration of autonomy would return their dying language to them, restore their national equality among the other nationalities and peoples, and that eventually the government would show sympathy to the plight of our oppressed German people, who do not possess equal rights in their national and political life, now finally stopped believing that. Knowing that the native language is the most important form of expressing of a national culture, and that a nation disappears with the extinction of its native language, many understood that the Soviet government was intentionally condemning the German language, and consequently the Germans, to death.

^Some of the conversation with Mikoyan on the occasion of the second interview is given in "The Restoration of the Volga German Republic" by Emma S. Haynes in AHSGR Work Paper No. 11 (April 1973), pp. 12-17. Pictures of the 1965 delegations appear in Work Paper No. 22 (Winter 1976). (Ed.)

7

The Russian language has been forcibly imposed on us as a native language, and the assertion of our national self-awareness is called nationalism.

All that leads to this — in the consciousness of the punished, though innocent, Germans there unmistakably, irresistibly arose the question: to be or not to be? What is the solution that enables one to say: we are? Only one answer remained; emigration.

We are Germans, we want to remain Germans, we want to live among Germans, and we want our descendants to remain Germans. The idea of emigration is not an isolated phenomenon and does not appear by chance, but is the logical consequence of the humiliating conditions inflicted upon the Germans of the USSR by the Soviet government for over thirty years.

At first, people had faith in the Soviet legal system. But soon insult and oppression emanated from the same Soviet legal system. This definitely shook their faith in the justice of the Soviet legal system. The development of the realization by the Germans of their impending doom went through many stages. It was not

recognized overnight; it was an agonizing process in the souls of the people, lasting over thirty years. This concept connects the endured past with the troubled future of our people. All the decrees (both published and unpublished) issued in the course of 31 years reinforced this train of thoughts and led to the awareness that to be (i.e. to continue to exist) means emigrating away from alt the horrors over us. It was in this way that "being determined consciousness'* among the Soviet Germans. (There is a copy of the

Russian document, of which this is a translation, in the AHSGR Archives.)

The new Catholic Church in the city a/Karaganda in Kazakhstan.

A Solemn High Mass in the Karaganda Catholic Church.

(From: Die Kirchen und das religiose Leben der Russland-deutschen, Katholischer Teil, Joseph Schnurr, pp. 120, 121).

AMONG THE GERMANS IN THE SOVIET REPUBLIC OF KAZAKHSTAN Andreas Lorenz Translated by Robert

Meininger

The author of this article is the editor of Der Spiegel, the leading German newsmagazine. He traveled in Kazakhstan and on his return published this report in Der Spiegel, No. 43, 1982, 183-192, under the title, "Wir sind stolz, dass wir Deutsche sind." (We are proud that we are Germans.)

The suburb seems idyllic when compared to the other sections of the monotonous factory town. The houses are wooden; many are brightly whitewashed. There are chickens in the yards. The place is Karaganda in Kazakhstan, formerly a forced labor center.

The inhabitants called this part of town "Berlin", because those living here are Soviet citizens with names such as Schulz or Weinberg who converse in Swabian or Hessian dialects and who have streussel (crumb cake) for dessert on Sunday afternoons. They are members of the German minority in the U.S.S.R.

Berlin in the Soviet Union is one of the German settlements in the Soviet state of Kazakhstan. According to the census of 1979, about 900,000 Germans are concentrated there — nearly one-half of the Soviet citizens of German descent. The others live spread over the whole country; in Kamchatka and with the Kalmuks, in Omsk and in Tomsk, with only a few in the capital, Moscow, and none on the Volga where they once possessed an autonomous Soviet Republic.

Since Stalin expelled them from there 40 years ago, because of possible collaboration with Hitler's advancing invasion army, they have not been permitted to move back to the Volga. They have had to adjust to their Central Asian exile, instead.

The focal point of the German quarter in Karaganda is the Catholic church, a two-story brick building which looks out of place in its village-like surroundings.

Four times a day, on Sundays five, the bells call to mass. Then the people come carrying their Bibles and hymnals. Every evening about 300 of the faithful pray in the church with, according to the old style, the women seated on the left and the men on the right. Some come as far as 200 kilometers. Prelate Alexander Hierer, 85, a German-speaking Hungarian, preaches. He takes turns with a Lithuanian priest. "On some Sundays I have over 900 communions."

The congregation on Kominternstreet 22 itself numbers 1400 Germans. Last year 142 children were baptized and 96 couples were married: thereby closing the opportunity for job advancement which religious confession inevitably brings with it in the U.S.S.R.

Up to six years ago the Catholics of Karaganda had to hold services in alternating homes of members of the congregation. However, the party then agreed to permit the construction of the church, but with one condition: no processions in the open.

The Germans collected about 200,000 rubles for their church (about $274,000), each parishioner contributing about one month's income. A statue to the patron saint of the congregation, St. Urban, was made in Lithuania and a blessing came from the Vatican by telegram.

The honorary bookkeeper of the congregation, Klara Ritter, 57, considered the permit for church construction "a miracle". Prelate Hierer cited more worldly grounds: "The Germans fought with their heads and stood their ground on their legal rights."

They had constantly harassed officials, gathered signatures, sent petitions to the capital, Alma-Ata, and even made presentations in Moscow. Meanwhile, they made peace with the state — Hierer and his colleagues preached obedience to authority to their congregation. "The state hears no foolishness from us/' said Hierer. "When we can serve God freely, what more do we want?"

In the homes of Lutherans and Mennonites on the state farm (Sovkhoz) "Friedrich Engels", about 20 kilometers from Karaganda, Bibles are a part of the household inventory. On the walls; next to portraits of sons doing their military service in the Soviet army, there hang crucifixes, pictures of the good shepherd and slogans which are foreign to the communist party: "Suche Jesus und sein Licht, alles andere hilft dir nicht" (Seek Jesus and his light, nothing else can help you).

The Sovkhoz manager, Bogdan Gergert, 58, said: "If they want to have a church here, then they can have one." His collective farm is a center for Germans in Kazakhstan. Of the 650 workers here 420, Gergert included, hold the red identity card marked Nyemets (German) in the "nationality" space.

9

He is a Soviet citizen the likes of which Party Chief Leonid Brezhnev can only hope for; a true communist, a deputy in

the Higher Soviet (similar to the German Landtag or the U.S. state legislature) of Kazakhstan. Gergert runs the collective from his office which is decorated with portraits of Lenin and red flags or from the farm's two-way radio equipped all-terrain vehicle (brand name "GAS"). He proudly asserted that rarely a year goes by when the 2200 cows do not give more milk than the agricultural plan calls for. Even in bad years it has been possible to deliver enough grain to the granaries. The previous year each worker received about 4000 rubles ($5450) as a bonus.

Here, in Central Asia, the old virtue of industriousness still reigns. Gergert recently came to an agreement with the Sovkhoz mayor, Alexander Adolfovitch Weigel, to broaden production, to raise color as well as livestock; "The people should be given not only bread, but also flowers," is a Gergert conviction.

The fact that his farm is better than others in the republic he ascribes to his stricter leadership. Whoever does not work properly receives less income, "Disziplin muss sein ", or, as another motto of the party activist goes: "Where there is discipline, there is also order."

Although that saying sounds less like socialism in Karaganda than something heard at a reserved table in a tavern in Germany, Gergert does not consider himself a German: "No, that is in the past." He had become in the course of time "ein Sowjetmensch " (a Soviet man). But most of his countrymen in Kazakhstan think otherwise. The miner Viktor Feist, 35, says: Wir sind geboren als Deutsche, und wir sind stolz, class wir Deutsche sind" ("We are born Germans and we are proud that we are Germans.") Such an avowal can bring disadvantages, such as being refused admission to the university because the applicant belongs to the wrong nationality. Nevertheless, last year for the first time a Soviet German rose to the rank of cabinet minister. The engineer Boris Balmont, 55, was named to the very important Ministry for the Machine Tool Industry in Moscow.

However, because they are not usually allowed to attain leadership positions and are discriminated against in education, many Soviet Germans would rather live in the land of their forefathers. Around 100,000 of them wish to move to the Federal Republic of Germany. But the Soviet government does not permit them to do so.

In 1976 there were 9626 Soviet Germans who moved to West Germany, but last year only 3595 received the necessary exit visa from the U.S.S.R. This year a West German diplomat in Moscow estimated that the number will be much less. Just last September Germans again demonstrated on Red Square in Moscow with placards that said: "SOS — wir wollen in die Heimat" (SOS — we want to go to our homeland).

More recently Soviet police prevented advice seekers from entering the West German embassy in Moscow. The explanation given was that they had no good reason for entering.

The stark policy of the Soviets was explained by a Moscow government official as follows: "We don't want to make an example for anyone else." This means that the Kremlin is afraid that other national groups with relatives in foreign countries, such as Armenians or Ukrainians, could increase their demands for family reunification. Besides, Moscow wishes to keep more and more German immigrants from leaving gaps in industrial operations.

Whether it be in the coal mines of Karaganda or in the transportation industry of Alma-Ata, everywhere the Germans are highly esteemed because of their industriousness and dependability. "When they say they will do something, consider it done," says a Kazakh coworker. The Soviets could solve the problem in a more subtle way by making it more attractive in the U.S.S.R. such as by giving the minority more opportunity to maintain its own language and culture, as it was until 1941 in the autonomous German Volga Republic.

For many Soviet Germans are obviously attracted less from material or family reasons to the West as from a concern for their identity as Germans. Their children hardly ever master their mother tongue anymore. Even adults, especially those with little contact with their countrymen, speak mostly Russian. As a bureaucrat from Karaganda said: "The German language is gradually going under."

The Soviet writer Friedrich Bolger recently complained in the German language weekly "Neues Leben" that there are too few opportunities to maintain and cultivate German as a major language. "We've been pleading for better teaching for nearly two decades now and nothing has improved." On the contrary: "In many schools, where 15 years ago German was still taught as a mother tongue, it is now taught as a foreign language."

In the school of the model sovkhoz "Friedrich Engels" the children from the first year on have four hours of German and from the fifth year six hours a week. Material for the younger pupils includes poetry such as this poem.

11

The little star, the little star, the little star red and fine, whoever wears this little star must be a good pupil. How should we learn? We want to learn like Lenin.

Das Sternchen, das Sternchen, das Sternchen rot und fein, es muss, wer dieses Sternchen traegt, ein guter Schueller sein. Wie sollen wir lernen? Wir wollen wie Lenin lernen.

The older ones read from East German readers which include texts by Goethe and Anna Seghers. The teaching

language of the natural sciences at "Friedrich Engels" is Russian. In this regard the Germans of Kazakhstan seem to have it better than their countrymen in the Kirghiz S.S.R. and in

Siberia, where one can get one of the party faithful newspapers in German only with difficulty — especially in outlying regions. The Kazakhstan Germans are able to choose between the newspaper "Neues Leben", published by the press of the party organ "Pravda", and the local paper "Freundschaft".

Under the motto "Proletarians of all countries, unite!", "Freundschaft", with a circulation of 25,000, prints borderline propaganda ("The whole grain crop — to the granary"), medical advice ("Sun rays burn hot"), practical tips ("Too much, too fat, too sweet") and a column in dialect. An example: "Dem Vetter Hanngottlieb gungs Maulwerk, als wann's mit Entefett g'schmiert waer, un g'famelt hot'e, dass sich die Balke g'boge hun." ("Cousin Hanngottlieb's mouth went a mile a minute, as though it were smeared with goose grease, and he raised such a ruckus that the rafters bowed out.")

The Kazakhstan TV station broadcasts in German 30 minutes each month. The German minority around Alma-Ata gets more air time: four hours and 15 minutes a week including music imported from East Germany.

Eleven full-time journalists and a few dozen Volkskorrespondenten scattered about the province report on the "achievements of the 26th Party Congress in action" or on the subject "in the fields of our republic."

West German tourists tell of joblessness in their country and editor-in-chief Georg Rau interviews briefly the Frankfurt zoologist Bernhard Grzimek about Tanzania.

Among the most popular programs is one on Sunday afternoon. It is a 50 minute request program accompanied with birthday greetings. For example, family members congratulate Emilie Steiger in Alma-Ata, 64 years old, and then a yodler duo consoles her with the assurance that the "schoenen Jahre noch nicht vorbei" ("the good years are not yet past").

Sometimes the good old days on the Volga are recalled. This summer one of the regional correspondents described the soccer game between the former Volga German cities of Karl-Marx Stadt and Engels "before the great patriotic war (World War II)": "Alle Platz* warn bis uff de letzte b'setzt" ("All seats, to the very last, were taken").

A studio of the Moscow Theater School "Shtshepkin" trains actors for the only professional German-speaking theater of the Soviet Union. Their future will be in acting in the industrial city of Temirtau, north of Karaganda, with 250,000 inhabitants. The theatre, established there in 1980 (450 seats), was installed in the former "culture palace" of the metal workers.

The most recent addition is a retractable curtain. Simultaneous translation through headsets is provided for the Russian public. "We want to maintain German culture," says director Peter Siemens. The repertoire includes Schiller's Kabale und Liebe and Lessing's Emilia Galotti.

Twice yearly the theatre troupe tours the collectives of Kazakhstan. Letters to the editor of "Neues Leben" requested recently that the troupe should also tour outside of Kazakhstan once in a while.

Perfect High German is a requirement for the 26 actors and actresses. However, after the production of Goldoni's Der Diener zweier Herren in Kustanai the producer Vladimir Wolf criticized the actors for "being too loose with the German language." On stage there was said to be a strange mixture of various dialects.

The principal duty of the actors, who receive a monthly salary of 110 rubles ($135), is to agitate for the communist cause. They must regularly undergo political instruction from the theater manager.

Just to be sure that no one misunderstands any of the instruction it is given in Russian.

12

THE SONG OF KAZAKHSTAN Hertha Karasek-Strzygowski

Translated by Selma Tieszen Hieb

This is another chapter of Wolhynisches Tagebuch, published by N. G. Ewert Verlag, Marburg, Germany, in 1979. The author is a Silesian artist, who visited the village of Blumental in 1942. The book was reviewed in the Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3 (Winter 1979) and chapters of it, translated by Mrs. Hieb, have appeared in the Journal, Winter 1980 (p. 23), Spring 1981 (p. 1), Winter 1981 (p. 5), Summer 1982 (p.45) and Winter 1982 (p. 33). The stones of some of the families in this village and the artist's sketches of the people are hauntingly sad.

Mother Fenske was standing in front of her house watching for me. While I was still some distance away, she called: "Someone has brought something for you. It's in the house. You are supposed to read it."

On the table in the room lay a well-thumbed book, which had probably been black at one time. Glaubensstimme, geistlicher Liederschatz (Voice of Faith, a Treasury of Hymns) was printed in a decorative Gothic script on the first brown bespattered page, "Sammlung der vorzueglichen geistlichenLieder fuer Kirche, Schule und Haus und alle Lebensverhaeltnisse (A Collection of the best Hymns for Church, School and Home and all Life Situations), 10th edition, Berlin 1898 (1st edition 1832). And on the inside cover was the faded and difficult to read inscription. Hermann Steffen, farmer and cabinet maker.

Right near the front of the book there lay a folded sheet so worn by handling that is scarcely hung together any more. "This is a letter from his deported son," said mother Penske. "He can't read it any more and neither can we. He thinks that anyone who could sketch a portrait of father Wenzler like you did, would certainly be able to read this letter also. None of us can. Too many tears have been shed on it."

Carefully I unfolded the fragile pages. This, then, was the letter, the only one that had ever come from his deported son in Kazakhstan. I had often heard about it. The aged Hermann Steffen was one of the few far and wide who had ever received any news from a deported loved one. He was not the only one who had held this priceless evidence of life in his trembling old hands. Everyone in the village wanted to read this letter and many a one from neighboring villages had secretly come a great distance in the hope of discovering information of a son, brother or father in this letter. Many anxious hands had grasped it and many bitter tears had rendered the writing illegible.

I held the yellowed sheet in my hands and took great pains to decipher the few legible words and to surmise the meaning. The sentences, "We are still alive," . . . and . . . "have met many of our acquaintances" . . . and "will not forsake us", I could make out, but nothing more.

"He's no longer quite clear in his mind, old Steffen," Ida said to me over her shoulder, "since that time -when the grenade exploded near him. He doesn't hear any more, either." But mother Fenske, who rarely spoke but who observed more and understood more than many who were vocal, added that "he's not stupid," but from the time when his son was forced to leave and there was no longer any need for him to build cradles, but only coffins, his mind has been eaten away.

Toward evening I went to visit Hermann Steffen. I had only seen this old man from a distance, as he puttered around his small house, chopping a bit of wood or sitting in the sun next to the house wall binding brooms. He walked stooped over and seemed frail. One could easily have taken him to be ten years older than his lifelong friend, father Wenzler, who was the same age. I had met his wife several times. With her face shaded by a white head scarf, and a hoe always over her shoulder, she scurried about the area with a quick step and disappeared in one or the other of the neighbor's gardens. She was the counterpart of father Wenzler: just as he helped the womenfolk with his counsel and labor and right now in the autumn was constantly busy with his horse plowing the small garden areas around their houses, so she hoed and weeded all the small gardens of the neighbors, to help them to harvest as much as possible from their small piece of land. No one knew how to do this better than she did.

It was only now in this small room that I could see her face more clearly. "She looks like an old rootstalk which the years and the weather have molded," I thought. Her face was sunburned and weathered. Countless wrinkles and lines played around on it. Her lively eyes regarded me with a questioning distrust. Now her husband also appeared behind her. It was only when close to him that one could see how here also fate had left its mark.

He looked toward me expectantly, as if I was about to bring him some new information about his son. It was bitter to have to disappoint him. Before his life ended, he wanted very much to hear something more

13

accurate about his beloved son. Sadly shaking his head, he put the book and the letter back into the dark chest which stood next to his bed. He did this so decisively as if now his last hope had been buried forever. His wife was obviously unhappy when I wanted to sketch the old man. She was about to leave and shouted a warning into the ear of the old man about all the work around the house that was waiting for him and needed to be done by the time she came home. She energetically shouldered her hoe, cast a critical glance at my drawing case, and disappeared. The old man, it is true, dutifully nodded his head to her wishes, but he had no intention of doing any work around the house, and especially not now when one of the "ladies from Germany*' had come to visit him too. He had learned that I was very eager to have the colonists relate their experiences, and he was visibly proud that it was finally his turn. He therefore eagerly searched for his baptismal certificate among his few documents, so that he could tell his story in an orderly fashion. He believed in thoroughness and orderliness.

But his story came out in fragments, in the form of isolated events. He had forgotten a great deal. His mind didn't seem to function any more. It took me several days to get a true picture of his life.

The beginning was actually rather easy. I could study his baptismal certificate and read it to the old gentleman. It stated: Hermann Steffen, born in Platendienst, West Prussia, on 22 December 1859, baptized in Neu-Grunau by Pastor Klein.

His father was a poor shepherd in West Prussia. His mother's brother, Martin Maser, had moved to Volhynia years earlier. He continually wrote to them telling them how well he was doing, that they ought to come, that land was available at low cost, and that one could really farm properly there. To "really farm properly" was his father's greatest desire, poor shepherd that he was. So his father moved to Blumental with his nine children and bought a hide of land, which was all that he could afford. At first he lived in rented accommodation and the children had to work at various other farms. It was only after three years of very hard work that they could finally have their own small house and own a little livestock. Of the period from then until the time of his marriage Steffen could remember very little. Very little surfaced in his memory also about the three years of his military service, which he fulfilled in Bromberg, because his parents at that time still had German citizenship. Indeed, many of the memories of his life were lost to him. But he was sure about the fact that his first wife's name was Ernestine Schroeder, and that they soon owned a small farm. For his father's farm, which had become a substantial one over the years, was now managed by the eldest brother, August. But one day August finally yielded to his restless spirit and emigrated to America, where, it was said, "there is even more and cheaper land available." Steffen wanted to go to America too, for a surge of restlessness and adventure coursed through his veins, exactly as it had in three of his brothers', who had moved back to Germany. But by this time he himself had seven children, his father was old, and there stood the lovely, now neglected farmstead, for which they had worked so hard. So he moved in with his father and took over the farm.

Three of his sons had to serve in the army during the first world war. He, along with the rest of his family, his wife and his father, were deported, as were all Germans living in Volhynia. They were sent to Saratov and then another 400 kilometers eastward of the Caspian Sea, to Ashkhabad. He remembered a lot about this time spent in a strange part of the country, many wondrous things became firmly entrenched in his mind. He recalled a Tartar fortress, people who were all black, having only white teeth and eyes, and who, even in summer, wore long fur coats, which had knives and guns in their broad waistbands. He remembered women in black shawls, who sat on the ground and hid their faces when men approached. He had often tried to push the shawl aside to find out why they concealed themselves, but he never succeeded and to this day wonders about it. Even more comical to him were the camel trains, many camels tied one behind the other by their tails, led by a black man sitting on the first camel.

He worked in a mill at Ashkhabad and his daughter worked for an Armenian engineer. After three years he was allowed to return home. It was during this weeks-long journey that his wife died. When he arrived home, he found everything destroyed, furniture and farm implements were gone. Two of his sons had been killed in East Prussia during the war. Two of his children had stayed in Saratov or in Kazakhstan, only God knows where. He could no longer remember. So for six years he worked with his two remaining children to rebuild his farm. Then his daughter married a German colonist named Krueger and moved with him to Poland. It had been years since he had had any news of them.

So only he and his youngest son remained. It was time for his son to be getting married; the absence of a woman in the house was keenly felt. But his son said, "Oh father, why don't you marry again first?" So, in his old age he "had" to get married, so that his son would also take a wife. He chose Wilhelmine Port as his wife, who lived in Blumental. She was a widow not much younger than he, and she was very industrious. Soon thereafter his son also married.

15

They all lived together on their farm near an aircraft runway, and the old father did carpenter work for his living, year in and year out, building cradles, chests and coffins in fine succession. They were peaceful, happy years. But all of their good fortune came to a sudden end; his last son and some other me-n in the village were summoned and were told to be prepared for deportation in eight days. This time they were allowed to take with them whatever they wanted, even household goods and livestock. His son's wife, their children, a brother-in-law and the father-in-law all offered to go along. They said that eventually they too would meet this same fate, and this way they could at least be with family members. And they were permitted to do it. The situation was different every time, and no one knew beforehand what it would be like this time. Many of the men took their entire family with them. Steffen remembered how in that beautiful fall of 1937 the entire width of the street was filled with people, who all wanted to go along. It was as if a contagious fever had seized them. He too wanted to accompany his last son, whom he loved more than anything. But his father, who was well into his nineties, would not allow it. So, in eight days the "machines" came and took the people and their possessions. Where to? For how long? No one knew the answers. Then, after a year, this one letter came from his son from Kazakhstan, with the brief message that they were all alive and getting along well. It was the only sign of life that ever arrived from the entire group that had been deported together at that time.

Shortly thereafter, the aging Steffen had to vacate his home on the street and move into a small house belonging to the collective, the one in which he now lived. Since he and his second wife had no children, they took in a poor orphan girl some years ago. She was healthy and vigorous, about Ida's age now, worked in the collective for the two old people, and sang and laughed all day long. She was now their whole corn-fort. But still the old man said: "What kind of a life is this without one's own children? Sometimes I think I've worked and lived in vain."

All was quiet when the old man ended his life's story. The golden slanting rays of the evening sun fell into the little room, the cat purred contentedly between the flower pots on the window sill. This harmless, peaceful atmosphere was in strange contrast to the old man's face. In retrospect, his facial expressions had constantly changed, and new lines had always appeared. It was like a gripping drama, which I could observe and sketch only with deep emotion.

His wife, who now returned home, cast only a brief glance at me, but with a natural sympathetic understanding she sensed that the memories of his great sorrow had again enveloped him. Wearily she sat down on the bench in front of the light blue oven and wiped her perspiration-soaked forehead with her apron, "Yes," she said, sighing, "we just don't know how those people are faring. Someone composed a song about their experiences. No one knows for sure who it was. The people here in Blumental and in other villages sing that song too. But only secretly! They are afraid of punishment and exile. They sing, but they weep as they sing."

She could still remember a few of the stanzas. Completely absorbed in her thoughts, she sang in a cracking voice, to the melody of the Volga Song, the song which the colonists here and in other Volhynian villages call "The Song of the Deportees" or "The Song of Kazakhstan". Oh, mein Gott, wann wird das enden. Oh, my God, when will it be over, alle diese grosse Not. all this great misery. Wann wird sich die Truebsal wenden, When will this affliction cease, die uns jetzt so maechtig droht, that so severely threatens us, Mittwoch Nacht sind wir genommen Wednesday night we all were taken in den Kerker dann hinein. and into prison thrown. Alle, die vom Dorf gekommen, All who came from the village in der Stadt sie sollen sein. were to be in the city. Siebzig Mann in einer Kammer Seventy men in one room sassen wir, weil sonst kein Raum. we sat, because of lack of space. Welch ein Schmerz und welch ein Jammer, What suffering and what grief, wen's nicht trifft, der ahnt es kaum, who has not lived it won't believe.

Zwanzig Tag wir da zubrachten Tag und Nacht im Kerker nur. Dienstag wir dann Antrab machten, trieben uns wie Kreatur.

Twenty days we spent there day and night in the prison, On Tuesday we moved out, driven like cattle.

16

Funfzig Werst sind wir gezogen, wenig Ruhe man uns gab, bis wir in ... ankamen schon ermudet lebenssatt. Dreissig Mann in einer Kammer sitzen beinand wir allzumal. Haben Tranen nur und Jammer. Sie vermehren unsre Qual. Wegen Weizen, Korn und Geld sitzen eine grosse Zahl. Werden alle schwer verurteilt, manche zum Verschicken gar. Wir ja unsre Arbeit taten, pfluegen, ernten, saeen doch, weil es aber nicht geraten, wir die Schuld jetzt tragen doch. Vierzig Naechte wir da zubrachten in dem Kerker im Rayon. Wir an unser Urteil dachten und an den zu schonen Lohn. Als wir abgerichtert waren, ging's zuni Dopor dann zurueck. Auf dem Auto wir gefahren, viele blieben noch zurueck, Als wir nun sind angekommen vor das grosse Schreckenshaus, wurden da gleich aufgenommen, wo man nicht kann selbst hinaus. Oh wie viel verschickte Leute sitzen heut im Dopor noch, manche seufzen, beten, weinen, andre lachen, scherzen noch. Doch wir sitzen oft und beten, lesen viel auch Gottes Wort, wo wir manchen Trost noch finden. Jesus ist unser Schutz und Hort, Herr, wir muessten ja vergehen, wenn Dein Wort uns Trost nicht waer. Dass in Not willst bei uns stehen, das bringt uns Hoffhung immer her.

Fifty versts we traveled, little rest was given us, until in ... we arrived exhausted and tired of life. Thirty men in one room we all sat together. We had only tears and misery. They increased our torture. Because of wheat, rye and money a large number are imprisoned. All will receive severe sentences, some will even be deported. We did our work well, plowed, harvested, and sowed, but because it did not thrive, we are now blamed. Forty nights we spent in the prison in our canton. We thought about our fate and of our fine reward. When we had been sentenced, we were taken back to the Dopor. We traveled by auto, many still remained behind. When we had arrived at the great house of terror, we were immediately received. From here there is no escape. Oh how many deported people still sit in the Dopor today, some sigh, pray, cry, others laugh and make jokes. But we often sit and pray, read much also in God's word, where we still find much comfort. Jesus is our protector and refuge. Lord, we would have to perish, did we not have Your Word as comfort. That you will stand by us in our need, that always brings us hope.

The woman's voice became fainter and wearier in the gathering dusk of the day. One could see her only like a shadow, sitting motionless in front of the big hump-backed oven.

The old man sat there at the window, eyes opened wide with an intent, eager expression on his face. It seemed as though his deaf ears were listening for distant sound.

17

A VOLGA GERMAN COAL MINER IN YAKUTIYA

From an article by Victor Zhuravlyov in Soviet Life, June 1982, describing the development of a rich new coalfield in the Soviet Autonomous Republic of Yakutiya in northeastern Siberia.

Yakov Kinsvater, 28, an assistant excavator operator, comes from a family of Germans who settled in the Volga area. He was working in a coal field 40 kilometers from Chelyabinsk, in the Urals, when he heard about the South Yakutiyan undertaking and told his parents that he wanted to go there.

"Mother was upset and cried: 'Have you forgotten that it's Siberia?'" Kinsvater recalled. "Dad, on the other hand, raised no objection."

There were very many people, mainly young Ukrainians, Russians and Georgians, in the personnel office when Kinsvater arrived in Neryungry in January 1977. Although workers were needed everywhere, providing them with living quarters was a complicated business. After much difficulty, Kinsvater was given a cot in a dormitory. He was put on a team that assembled a 20-cubic-meter excavator from Japan, on which he worked later.

"It was unsuitable for the severe northern climate," Yakov recalled. "We and the Japanese specialists had to deal with many design limitations and breakdowns."

He met Tanya, a Russian girl, at the miners club. She had come from Irkutsk Region in Eastern Siberia and had worked as a technician on an ore-dressing plant construction project. They fell in love and got married in October 1978.

"We lived for half a year in a small wooden house that my friends helped me put up in two months," Kinsvater said. "We were later given a separate room in the dormitory. I became a full-fledged excavator operator in January 1979. All the people on our team are fine workers. Many of them are family men like me, and we go out together to the taiga to fish, pick berries and mushrooms, and simply fill our lungs with that wonderful, refreshing air.

"Tanya gave birth to our daughter Natasha in the summer of 1979," Kinsvater continued. "With so many children already born in Neryungry, it was pretty hard getting her into a child-care center. The town planners had made a terrible mistake in figuring that such a difficult place would be developed mostly by bachelors. They even gave percentages: 80 for single men, and only 20 for married. It was just the other way around in reality. The married men gladly moved to South Yakutiya, and it wasn't long before the single men got married. That's the reason for all the trouble about providing the families with convenient housing and day-care facilities."

The local trade union committee gave the Kinsvaters a one-bedroom apartment in the new town in the spring of 1981. It is in a wooden house, but it has central heating, running hot and cold water, sewers and an electric stove. The house is in a pine grove, and there are red bilberries and mushrooms growing under the windows.

"It's one of the last wooden houses built in Neryungry," Kinsvater said. "From this year on only brick high-rise blocks of apartment houses of a special type will be put up in our town. The prefabricated sections will come from the local house-building plant."

In order to encourage workers in South Yakutiya to settle permanently, the government has provided them with all kinds of privileges, including a 150 per cent pay increment, extending annual paid vacations to 42 days, almost double the usual duration, and lowering the pension age by five years.

On an average the Kinsvaters jointly earn 750 to 850 rubles a month. They spend a good deal of it but don't keep a record of expenditures. They have a color TV, a refrigerator, a hi-fi, rugs and many books. They have a motorcycle and plan to buy a car and go abroad this year, probably to the German Democratic Republic, the land of Yakov's ancestors.

"We still have many problems to solve," he said, "but life here is becoming more and more interesting. The climate is as harsh as ever, of course, but we've become convinced that it's easier to get accustomed to the cold than to scorching heat. We've come to South Yakutiya for a long time, and we don't regret it."

19

Johannes Naah, Sr. Katharina (Naab) Heit Konstantin Naab {Picture

taken in 1958).

Johannes Naab, Jr. and Ilona M. Reed (Picture taken in 1983),

A SUCCESSFUL SEARCH FOR RELATIVES IN RUSSIA Adam Giesinger

On March 23,1982 I received a telephone call from Ilona M. "Reed, an AHSGR member living at Loreburn, Saskatchewan, asking for help in finding her father's family in Russia, of whom he had lost track as a result of the events of the war. A letter received two days later brought me detailed information about the family.

Mrs. Reed's father, Johannes Naab, now in Canada, was born in 1915 in Marienfeld, near Kamyshin in the Volga region, the son of Johannes Naab, born in 1883 in Marienfeld, and Katharina nee Arnold, born 1881 in the neighboring village of Josephstal. He had a brother, Konstantin, born 1913, and a sister, Katharina, born 1920. The family lived in Marienfeld till 1930, then moved to Parisoff for three years and then to the Caucasus. The older son, Konstantin, went back to Marienfeld in 1933 and got married there. In 1936 the parents, with daughter Katharina, also went back to Marienfeld, where Katharina later married Johannes Heit. Johannes Jr. stayed in the Caucasus, in the Annenfeld area, where he worked as an engineer with the railroad. From there he was drafted into the Soviet army, in which he eventually saw war action. Captured by the Germans, he spent time in a prisoner-of-war camp, from which, because he was Volksdeutsch, he was drafted into the German army. At the end of the war, he was fortunate enough to escape the Soviet dragnet in Germany. In 1951 he migrated to Canada, where he now lives in Outlook, Saskatchewan.

Once the war began, Johannes Naab heard no more about his family, nor they about him. All contact was lost. The Naabs in Marienfeld, along with all other Volga Germans, were deported to Asiatic Russia in September 1941. Johannes, on the other hand, ended up in West Germany in 1945 and from there went to Canada in 1951.

About a year ago, Johannes Naab's daughter, Mrs. Reed, through membership in AHSGR, got the idea of conducting a search for her father's family in Russia through this society. We decided to insert a search advertisement in Volk auf dem Weg, the publication of the Landsmannschaft der Deutschen aus Russland in Germany. It appeared on page 23 of their June 1982 issue, in the following words:

Familie Johannes Naab aus Marienfeld, Wolgagebiet, jetzt in Kanada, sucht Verwandte in Russland: die Eltern Johannes Naab und Katharina, geb. Arnold, den Bruder Konstantin Naab und die Schwester Katharina Heit, geb. Naab. bitte Auskunft senden an: Ilona M. Reed, Box 52, Loreburn, Saskatchewan, Canada.

The results were better than our fondest expectations. Two different persons now living in West Germany, who saw the advertisement, knew the whereabouts of the survivors of this family. They wrote to Johannes in Canada to tell him that both Konstantin and his sister Katharina are still alive and are now living in Talhar, Alma Ata, Kazakhstan, They forwarded Johannes's address to Konstantin and by October 6 there was a letter from him. He couldn't believe that his brother Johannes, long thought killed in the war, was still alive, and asked for confirmation that this Johannes Naab was really his brother. To help with the identification, he enclosed a picture of their deceased father. Since then there have been letters and pictures sent in both directions. All are now convinced that they have really found each other and are very happy. Happiest of them all, probably, is Mrs. Reed, the prime mover in the search, for whom this is a childhood dream come true.

The Canadian family is now trying to arrange a visit of their Russian relatives to Canada. We hope that this may come about!

The Naab relatives in the Soviet Union, as it turned out, were not difficult to find. A search here in America for Arnold relatives, who came to the U.S. in the early 1920's, has, however, so far been unsuccessful. These relatives are: a cousin of Johannes Naab, named Peter Arnold, and an uncle and aunt, Andreas and Elizabeth (Arnold) Stremel. If any of our readers know where these persons, or their descendants, now live, we ask them to send the information to the Journal or to Mrs. Reed.

21

MISCELLANEA Adam Giesinger

We are still hearing from persons who were among the Volga German refugees that arrived at Frankfurt-on-Oder on 9 December 1922.

The REICHEL FAMILY left the village of Dietel on the Bergseite on 14 December 1921, arrived in Minsk on 28 January 1922, lived there till 27 November 1922, and was then fortunate enough to be included in the group that was permitted to leave the Soviet Union to go to Germany.

The family group that traveled to Minsk consisted of the following eleven persons: Maria Elisabeth (Foos) Reichel, widow of Andreas Reichel, who had died in June 1921; her three unmarried children, David, Elisabeth and Eva; her married son Andreas, his wife Eva (Koch) and their two children, Eva and Sophie; Maria Elisabeth's sister-in-law, Eva (Hoffman) Reichel, widow of Peter Reichel, and her son Jakob and daughter Eva.

Four of these died in Minsk: Eva (Koch) Reichel, wife of Andreas, and her two daughters, Eva and Sophie, and Eva (Hoffman) Reichel. The latter's daughter Eva left Minsk to return to Dietel and was never heard from again.

The other six persons were on the train that arrived in Frankfurt on 9 December 1922. They are numbers 129-134 inclusive on the list of refugees. Maria Elisabeth Reichel and her four children left Frankfurt on 23 September 1923 to go to America, arrived in New York on 7 October 1923, and went on to Scottsbluff, Nebraska, where they had relatives. The nephew, Jakob Reichel, was not admissible as a U,S. immigrant because of eye disease and had to stay in Germany.

(This information from Elizabeth Reichel Foos, no. 132 on the refugee list, was sent to us by Mrs. Alma Brunner Gerbitz, Windsor, Colorado.)

The ZITZER FAMILY left the village of Schulz on the Wiesenseite on a cold day in January 1922, was driven to Saratov by sleigh and from there traveled to Minsk on a freight train. They lived in an abandoned school building in Minsk for eight months, before being permitted to leave Russia with the group that arrived in Frankfurt on 9 December 1922.

The family consisted of Jakob Zitzer, his wife Sophie (Weber), and their two sons, Gottfried and Jakob. All of them survived the ordeals of the journey. They are numbers 689-692 inclusive on the refugee list. In October 1923 the family, then increased by a third son, Fred, happily left Frankfurt to go to the United States, where they had relatives in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. They had a stormy trip on the S.S. George Washington from Bremen to New York and on arrival were not permitted to stay because the immigration quota for Russia for the year 1923 was filled. They were sent back to Germany on the S, S. America, and did not finally make it to the United States till June 1925.

(Information supplied by Gottfried Zitzer, no, 691 on the refugee list, and sent to us by Ms. Rosie Utecht, Sheboygan, Wisconsin.)

The IMMIGRATION QUOTA FOR R USSIA, which created problems for the Zitzer family and many others of our people during the 1920's and since then, was a feature of a new restrictive American immigration policy introduced by the Harding administration in 1921. It put immigration from all countries on an annual quota basis. An immigrant had to come in under the quota of the country of his birth, regardless of his ethnic origin. The Russian quota therefore had to accommodate not only ethnic Russians and Ukrainians, but also Germans and Jews from Russia. During the early 1920's the strongest competition for our people for entry to the United States were the Russian Jews, who were clamoring for entry by the thousands. As a result, the German refugees from Russia sometimes had to wait for two or three years to find an opening in the immigration quota. Some of these, even though they had relatives in the United States to whom they wished to go, chose to go to Canada instead, where immigration regulations were less restrictive and where special help for refugees was available through immigrant aid societies sponsored by the churches. An article on this immigration movement to Canada is under preparation and will appear in the Journal.

22

A TRAVELLING REVOLUTIONARY TRIBUNAL OF 1921 Adam Giesinger

An important factor in causing the flight of many German families from their homes on the Volga was a traveling revolutionary tribunal which visited their villages in the early summer of 1921. The purpose of this special court was to mete out punishment to those suspected of having participated in or sympathized with the uprising against Communist rule in the Volga region during March and April 1921.

The uprising was a reaction against the violent requisitioning of grain and livestock in the preceding months, which-left many families destitute and facing death by starvation. Both German colonists and their Russian neighbors rose up against their oppressors, the Communist officials and their local stooges, and killed many of them. At one stage the Wiesenseite territory along the Volga from Brabander in the north to Neukolonie in the south was controlled by the insurgents. Eventually the Red Guards were sent in to suppress the insurrection. The decisive battle took place between Straub and Warenburg. The Volga farmers, armed with only clubs, scythes and pitchforks, held out for eight days against the Red Guards, who had rifles and machine guns. When the end came, all the rebels who could not escape or find a hiding place were mercilessly slaughtered.

When peace had been restored in this fashion, a traveling revolutionary court visited all villages to punish suspected participants in the uprising and other enemies of the regime. Victims were found in every village, but in most cases we have no record as to who they were. For Marienberg, Streckerau and Brunnental we have this information. The following article appeared in Mitteilungblatt der deutschen Arbeiterkommune zu Katharinenstadt (Newssheet of the German Labor Commune at Katharinenstadt). It was brought out of Russia by an individual and was published in the semimonthly Heimkehr in Germany. It read as follows:

"To liquidate banditry, by decision of the Traveling Session of the Battlefied Revolutionary Tribunal, the following persons from the village of Marienberg in the Canton Seelmann, dangerous elements, active participants in the insurrection, leaders of bands and known enemies of the Soviet government, were shot:

1. Johann Jede, son of Franz, age 36 2. Valentin Schell, son of Jakob, 68 3. Jakob Kaiser, son of Jakob, 27 (the parish priest) 4. Heinrich Berg, son of Nikolaus, 68 5. Michael Honeger, son of Michael, 32 6. Johann Schwab, son of Peter, 44 7. Heinrich Schell, son of Heinrich, 42 8. Ignatius Weissbeck, son of Ignatius, 45

Condemned to five years' imprisonment were: 1. Philipp Berg, son of Alexander 2. Ignatius Weissbeck, son of Ignatius 3. Johann Schaefer, son of Heinrich 4. Heinrich Gruenwald, son of Jakob 5. Adam Leonhardt, son of Philipp

Condemned to death conditionally (by shooting) were: 1. Adam Lechmann, son of Johann 2. Georg Lechmann, son of Joseph 3. Peter Berg, son of Jakob

Freed were: 1. Joseph Schmalz, son of Anton 2. Joseph Diel, son of Adam 3. Isidor Kaiser, son of Johannes

From the Colony Streckerau: Condemned to death:

1. Alexander Detzel, son of Michael, age 27 2. Johann Schiller, son of Matthias, 40

23

3. Johann Kessler, son of Johannes, 58 4. KIemens Deckwenz, son of Philipp, 30 5. Georg Wessner, son of Jakob, 50

Condemned to five years* imprisonment: 1. Jakob Kuhn, son of Peter 2. Jakob Lang, son of Johannes 3. Johann Schmidt, son of Johannes

Condemned to death conditionally (by shooting): 1. Valentin Tieser, son of Johann

Condemned to five years' imprisonment conditionally: 1. Heinrich Schmidt. son of Paul 2. Anastasius Detzel, son of Johann 3. Viktor Fischer, son of Christoph

Freed: 1. Georg Wessner, son of Georg

From the Colony Brunnental'. The following were shot: 1. Wilhelm Wacker, son of Heinrich, age 28 2. Friedrich Kuester, son of Konrad, 47 3. Konrad Gruenwald, son of Heinrich, 43 4. Konrad Gruenwald, son of Georg, 61 5. Alexander Schafer, son of Karl, 32 6. Heinrich Koch, son of Heinrich, 62 7. Wilhelm Schauermann, son of Georg, 32 8. Johannes Bier, son of Philipp, 48 9. Johann Gartung, son of Heinrich, 35

10. Heinrich Gartung, son of Johann, 35 11. Konrad Oelenberger, son of Jakob, 40 12. Georg Schauermann, son of Johann, 40 13. Heinrich Wiederspahn, son of Adam, 23 14. Heinrich Stroh, son of Heinrich, 40 15. Heinrich Hardt, son of Heinrich, 37

Condemned to five years' imprisonment were: 1. Johann Becker, son of Jakob 2. Georg Seibel, son of Georg 3. Jakob Weber, son of Jakob 4. Jakob Gruenwald, son of Heinrich 5. Leonhard Seibel, son of Leonhard 6. Daniel Stroh, son of Friedrich

Condemned to death by shooting, conditionally: 1. Johann Seibel, son of Nikolaus 2. Karl Klein, son of Heinrich 3. Konrad Becker, son of Konrad 4. Benjamin Kuester, son of Benjamin 5. Georg Wittenberger, son of Friedrich 6. Jakob Mueller, son of Johann 7. Wilhelm Schmidt, son of Georg

Condemned to five years' imprisonment conditionally: 1. Jakob Borger, son of Helferich 2. Jakob Loebsack, son of Heinrich 3. Alexander Schauermann, son of Heinrich

24

Among the names listed here, it should be noted, are some of the same family names as occur in our refugee lists from those villages. This suggests that they were probably close relatives of the refugees.

Note: The information in this article is taken from pages 60-61 of an article by Dr. Matthias Hagin in Heimatbuch der

Deutschen aus Russland 1973-1981.

Map showing the villages on the Volga Wiesenseite

mentioned in: A Travelling Revolutionary Tribunal.

25

Map Showing Location of Alt-Emilin

26

ALT-EMILIN IN VOLHYNIA John Martin Schoenknecht

In our time, hundreds of German villages in European Russia have disappeared or have been taken over by Ukrainians or Russians. The first to suffer this fate were German villages in Volhynia, from which their inhabitants were deported or fled in 1915. This is the story of the life-span of one such village.

In the years 1875 to 1880, a number of German families then living near Radom in Poland, dissatisfied with their situation there, migrated to undeveloped, marshy land northwest of Lutsk in Volhynia and there founded a small German village, which later received the name Alt-Emilin. The founders of the new village were: Joseph Hartwig, Friedrich Hartwig, Eduard Weber, Friedrich Wagner, Rudolph Pagel, Lorenz Orzechowski, Gottlieb Schoenknecht, Eduard Mueller, Theodor Mueller, Gottfried Pydky, Peter Pydky, Wilhelm Radtke, Julius Fester, and Falke and Gestler (first names not known.)

It is probable that the immigrants came to Volhynia in response to an invitation from a landowner who wanted German farmers to develop his land and offered them favorable terms to become his tenants. Later, it appears, they bought the land. The site they chose for their village was on the Stochod river about ten miles northwest of Rozhishche, just east of the highway connecting Lutsk with Kovel. When they arrived there, the land was marshy and the whole area still a wilderness. Wolves and snakes were numerous, but also wild fowl, as well as fish in the river. These served the settlers as a food supply in the early years. It took much hard work to drain the land and make it productive, but eventually each of the pioneers developed a fertile farm of about 25 acres for himself.

The main crops raised were wheat, barley and rye. Each farm also had a vegetable garden and an orchard, in which plums, apples, peaches and pears were grown. The farm houses were house-barn combinations, in which the people and their livestock were all under the same roof. The houses were built of wood and had a thatched straw roof. The furniture was made by the local carpenter of good hardwood or by the colonist himself using willow wood, which bent easily. In addition to the house, the farmyard usually also had a granary, a tool and wagon shed, and a well.

The colonists raised their own food: pork, milk, butter, cheese, eggs, potatoes, and rye and wheat to be ground into flour at the neighboring mill. Rye bread was the everyday staple, wheat bread being reserved for special occasions. Items that they could not produce themselves were purchased in Milinta, a small Jewish village north of Alt-Emilin. Jewish merchants and tradesmen were numerous all over Volhynia and the German colonists were some of their best customers.

Transportation was primitive. The roads were very poor and the bridges across the rivers very makeshift. Only the stone-surfaced highway connecting Lutsk and Kovel, which lay just west of Alt-Emilin, was fit for travel in rainy weather. Just west of the highway was the railway through that area, which ran southeastward from Kovel through Rozhishche. The nearest railroad station to Alt-Emilin was Prespa, inhabited by Ukrainians and Jews. There was also boat transportation on the Styr river.

Alt-Emilin had no school. Some of the children attended school in a neighboring village, but most of them received their education in their own home, probably very little.

The life of the people centered around religion. The parish center was Rozhishche, where there was a Lutheran church (pictured in AHSGR Work Paper No. 22, Winter 1976, p. 21). Long-time pastor here was Georg Friedrich Kerm. Later, in the early 1920's, the pastor was Rudolf Kersten. In addition to the Lutheran church, which was the first to be built, there was also a Baptist church in Rozhishche. Some of the people of Alt-Emilin joined this church. Both churches were large, able to seat several hundred people. The Alt-Emilin people could not always get to their church in Rozhishche, and in such case held services on one of the farms with a layman leading.

The first world war, which broke out in August 1914, was a fatal disaster for Alt-Emilin, as it was for most other Volhynian German villages. Suspicious that the Volhynian Germans might prove disloyal to Russia when the Austrian and German armies reached their province, the Russian government decided to remove these Germans and transport them eastward to the Ural region and Siberia. With little warning and permitted to take only personal baggage, leaving behind their livestock and their well-equipped farms, just when their crops were ready for harvesting, the Volhynian Germans were forced to leave their homes in the early part of July 1915 and were transported eastward in freight cars. Only a small number of German families in western Volhynia succeeded in escaping the deportation by hiding in the forests.

Among those who eluded deportation successfully were some of the inhabitants of Alt-Emilin. When

27

the Austrian army shortly thereafter reached their area, the escapees left Alt-Emilin to seek a safer wartime haven in East Prussia, where they spent the remaining years of the war. Some of them stayed in East Prussia permanently; others returned to their old village in 1919. There they found complete destruction.

The area between the Stochod and Styr rivers north of Rozhishche was the site of severe fighting between Austrian and Russian armies in 1916. Many villages here were destroyed, among them Alt-Emilin. When the former inhabitants returned in 1919, there were no houses left standing in Alt-Emilin, One farmstead could be recognized only by its well, which was all that remained. All the beautiful fruit trees had been destroyed, There were trenches dug in the fields and the bodies of soldiers had been left there to decay. Poles living in the neighborhood claimed the land and the Germans had to find homes elsewhere. Some of them settled in Novo-Emilm. Others went back to Germany. Some of them went on from there to Canada and the United States. A significant number of them settled in the area of Benton Harbor, Michigan.

The little village of Alt-Emilin was never rebuilt. It had a life of about forty years and then vanished, leaving hardly a trace of its existence. Some of the people born and raised there, however, are still alive and regret the disappearance of their old home.

The dispersion of the people of Alt-Emilin is well illustrated in the history of the writer's family. Among the founders of the village was Gottlieb Schoenknecht, the writer's great-great-grandfather. Born about 1848

near Radom, Poland, he migrated to Volhynia, to Alt-Emilin, about 1875 and died there in 1915, the year the Germans left the village. He therefore lived there for the whole life-span of Alt-Emilin. His direct descendants now live scattered in Russia, Germany, Canada, and the United States.

Michael Schoenknecht, the writer's great-grandfather, son of Gottlieb, born at Radom, Poland^ in 1870, was a small boy when the family migrated to Volhynia. He fled from Alt-Emilin to East Prussia, with his family, in 1915 and never returned. He became a German citizen in 1925 and died in Germany in 1955. We publish herewith two of his documents: his certificate of confirmation at Rozhishche in 1887, and his German citizenship certificate of 1925.

Martin Schoenknecht, the writer's grandfather, the eldest son of Michael, born in Alt-Emilin in 1893, left his native village in 1912 to come to the United States. His two brothers, Daniel and Ernst, went to Germany with their father in 1915 and with him eventually became German citizens. Daniel later, in the 1920's, migrated from East Prussia to Canada. Ernst stayed in Germany and lost his life in the second world war while serving in the German army.

Note: Much of the information about Alt-Emilin and about the Schoenknecht family was obtained by the writer from a first cousin of his grandfather. Otto Orzechowski, who came to the United States in 1952 and now lives in Mauston, Wisconsin,

Michael Schoenknecht, great-grandfather of John M. Schoenknecht.

Martin Schoenknecht and Emily Welch, grandparents of John M. Schoenknecht, on their wedding day, 12 Sept, 1914.

28

^^^^^^H^ ^^'j^^^-r 11.(/ /f

7)cut]d)cs Se«t?, preufien.

(Embur^crungsurfunbe.

^^^^^f^W^ ^^•^w//k-/y^^ ...... %^<û^^^ !6>^^ .lel^rc'n din-^^Ê^y^ l^7' ^ ,^ ^ "^ ' ^ >7"3 ^ /^^M*/^^7-

\^9W€0-^^^.y^^^f^^^^^ yC^cÔ-t^:.. ..., foioit temt 'Elitâu y<^t^€i^'/</ -——_____-_____^——_

0:7 ^./ ^ ^ • " ..•••••-•-•--•-•••------.•.-..--.-- Stborene .^^.^••<w< ....————————————.......... .. un6 fol^tnie oon il?m

(raft c[ter(id?ar ©Wtill (§ 1626 33. (S.-S.) 5<fcÎid) osctttKm Krobel: ^^^/^^ -———.—————ô^n ^W./^^W^^^

^r^^ ^/^.J..^,,.-&;^4

l}dbe» nut &em êilpnuft bee ûsiJdnbigung 6iefer Urfunite &i( Staatsan^SviQfeU in preugen tmrd;

(Einbfirêcung amovbm un& fin6 &amit Deutfdie aetuoctistt.

\.^' 2.

3.

Die (Einburêrung ecftredt fid; nui: auf &ie oocftel?en& aufgefut?cten ;ydmilicticiti3el)5tigcn. ^^ . ben ....^. tin .....<??>%Ê-'',. t9 Dcr prcuBifct^c 2?c0icruiig5prcir^ît. ^'^'

^-

^

^ ^//f.

ni. 52.

30

MY RETURN TO RUSSIA Jacob Hieb, Sr.

In the third installment of his story, which appeared in the Winter 1982 issue of the Journal, Mr. Hieb described his visit to Odessa, during which he carried out the investigation which was the main purpose of his trip to Russia. That mission accomplished, he returned to the ancestral village area to spend the rest of the time available to him among relatives and friends. His description of his visits among these throws much light on conditions in Russia just before Stalin inaugurated his harsh first five-year plan. Many of the people Mr. Hieb visited at this time were shipped off to slave labor camps in the north and east during that five-year period.

IV. Back in the Ancestral Village Area In the railway depot (at Satishye), there was a Jew who asked us whether we wanted a place to stay for the night. Since

this was the only choice we had, we followed him to his house. We found his house to be very small, but there were three or four beds in the place on which one could stretch out. There was very little of a mattress and the quilts were badly torn, but by keeping our clothes on we managed to keep from freezing. We lay there till about half past seven the next morning. Then the man came in and offered us breakfast, which we gladly accepted. He brought us tea, some dark bread and some ripe olives. The tea tasted good, as did the olives, but the bread was rather coarse. The tea was hot and we needed that to get warmed up. We asked for a glass of vodka, but they had none. We had to warm up on the tea.

After breakfast we told our host that we would like to be driven to a small settlement nearby, Dollinger Kutter, where there were three or four German families living. Settlements that had less than ten families were usually called Kutters. Not far from Dollinger Kutter there was a larger settlement of all Russians. We only wanted to stop at Dollinger Kutter for a little while and then continue on to Bergdorf. Eventually the Jew got around with his team and a large wagon, which looked like a small hay wagon. It was lucky for us that it wasn't very cold that morning. I told the Jew that he'd never be able to get us to Bergdorf with that team of horses, but he said he would. It was a distance of about 30 versts (20 miles). We finally got started and had just crossed the railroad track when we ran into a snowbank and got stuck. The Jew tried his best to get out, but I saw that it was hopeless. I suggested to Rev. Herin that he and I get out to push. It took us quite a while to get away but eventually we succeeded. The horses were so poor that they could hardly pull anything, but we managed to get them started again. When we arrived at the Dollinger settlement, only four versts away, we were glad that we had got that far and didn't say anything more about going to Bergdorf. We paid the Jew and suggested to him that he go back and take better care of his horses. Mr. Dollinger promised to take us down to Bergdorf with his own team the next day.

There were not many people in that small village and we saw everything that we wished to see that afternoon. At supper we had a genuine Russian with us, who had come to stay overnight. While we could not say more than a few words to him, he was very pleasant to us.

About half past nine we asked Mr. Dollinger about going to bed early that night, as we hadn't had much sleep over several nights. He therefore made arrangements at once to let us go to our room. He had a fine house, with good large rooms, and was able to provide us with a good bed. I told Rev. Herin that I was very glad that we would be able to get a good night's rest for a change. He and I slept together in one bed. We slept in the center room and next to ours was Mr. Dollinger's room. The Russian who was staying overnight slept in the small room next to the kitchen.

(At this point we are omitting Mr. Hieb's description of an episode involving the Russian guest. This man disturbed the sleeping visitors during the night by sneaking into their room with the apparent intention of stealing their clothing and money. His plan was frustrated by their awakening and he left the house quietly before morning. The visitors decided not to tell their host about the incident, because they thought it would upset him.)

As Mr. Dollinger was ready to take us to Bergdorf, we started out about eight o'clock in the morning. The roads were very rough and traveling in the wagon was very hard on us. When we got to Sacharyevka, we stopped for a little while. There's a government office there and a large Russian church and many Jews live in the town. On our way we passed the large estate that formerly belonged to the Dumann nobleman. It had a fine castle and other good buildings, but most of them have been torn down and the bricks hauled away to be used for something else. Russia has no more use for rich men and so all large buildings have been destroyed to make smaller ones. From now on everything is to be on a small scale, no more rich men with big houses, all are to be alike.

31

German Villages northwest of Odessa

32

After a hard drive we arrived at the village of Bergdorf and I was very glad of it, because my back was beginning to hurt me badly. We stopped at Dr. Jesser's house. On our arrival they made some hot wine for us, of which they have plenty over there, as they have more wine than bread. The reason for this is that they have only 68 acres of land now, where they used to have one or two hundred, and so they put it into something that will bring more income than wheat or corn will. They have therefore planted vineyards and raise grapes to make wine. It takes more work, of course, to plant al! the grape vines, but they can do it because they have nothing else to do, and the vines grow over there like wild flowers. In the last two years, however, wine production has not been profitable. The Russians do not have money to buy wine and so there is hardly any market for it. Instead of getting five or six dollars per vedro (ten gallons), they can now hardly get two dollars. There is no money in the country and the area around these villages is full of wine. The people here therefore have to drink more wine now and eat less bread. I told many of them that it was a good thing they had a lot of wine, because they could take a glass too much occasionally and forget their troubles, of which they had plenty.

Rev. Herin left for Neudorf immediately after our arrival in Bergdorf. I stayed in Bergdorf overnight and was invited to Rev. Schimke's house for supper. He arranged a special supper for that evening, to which he invited all the leading men in his parish, all in honor of the American. Rev. Schimke is a fine gentleman. I heard his sermons twice and consider him an exceptionally good minister. Rev. Frank from the village of Kassel was also present for the supper. It was very late that night when we left the house and I will not easily forget the interesting conversation we had that evening.

The next morning our breakfast was ripe olives, tea and barley bread. I also had a glass of vodka. After breakfast I made a few calls around the village. At Johann Schmidt's house there was quite a company gathered and we had a second breakfast. Wine was handed around pretty freely. I noticed that whenever a man wanted to say something about the new government he looked around first to see who was in the room. If he thought it was safe, he would then go on with his talk. There is no trust at all between the poor and the rich, that is those who were formerly rich. The government took land, horses and cattle from the rich and gave them to the poor. There is therefore ill-feeling between the two groups.

For dinner I was invited to F. Hettig's house, where I met Rev. Schimke again. They told me of their experiences during the revolution and when the new regime was being established. At that time ministers of religion were treated very badly and so were rich men and Hettig was a rich man. Rev. Schimke told us that most of the ministers at that time fled from the country, if they could get away. The rich men did also. But these two (Schimke and Hettig) could not get away and had to hide in the grain-fields for over six weeks, where meals were brought to them once a day. In some villages 10, 15 or 20 of the richer men were arrested and shot down like dogs. After telling me all these horrible stories about the revolutionary period, they drove me out to the cemetery to show me the grave of fifteen men killed at that time. They were well-to-do men not able to get away and were all killed and buried in a single grave. There was a large stone at the end of the grave in which these men were buried.

Later in the afternoon, at four o'clock, I was driven over to the village of Neudorf to my nephew's place. A big crowd of people assembled at Balzer's house that evening. Mr. Knoll from the village of Kassel was one of the men waiting for me there. He told the story of his experiences right after the revolution. He was a very rich man then, living in the village of Kassel. He was arrested on a trumped-up charge and taken to the big jail in the city of Odessa, where thousands were imprisoned. The prisoners were not mistreated and were given good meals, which is something unusual for Russia. The new government had made it law throughout the country that no one was to be shot without a trial. As a rule, however, twenty-five to fifty men were executed every day. They were taken in groups of twenty-five at a time to a courtroom where ten to twelve judges presided. When the soldiers brought them from the jail to the courtroom, most of the prisoners knew that they would have to die. Occasionally two or three of the twenty-five would be freed. Sometimes one of the condemned men jumped up quickly and knocked down one of the judges and killed him with his fists, before anyone could prevent it. The judges, according to Mr. Knoll, were generally kind to the prisoners and offered them cigarettes before condemning them. After the trial they were put into a machine worked by electricity and after it had turned a few times all twenty-five prisoners were dead,

Among the prisoners, who were mostly men, was a beautiful young lady from the Dniester region, the daughter of a leading general, who was also a big landowner. I have forgotten his name. She was a highly educated lady about twenty years old and, according to Mr. Knoll, one of the best singers that he had ever heard in his life. She was arrested for giving a drink of water to Romanian soldiers when they asked for it and was brought to the big jail in the city of Odessa. While she was in the jail she was permitted to go for a few hours every day to sing in the hall of the jail. Her singing affected the hearts of all and when the time came for her to die, all the rest of the prisoners asked for her life to be spared. But she was taken

33

to the courtroom with twenty-four men and no mercy was shown to her. She had to go into the machine and die like the rest of them. After that the prisoners were all excited and quite a bad feeling existed in the jail against the government. Many of the prisoners cried because there was no more singing.

When Mr. Knoll's turn came, he too was called to the courtroom, but a petition had been gathered for him from all the villages of the Black Sea region, telling the government that he was not guilty of any wrongdoing and begging that he not be condemned to death. He was therefore freed,

It was late in the night when the people left my nephew's house. The stories that I had heard from Mr. Knoll about his experiences and about the young lady singer who had to die, bothered me for quite a while before I could get to sleep.

The next morning after breakfast we went to the schoolhouse, where about 300 children were studying. The school was not far away from the Lutheran and Reformed churches and also close to the government building. When we entered a schoolroom the children all rose until the teacher asked them to sit down again. I was surprised at the freedom that the people have regarding the use of their own language in the school. They have to teach half the day in Russian and the other half day in German or whatever their language is. But no religion is allowed in the school. There were three teachers, two Germans and a Russian. As far as I could size up the school and the benefit the children derived from it, it appeared good to me. From there we went over to the government building. Here the government officials welcomed us and showed us around the different offices. One of them, who was a German, explained their work to us and showed us the big radio they had. There was no program on at that time and so I could not hear how it[ worked. The government furnishes a radio in the government building of every village, over which government officials can tell farmers about anything new, how to do things on the farm in a new way, etc. The people of the village are always advised when news from the government will be broadcast and they gather at the government building to hear it. Next to the government building we found a small hospital, a stone building. While it is not very large, having only five rooms, it is neat and clean inside and has three nurses on duty. There were two sick people in it just then.

From there we went over to Mr. Kammerer's house. On arrival, we went to the table for lunch, where some fine wines were served. There were quite a few people there discussing the affairs of the country. During the course of this visit, an old gentleman of 86 years came in and brought me a jar of sheep cheese. The same man had brought me the same kind of cheese on my previous visit in 1894. This old gentleman walked from the small village of Krontal, which is about fifteen versts away, which is ten miles American, He had walked all that way to bring the cheese to me. They have a small flock of sheep in his village and they make cheese out of the milk. When it is cured, it goes to the high-class market and brings the highest price. It is one of the best dishes to serve with wine.

A little later another old gentleman, named Schlepp, who is 81 years old, came in to show me a ticket that he wanted me to examine. It was a ticket sent to him by his sons in Washington state out west. It would take him to Canada, where he could make his home with friends and where his sons could visit him. I told the old gentleman that he was almost too old to go over the big ocean, that he would make good fish fodder. But he laughed and said he felt young enough and ready to go anywhere in the world. I learned that there were a few other people who were leaving the village of Kassel to go to Canada. They have to pay to leave the country, because the Russian government claims that it needs the German farmers to take the lead in farming. The passport fee has therefore been raised from ten to five hundred rubles. Because of this high fee, very few people can get away, unless they get help from their friends in the United States or Canada. I was told that large numbers of the Mennonites in the Molotschna district have migrated to Canada in the last three years. Their friends and Christian brethren over here have raised and brought them over to settle in Canada. There are still some left in the Molotschna area, but now it will take much more money to bring them out than it did two years ago.

The new regime has, of course, promised all the German colonists and the Mennonites a bright future, but what the outcome of that will be in the next few years is hard to say. The climate in Russia is good, very hard to beat. The weather is often the same for a week at a time, especially in the Black Sea region; it is not so changeable as in our country. It is a beautiful country, in which much fruit is raised, especially grapes. Farther south, in the Crimea, they have the finest climate, almost as pleasant as California. All this country needs is a good government.

It was getting late by now and Balzer's team was waiting for me outside to take me home to his house, When I arrived there, it was already getting dark and they had supper ready for me. I told my nephew then that I had eaten only one meal that day and that from morning till night, eating all the time.

That night I looked at my passport and saw that it was high time for us to think about getting started 34

for home. We had to get out of Russia before our passport expired or we'd be in trouble. I therefore made plans that night to go to Glueckstal the next morning, where my companion from America, John Kessler, was with his father. We started early the following morning, around seven o'clock. The weather was not so very cold that morning but the road was frozen hard and traveling on the wagon was very rough and hard on the back. When we arrived at Mr. Kessler's house, we found John at home and talking to a big crowd of people gathered in the room. I told him to get ready, as we had to go to Grigoriopol for our periodic report and also to report that we were leaving Russia in a few days. It took a little while, however, before we could get away, as we had to have a lunch first and some of that red wine. The road was bad all the way to Grigoriopol. We would have given anything to have a wagon with springs for a little while.

When we arrived in Grigoriopol, we asked to be driven up to the government building, so that we wouldn't be surrounded again by Moldavians, as we were the last time we were there. When we entered the building, the official was again very kind to us. We had taken our caps off and he told us to put them on again. We told him we wanted to leave Russia in a few days and asked him to make a note of it in our passports. It was the rule that one had to go to a higher office in Balta or in Odessa to get a visa to leave the country. It was more convenient for us to go to Balta rather than Odessa, because Balta was in our direction out of Russia. The official at Grigoriopol told us that we didn't have to go to Balta, but could go direct to Kiev and get the visa there. Since this would save us two days of time, we decided to take his advice.

After he had fixed up our passports, the officer asked us many questions about America, which we answered as best we could. We told him that Americans would not like to work under a system such as they have in Russia, where they divide up property every once in awhile. When a man has worked himself ahead a few hundred dollars or has a hundred or two more bushels of wheat than his neighbor, it would never do for our government to take it away from the one who has more and give it to the other. We believe that it is best that we compete with each other and that each man keeps for himself what he earns. "Well," said the officer, "you have your idea and we have ours." We were afraid to discuss politics too deeply with him, as it might get us into trouble. We therefore said goodbye.

We wanted to change a couple of small travelers' checks for Russian currency at a small bank in Grigoriopol, but they would not cash them for us. We had to put it off until we got to the city of Kiev later. From the bank we went to the Moldavian house to have our dinner, the same place at which I had been once before. We were soon surrounded by Moldavians, who were curious about Americans. An interpreter told us that these people had heard a lot about Americans, but had never seen any. We asked him how the Moldavians lived at home. He said that they do not eat many potatoes, that their main food is wine and corn meal mush. They are not great meat eaters. They are easily satisfied. As long as they have corn meal in the house, they are happy. They raise their own wine and that's about all they do. They are an easy-going people, but healthy and strong. They don't drink as much vodka as the Russians; their drink is wine. They were very friendly towards us, much more so than the Russians.

When we entered the Moldavian house, they soon had some vegetable soup ready for us, which they called borsht, and also brought us some wine and barley bread. They also had corn bread, but made with no sugar in it, because sugar is too expensive for them. Each meal cost us 35 kopeks, including the wine.

To return to Glueckstal we went by way of Klein-Bergdorf, which was not really out of our way. As we left Grigoriopol we again saw the very old pyramids that I mentioned before. We must have passed at least six or seven of them, of which two were very large. As I said before, we used to call them cannon hills, but in recent years it has been discovered that they are burial places of people who lived probably a thousand or more years ago. When we reached Klein-Bergdorf, we stopped at Mr. Kammerer's house for about an hour. During our conversation I asked Mr. Kammerer again about the pyramids. He told me that one of them had been opened up a few years ago, and human skeletons, kettles, drinking cups and many ornaments were found. These had been taken by the government and were probably in a museum somewhere now.

After a small lunch we left for Gluetkstal, my companion's home village. I myself wanted to continue my trip with my driver right on to Neudorf, but Grandpa Kessler would not let me go. He said that they were going to have a little party that evening and he wanted me to stay with his son. I agreed to stay overnight. There were quite a few people gathered in the west room, as most of them knew that this was going to be my last time at their village. We were kept very busy talking. About seven o'clock in the evening we were called over into the east room and, to our surprise, old Grandpa Kessler and his children and friends had prepared quite a feast for us.

There were three large, long tables in the room, loaded with all kinds of food and three kinds of wine, a red, a black and a white, all of them raised around the village. My companion and I were asked to go and take the two front seats and then all the friends seated themselves around the tables. After the minister

35

Reformed Church in Neudorf.

Lutheran Church in Neudorf.

Baptist Church in Neudorf.

(From: Die Kirchen und das religiose Leben der Russland-deutschen, Evangelischer Teil, by Joseph Schnurr, pp. 348, 347, 349).

36

arrived and said a prayer, a large meal was served. While we were at table, the children entertained us with recitations, a quartette of young ladies sang songs, and so on, till two o'clock in the morning. All this entertainment was for the Americans and was a pleasant surprise to us. In the morning I had to hurry up to leave for Neudorf, as I had many things to arrange yet and had only a day and a night left. I therefore left my companion, who was to meet me at Neudorf the next morning, which was Sunday.

When I arrived at Neudorf, my friends had many things planned to entertain me, because they knew that I would be leaving Sunday morning for the trip home. The Baptist church, which I had not yet visited, invited me to a special service that forenoon, which I attended. There are three churches in Neudorf, Lutheran, Reformed and Baptist. The Baptists have a nice church, a one-story building. There was a large congregation in attendance, every seat being taken up. After the service they had a well-arranged singing program which lasted quite a while. A ladies quartette sang particularly well.

In the afternoon I was invited out to a private family party and in the evening there was a surprise party for me at my nephew Balzer's house, with much entertainment. The Reformed teacher was there with his pupils, also the Lutheran teacher. After that there was a large group of young ladies who provided a singing program. The singing and the speeches lasted till eleven o'clock at night.

I must say that these people showed much good will for America. They have not forgotten the help they received after the war, in money, food and clothing, especially in 1923, when conditions were so bad for them. I found this to be true all over the German villages in South Russia. They have a very high opinion of their friends over here and have not forgotten what these did for them during the hard times over there. Even in their present poverty they do all that they possibly can for any American visitor.

It was late when I retired that night. Thinking about the entertainment and the speeches by Rev. Ahl and Rev. Herin kept me awake for a while. I was too excited to sleep well that night. This wasn't the first time, for I had lain awake many nights worrying about what might happen before morning. Only a short time ago, a man was taken from the village of Kassel at one o'clock at night and taken to the jail in Odessa, because he had said a few words against the government. We have to realize that this is a new regime and that it is sitting on a powder keg. This is the reason why they are so hard on those who speak against them. It is difficult for a foreigner to go into Russia and talk all day among hundreds of people without saying something against the government. You don't think about it at the time, but when you go to bed at night you remember it and you worry that they might come after you for it. This was no pleasure for me while I was in Russia and I didn't drink enough wine to forget such troubles, although I had the chance to do it every day.

On Sunday morning I wanted to get started early for our trip, because we had to stop for an hour in Bergdorf to say goodbye to our friends there. We hoped to get away from Neudorf early in the morning so that there wouldn't be too many people around and we wouldn't have too much excitement leaving the village. I got up at six o'clock and had breakfast and my companion, Mr. Kessler, arrived at our place about seven o'clock, but by that time the yard and the house were filled with people. To shake hands with all of them would have taken me till noon. but we needed all day to get to the railway station, if we didn't want to be overtaken by night, which would have been a danger to us. We therefore shook hands with those nearest to us, those within reach, and stood on the sleigh to wave goodbye to all. I shall never forget leaving Neudorf on that occasion, as everybody was in tears. But we broke loose and everybody shouted after us: "Give our greetings to our friends in America," "thanks for the help after the war and the revolution."

Two sleighs, with some of my friends on them, followed us to Bergdorf. Arrived there, we drove up to Dr. Jesser's house and found a large crowd waiting for us. We only wanted to say goodbye and not get off the sleigh, as we didn't have much time to spare, but they over-ruled us. We had to go into the house, where a second breakfast had been prepared for us. Some of the ladies sang songs for us and Rev. Schimke made a speech of praise. They had plans for a longer program, but we had to go. Otherwise we would not get to the station in daylight. We therefore said goodbye to everybody and left. For some time we could still hear them shouting after us: "Good luck to you and many thanks for the good work you did for us during the hard times." As we passed through the streets of the village, many people stood in front of their yards and waved goodbye, until we passed the last house.

(To be continued)

37

^ .. . . OUglowoje CTTschistOJe prorasowa

o . Neu.Prischit? o OTiege o 0 -, Nikolskij ,. .0 , D..;0?,,.. ,, N'Kolflifeldo Wo)ts*ijRokir Opodsosnowhi ScHSâl Re.^l^ Ai«aêê^^^

Nikolaipol ^^'ôNikotoidor^ 0 o . , A Schoiisee OtMmenfal ^.WR< Q o -^,, § ^^^

K.n.^,,n.^ Ho^J0""11'"" Or..., , 0 o ^ "SchowaM

Sdiumanowka iiiui—Mflrf- -*, ., 0 .. , ., Blutnenorr 0 Alexflndrowko ORoseiihof

Qnadenheim 'Etun/etd Kle^Kto 0 Olg^lflP ®Fneden/e(d

ri ® LiebeMtaF Heidelberg OReidieMfetd

AtexatiderttrOM, ... ,. . .. Q OMatbstadt-

Oofe«K*i MarKowha y120 ——. - . 0 o 0 -SahOMfeld

German Settlement Area Northeast of Slavgorod

Alexanderheim

Friedensfeld ^

Relnfeld.^^^"^ Nadarovka, ^\ MUoradovka

/ Rosovka

PAVLODAR

Blumental w! SchOnwiese/.* /

^^'^.^-Al^^^ .- , ._. ./•GnadenhelB / Alexanderkron <âtadt /

Ji^chflnfeld •Karatal

Sna.'nenka

\ / Ananyevka ^\ « /

Grigoryevka \ ^ Harkovka

Yekaterinovlta

Helmut Anger's Tour Through the Slavgorod Region in 1926.

38

VILLAGES IN WHICH OUR FOREFATHERS LIVED German Villages in the Slavgorod Region in Siberia

Adam Giesinger

Next to the settlements in the Omsk region, described in the Winter 1982 issue of the Journal, the most numerous pre-1914 German settlements in Asiatic Russia were on the so-called Kulunda Steppe, the region southwest, northeast and east of the present city of Slavgorod. The settlements here were nearly all founded in the years 1907-1912, somewhat later than those at Omsk, and were settled mainly by Black Sea rather than Volga Germans. The largest group among them were Mennonites, but there were also Lutherans and Catholics.

Most of the Germans who migrated to this area were attracted by the special privileges accorded to the settlers by the "Russian government in an enactment of 1906. In addition to free land, 15 dessiatines per male "soul", the migrants from European Russia were offered cheap transportation to the new settlement area, freedom from taxation for five years, interest-free loans to get established, and even postponement of their military service obligation, Landseekers, Russians as well as Germans, from all parts of European Russia now flocked to Siberia to find suitable agricultural land. The largest single group to come to the Slavgorod region were Mennonites from the Sagradovka settlement on the Inguletz river. Under the leadership of the former long-time Oberschulz of Sagradovka, Jakob Reimer, they founded, in 1908-1909, seventeen villages on 21,645 dessiatines of land northeast of what is now the city of Slavgorod.' The Sagradovka group were joined by other Mennonites from the old colonies in southern Russia, who settled among them, as well as elsewhere in the Slavgorod-Pavlodar region. At the same time Lutherans and Catholics came from the Prischib colonies north of the Sea of Azov to found several villages near the Sagradovka Mennonites: Heidelberg, Olgafeld, Reichenfeld, Hochstaedt, Neu-Prischib, Nikolaifeld, Alexanderheim and Blumental. To this district there came also Volga German Lutherans, who founded Podsosnovka, which was the largest German village in this region in 1926, and Kamyshenka and Woltshy Rakit. Konstantinovka, originally called Zimmertal, appears to have been founded by Catholics from the Odessa region2; and it seems probable, from the name, that the founders of Liebental came from there also. There thus grew up, around the Sagradovka Mennonites as a core, an almost closed German area of about fifty villages, the largest completely German area in Siberia. At least an equal number of German villages were founded at the same time elsewhere in the region, scattered over the areas east, south and southwest of Slavgorod, stretching all the way to Pavlodar.

The German scholar, Helmut Anger, whose 1926 visit to the German colonies in the Omsk region we described in our last issue, subsequently also made a two-week tour through the Slavgorod region, during which he saw many of the German villages.3 From Omsk it was a two-day trip up the Irtysh to Pavlodar. Arrived there, Anger found that there was only twice-weekly train service to Slavgorod. He managed, however, to get a ride with three Mennonite farmers and their Kirghiz coachman, who were going to the Mennonite village of Nadarovka, about halfway to Slavgorod. On the way they spent the first night in a large Russian village, the next day drove through the Mennonite village of Rosovka (population 320), and before evening arrived at Nadarovka. This village, founded in 1907, had 33 farmyards and a population of 270. The people were unhappy with the Soviet regime and were talking about emigration. The next day Anger found transpor-tation on to Reinfeld, a Mennonite village with 246 people. Only three versts away was Miloradovka, with 185 people. Both of these villages were founded in 1907 by Black Sea Mennonites. On the following day the mayor of Reinfeld was setting out on a trip to Slavgorod and offered Anger a ride. They stopped overnight at the Mennonite village of Sabarovka (population 153), the next day drove through the Mennonite village of Friedensfeld (population 204), and eventually arrived in Slavgorod.

Anger remarks about the Mennonite villages through which he traveled on his tour, that they were all alike and easy to distinguish from other German and from Russian villages. They all had just one long street, lined with trees. Their houses were generally larger and better than those in other villages and had other farm buildings under the same roof. There were always good gardens, with vegetables and flowers. The villages were relatively small; of the 57 Mennonite villages in the Slavgorod region none had more than 500 inhabitants.

The city of Slavgorod is relatively young, founded in 1912. It lies on the open steppe on a branch line which connects Semipalatinsk with the Trans-Siberian railway at Tatarsk. In 1926 it had a population of 17,686. The Germans in the surrounding region have played a large role in the development of its commercial life.

Before continuing his tour of the German villages. Anger gathered statistics about them in Slavgorod from the German section of the communist party and from the local Mennonite organization. He then hired

39

a Russian driver to take him to the Mennonite village of Saratovka, founded in 1912 and with a population of 325 in 1926. Its people were planning to emigrate to Canada. On the following day the Russian drove him on to the Mennonite village of Grigoryevka, near which there were three other Mennonite villages: Ananyevka, Markovka and Yekaterinovka. The four villages had all been founded in 1912, now had a total population of 733, and were very poor, the poorest of the Mennonite villages that Anger saw on his tour.

From Grigoryevka, Anger traveled northward to the German Catholic village of London, founded in 1912 by people from the Black Sea region. It had a population of 324 in 1926 and appeared poorer than any Mennonite or Lutheran village that Anger visited. All its houses were built of clay. The neighboring Catholic village of Hochheim, founded in 1914, with 267 people in 1926, appeared to be even poorer. During his visit in these villages, Anger attended the funeral of the teacher in London, at which the religious service was conducted by a layman.

The following day, the mayor of London drove the visitor northward along the shores of Lake Kulunda and late in the evening they arrived at the large Russian village of Snamenka, a local government center. Before sunrise they left again and continued northward to the Catholic village of Alexanderheim. This village was founded in 1908 and in 1926 had 240 people. The dialect spoken here closely resembled that of London and Hochheim. The village appeared, however, to be somewhat more prosperous than these.

From Alexanderheim, on a bright and fresh September morning, Anger traveled southward, past the Catholic village of Blumental (population 192), founded in 1908, through the Mennonite village of Schoenwiese (population 359), to the Mennonite government center Orlov (population 254), also founded 1908. This village had a hospital, not in use at that time, and a school, which was closed because there was no teacher, although one was expected shortly. While here, Anger spent an afternoon visiting the neighboring Mennonite villages of Schoensee (population 162) and Nikolaidorf (population 234), The next day he went on to the relatively prosperous-looking Mennonite village of Alexandrovka (population 281), where there is a steam-powered flour mill, now taken over by the state, and then in the afternoon on to Ebenfeld (population 301), where he stayed overnight with the village mayor, rather a poor man. From there he went to the Mennonite village of Gnadenheim (population 270), from which a Gnadenheim farmer, who condemned politics and war as works of the evil one, drove him on to Halbstadt (population 451).

Halbstadt, the largest of the Mennonite villages in this region, stood out from the rest because of its large steam-powered flour mill, to which all farmers in the neighboring villages brought their grain to be ground into flour. According to a rumor then current here, Halbstadt was to become the center of a German National District (Deutscher Rayon) to be established in this region shortly. The local farmers were opposed to this idea because they preferred to be ruled by Russian Communists rather than by the German party members in Slavgorod, who would be in power when there was a German District. These German party members were hated because they had been exceptionally cruel during the revolutionary era.

The attitude of the Mennonites toward Communists from Germany, which many of the commissars in German areas were, is illustrated in Anger's account of his reception by the Mennonite mayor of Halbstadt. When Anger asked him regarding a place to stay for the night, he recommended the mill, where there were "other Communists". Although Anger assured him that he was not a Communist and would prefer to stay with an ordinary farmer, the mayor persisted, telling him that at the mill there was a German from Berlin who would be interested in the visitor. When Anger went to the mill, he discovered that this Deutschlaender was an embittered German Communist, who had come to Russia as a refugee after revolutionary activity in Germany, Austria and Rumania. Now in a position of power in this area, he treated the local Germans very harshly and was hated by them.

The last day of his tour took Anger through the Mennonite village of Alexanderkron (population 296); through Schoenfeld (population 356), the oldest German village in this region, founded in 1890 by Lutherans and Catholics; through the Mennonite village of Karatal (population 265) and two Russian villages; and by evening back to Slavgorod. Thus ended the two-week tour, during which the visitor saw about twenty-five German villages in this region, the majority of them inhabited by Mennonites.

Pastor JakobStach4 quotes a report of 1927 from Slavgorod, which appeared in Das Neue Dorf, a Communist newspaper then published three times a week in Kharkov in the Ukraine:

"At the moment there is feverish activity here in connection with the organizational work of setting up a German District, This new government unit is to have its center in Halbstadt, about 35 versts north of Slavgorod, and is to begin operation on October 1.

Halbstadt lies in a central position among the German villages and has electric light, which the majority of the surrounding villages does not have.

40

In addition, it has a large, nationalized steam-powered flour mill, as well as co-operative and credit societies and other facilities. Unfortunately it does not yet have a first class school, but this will soon come into being. The territory of the new district will include that of four former volosts.

This German district is again a progressive step, which should be welcomed by all. It will be of great benefit especially to those who do not have command of the Russian language, of which there are many among the women and the younger generation. On the main road on which Halbstadt lies, there are within a distance of 55 versts thirteen German villages, with no village of any other nationality between them.'*

The German National District in the Slavgorod region, discussed here and also mentioned by Anger, did come into being and remained in existence till 1938.5

Soon after the formation of this new German district, Stalin's first Five-Year Plan for the industrialization of Russia and the accompanying drive to collectivize agriculture were initiated with a great propaganda campaign at home and abroad — and with a cruelty beyond imagining to whip recalcitrants into line. Without warning, the more affluent farmers (called kulaks} were thrown out of their homes and deprived of their property, which was handed over to new-born collective farms, while they themselves, particularly the men, were taken away to slave labor camps. High taxation of private farmers and ruthless requisitioning of their farm produce forced the less affluent to join the collectives. The passive resistance to this policy was general and produced turmoil and chaos in all agricultural areas of Russia, not least among the German colonists.6

The individualistic German farmers everywhere in Russia, probably more than any other group, in spite of all the pressures, persisted for months in their opposition to collectivization. Only the most extreme measures of the Stalin regime, arrests of tens of thousands, imprisonments, deportations to slave labor camps, eventually broke the wills of these stubborn Germans. Strangely enough, it was not the old colonists in European Russia, but a group of Mennonites from the Slavgorod region in Siberia, who initiated a movement that first brought the then plight of the Russian Germans to world attention.7

Although Slavgorod was far away from the center of things, the long arm of Stalinism was as harsh here as in European Russia. The liquidation of kulaks, the pressures on all to join the collectives and the grain requisitioning were as ruthless in the Slavgorod region as they were elsewhere. In addition, the situation here was aggravated by a poor crop in the summer of 1929. Utterly frustrated by the harsh impositions in the economic sphere and very concerned about the anti-religious measures that were being pushed at the same time, many Mennonite families of the Slavgorod region sold their belongings at give-away prices and traveled to Moscow to ask for emigration visas. Arrived in the capital early in October 1929, they found temporary living accommodation in the suburbs, while they waited for the exit visas they hoped to receive. News of this movement spread rapidly. Soon all trains heading for Moscow were bringing would-be emigrants from other German settlement areas in Russia: Omsk, Novosibirsk, Pavlodar, Orenburg, the Crimea, the North Caucasus and the Ukraine. Eventually the Soviets took drastic measures to stop the movement. But by that time there were twenty to thirty thousand Germans assembled in the suburbs of Moscow. Because the German embassy took an interest in their fate and their situation received worldwide publicity through the foreign press, the Soviets had to make a show of liberality. A fraction of the refugees, about 5700 persons, were given exit visas and permitted to go to Germany; the rest were loaded on freight cars and shipped eastward, some to their former homes, many to slave labor camps. Those fortunate enough to escape to Germany were later settled in Brazil, Paraguay and Canada. Otto Auhagen, then an official at the German embassy in Moscow, who took a special interest in these German refugees of 1929, has written the most complete description of the events connected with this movement.8

Notes:

1. Gerhard Lohrenz, Sagradowka, (Rosthern, Sask., Canada: Echo Verlag 1947), pp. 88-89. 2. There is recent information about this village in: "An Interview with Lydia Kretz" in AHSGR Journal, Vol. 3, No. 1

(Spring 1980), pp. 46-49. 3. Helmut Anger, Die Deutschen in Sibirien, (Berlin: Ost-Europa Verlag, 1930), pp. 29-49. (GR-555 in AHSGR

Archives) 4. Jakob Stach, Das Deutschtum in Sibirien, Mittelasien und dem Fernen Osten, (Stuttgart: Auslands-Institut 1938),

p. 157. 5. M. Buchsweiler, "Deutsche Landkreise (Rayons) und deutsche Kreiszeitungen in der UdSSR" in Osteuropa (Stuttgart:

Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Osteuropakunde), 1982, p. 675. (GR-1345 in AHSGR Archives)

41

6. There is a vivid description of the terrors of the collectivization period in: Eugene Lyons, Assignment in Utopia, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1937), pp. 272-292. (GR-195 in AHSGR Archives)

7. The Slavgorod Mennonites were the vanguard of the group described by Lyons, pp. 272-274. 8. Otto Auhagen, "RusslanddeutscheBauernaufderWanderung" in Der Auslanddeutsche, 1929, pp. 776-777, 822-823;

1930, 76-77, 292-294, 810-811. (OR-812 in AHSGR Archives) Later, this and some additional information appeared in a book: Otto Auhagen, Die Schicksalswende des Russland-deutschen Bauerntums in den Jahren 1927-1930, (Leipzig: Verlag Hirzel, 1942). (GR-490 in AHSGR Archives)

The German Settlements in the Omsk and Slavgorod Regions (1926)

42

AUS HEIMAT UND LEBEN: ABOUT MY LIFE AND HOMELAND

David Weigum Translated by Leona Pfeifer

The following is the seventh installment of the reminiscences of Pastor David Weigum, describing his boyhood in Ludwigstal, a small German village on the Crimean steppes in the 1880 's. This part of the story begins with a visit to the nearest railway station, Kurman-Kemeltschi, about ten miles from the village, to which the farmers of Ludwigstal, after harvest, hauled the grain they had for sale.

For a long time we had spoken and dreamed about this trip; now it had become a reality, the most attractive and ardently awaited. Now, boy, open your eyes wide, if you want to see everything, a colorful piece of the great wide world. Slowly we drove through the wide streets, which were really just open areas. Along these streets were the sales booths with all the things that the farmer needs, all designed to entice him to spend his money. At this time of year it was often difficult to find a path, through the many loaded and empty vehicles of all kinds, to the grain merchant's storehouse. After one arrived, there was often a long wait before one could drive up and unload. Before the unloading, an employee, the Prikashthik, punctured several sacks with a pointed hollow instrument and let some test grain roll into a bowl. These test portions were then weighed with a special fine scale for their specific weight and from this weight along with the color of the grain the price was determined. At the unloading, only a few sacks had to be placed on the large scale. The others were emptied onto the large pile and their weight was accepted in good faith. The buyer took father's word for it, when he told him how many pods he had brought. Admittedly, there were even at that time some Germans about whom one could not say that they were as good as their word, which the Jews and Russians used to call "the German word". The grain buyers knew their people and treated them accordingly. With few exceptions the German word at that time had good repute; trust and faith carried a lot of weight.

After all the grain was unloaded and father had his receipt, he liked to unhitch in front of the Lavka (store) where he made most of his purchases. From here we could always keep our eyes on our wagons and the property on them. At such a gathering point for all the surrounding villages, there were always numerous thieves of a variety of languages who liked to "buy cheaply," While father and mother (when she accompanied us) — no, I can't recall a single instance of mother coming along when grain was being hauled — while father, therefore, was finishing his business at the Kontor, which is what we called the grain buyer's office, we children first ran over to the railway station. On the way we had to pass between two whitewashed two-story houses. Here we couldn't help but stop and look up in amazement at people sitting up there on the wall behind an iron grating drinking tea! But oh the shining rails and the many cars on them, on all-iron wheels, and beyond all the locomotive! Whenever we could, we climbed the steps of a car and imagined the ecstasy of being on our way out into the world. To be sure, we were full of fear in this situation that the train could suddenly drive off with us on it, and then we would be lost. Along the long railway platform there was a long row of lanterns. How bright it must have been there in the evenings! And next to the door the bell which determined whether or not a train was permitted to depart! To hear this sound, for the first time when the train had just left the station before this one, that was an experience! After half an hour we saw it approaching from the distance, getting ever closer. Then it stopped. Oh, what a flow of life then began, a coming out and a going m, up and down! The machine then went to the water tower and drank and drank through a large pipe an infinite amount of water into itself. And that was no surprise. It must have been enormously thirsty, in view of that hellish fire inside its body. Now the bell rang again and once more, and the tram moved on, faster and faster, until only a cloud of smoke and the rails indicated in what direction it, with the strange and colorful life in it, had disappeared.

As soon as the activity had subsided again, we turned out attention to the mussel shells along the railway embankment and searched for the most beautiful for ourselves. The people at home were to be amazed at all the things we had seen and brought along! On the steppe around us far and wide there were no stones and no sand. If we only had something like this at home!

Then we went to the booth with father. He had various items to buy for mother. Our desires were for Kern (sunflower seeds) to "jaw" and candy. We knew exactly what was in this or that colorful paper. At that time good candy came in poor paper. Later the paper was much more beautiful and better, but in exchange the contents were poorer, A silver 20-kopeck coin sufficed to buy a small can of Halwa, we called it Elwa, or a pound, if it was cut from a large piece. We preferred Halwa to all the other sweets. It was a Turkish delicacy that could be had only in the cooler seasons of the year. In the summer it would have

43

melted. I assume it was made of sugar and nuts. One could not eat much of it. Before father hitched up (to go home), we were permitted to go to the Busakerl. He was usually a Greek who sold

Busa, an almost alcohol-free drink made from millet. During the summer it was kept on ice in bottles and tasted delicious to anyone who liked a thick flowing drink. A fresh Franzoli (French roll) or a Kringel (ring shaped roll) was eaten with it. Then we sat on the straw in the wagon box or on a bundle of sacks from the grain buyer and had to suffer much shaking and jolting on the way home, on a road full of holes and with deep dust. If the rear wind was not strong enough, the dust was torture for both the horses and the humans. For at this time of year many hundreds of wagons drove to the railroad station, day and night. The roads could therefore not remain in good condition.

Such a railway station was like an army camp. But everything centered around wheat, again and again. Wheat provided life for all: the farmer, the grain buyer, the grocer, everyone. This was especially noticeable in a poor year, when little or no wheat could be sold. Whether the wheat buyers ever really suffered at such times I doubt. For then they acquired money instead by making advances to farmers for which they charged high interest rates. In addition, the borrowers had to obligate themselves to deliver their next crop to the lender. The market price, it is true, was agreed upon in writing, but the wheat buyers knew how to make the deal advantageous to themselves. They were Jews. Woe to the farmer who became too heavily dependent on them! When there was a good crop, the dealers' storage space was quite insufficient, and the railway on its part could not remove the wheat and transport it to the harbor quickly enough. There were therefore often long and high piles of sacks of wheat along the tracks under the open sky. In case of rain, which fortunately seldom happened, one had to try to cover them with canvas.

This is the way that the grain was transported to Kurman quite regularly every two or three days. Before the Sevastopol railway was built, the farmers had to haul their grain to the harbor cities far, very far away. Before the construction of the railroad, it is true, very little wheat was grown on the steppe. It was the railroad Chat first enticed the Germans from the mother colonies out to the steppe. That was when the wheat era for the steppe first began.

Hauling grain was already part of the fall work. The fields slowly became emptier and more desolate. The watermelon fields were cleared off. Fall winds blew across the stubble while the corn, the last crop, was taken off and brought in. If rain came, the fields turned green again. Now the free-roaming herds could be seen distinctly under the clear skies. There was no need to guard them and the services of a herdsman were no longer needed. He had been paid off and had retired to his winter quarters. As long as I can remember, the herdsman was a tall, strong, older Greek. His size and strength made him the right man for his job. A shotgun over his shoulder and a good whip at the pommel were his equipment. He roamed through his large territory, day and night, on a small nimble horse. His legs almost touched the ground. When he returned in the spring, he always brought with him another and remarkably, always a small horse, unsightly and skinny. But he paid no attention to that; the important thing for him was good and healthy legs. After a few weeks, horse and rider were hardly recognizable. Both had gained much weight: the man at the rich German table and the pony at the oats manger and out in the pasture. The pony by now had also acquired a good ambling gait, like that of a camel, in which the animal paces with both legs on one side at the same time. It's a gait like a quick walk, waddling, much less strenuous for the rider. For the animal itself it is laborious, unless it is inborn, as it sometimes is for a horse. The Greek managed to teach this gait to every one of his little horses, which brought him good money when he sold them in the fall, for horses with the ambling gait found many fanciers among rich people and were well paid for. The man had plenty of time in his job to practice such arts. He took good care of his horses and himself without neglecting his duties. When we waited for him in vain one spring, probably no one in the village knew why he didn't return or where he had gone. He seemed to be a quiet man. I cannot remember ever seeing him drunk.

I have many pleasant memories connected with corn. It was not extensively cultivated during my time, only enough for one's own use, primarily to fatten pigs. For us the fun of corn harvest started when it was being hauled off the field. The ears had been broken from the stalks and lay in piles all over the field, mostly in the middle furrows. From these piles, wagonload after wagonload was brought home. And, on top of the load, whenever possible, we children sat and husked corn during the trip. Oh, how the wind played with the husks! They flew far out over the steppe. If we happened to meet other wagons, a race readily resulted and there was always a more or less serious corn battle. We pelted each other with the small underdeveloped ears. These didn't hurt so much when they hit and were not missed in the pile later. At home the corn was usually thrown into a corner of a shed or barn. Those who had time husked immediately, but most piles remained untouched for some time. Then in the evenings the whole family sat around the pile. After some time father and mother retired to bed and the young people worked alone till late into the night. Sometimes two neighbors worked together and husked at one place one evening and at the neighbor's

44

the next evening. Somewhere, possibly on the corn pile itself, a light burned so that one could distinguish between the red and the

yellow ears. That was enough. Or possibly, so that one could tell the difference also between the beautiful and the not so beautiful ears. On the beautiful fully matured ears, some of the inner tender leaves were left. Using these, one then tied several ears together in a bunch and hung them in a granary. These ears provided the seed for the following year. The second grade were all other properly formed and matured ears, which were dried as they were needed as fodder or to be ground into flour. With this cornflower mother baked a good Malai, a thin cake with pieces of bacon in it. The third and poorest grade were the culls, which were fed to the pigs. So the ears constantly flew from all sides to the three piles. Or they were husked into three baskets, which had to be emptied repeatedly.

Who will be the first to find a red one? This was an inducement to more energetic effort. Hands moved rapidly then. Soon cavities developed in front of us. Then we could remain in the warm nest a while longer, until the husks had been removed from the ears which had fallen around us. Finally, however, it became necessary to advance, i.e. to follow the receding pile of ears. To do this we had to work our way out of the pile of husks in which we sat, nice and warm, as in a nest. The warmth was treasured because the fall air had already become quite cool. If we had not been able to sit snugly in the still damp leaves, which became warmer on the pile, we could not have sat and worked late into the night.

Many a song, German and Russian, was sung by this mixed company and there were always some in the group who could tell a variety of stories. Ghost stories played a major role. Certainly such a group often remained together so late because no one had the courage to be the first to get up and go through the darkness into the house or across the street or around the corner to go home. Because out there, especially around the corners of the house, there lived and moved those very ghosts that had just been discussed. We wanted to scare others, but in the process became frightened ourselves. That's how we children acquired fear. And it took such a long time to rid ourselves of it again! It was more than an instinctive fear of darkness. We learned to see ghosts. The young souls became saturated with fear and could not rid themselves of it for a long time.

At the end of the corn husking late at night there was a watermelon feed. The most beautiful melons were picked out for this. Now one could bring them down from the pile of wheat in the granary, where they were well stored. At this time of the year, it is true, the winter melons, of which one or another was already ripe and deliciously sweet and good-tasting, were almost better than the watermelons. Under the coarse, cracked rind there was usually a yellow-green flesh that satisfied even the most pampered palate.

Mother pursued one other special aim at husking time. That is why she preferred to be there herself. The tenderest, almost silky-soft inner leaves which were around the ear had to be laid aside. With these, after they had been well dried, all mattresses, beginning with that of the parents, were filled, that is, to the extent that the leaves lasted out. We also slept well on ordinary straw mattresses, which could be refilled as often as one desired. Into the freshly filled corn-leaf mattress one sank so pleasantly the first few nights and there was such a delicate rustling under the coarse linen, when one made even the slightest movement.

The mattress of the parental bed had besides to provide mother with a substitute for a locked and inaccessible drawer, as we grew older. The oldest family trunk, with colorful flowers painted on a bluish background, was soon not adequate. Mother had no place that was utterly inaccessible for us children. Father actually had none either. Such a place was certainly lacking in our house. Every home should have a sacred place which is inaccessible and not to be unlocked by anyone except father and mother. To every proper priesthood there belongs a secret, the mere desire to probe for which makes one guilty. He who can surprise with secrets has power and influence and commands respect.

The old colored trunk, a part of mother's dowry, was used at first, then a chest of drawers, finally a glass cupboard. The head piece of this had glass doors and below them there were two small drawers. In the left drawer father kept his most important documents. At that time there wasn't yet much written material to preserve. But there everything lay all mixed up together, from the bill of sale of the land to drafts and wheat receipts and down to tobacco and cigarette papers. Oh, the wheat receipts! These were little pieces of paper which had to be searched for in the drawer and in all pockets, when father had to settle accounts with the wheat buyer. He probably seldom had all of them together and thus had no check on the Jewish calculations. As a result, poor father soon found himself in an uncertain, dependent position. His good faith in mankind sufficed less and less. He himself and his whole family had to suffer because of this misplaced trust. His disorderliness had to be expiated severely.

Nor was there any bookkeeping. Everything was done from memory. Incomplete notes were often more confusing than they were helpful. How often, when he was settling accounts with the hired hands, father

45

used to say: "Christine, do you remember how much money he took?" How was mother to know that! As a result there were often disagreements between master and servant. Luckily father was not stingy or too fond of money and so the hired hands were not shortchanged. With these impressions we grew up.

What came first in the fall: bringing in the cabbage or the butchering? The time sequence of these I don't remember. It might even have been changed from year to year. At any rate, both of these were part of the important fall activities when the threshing and all the field work had been finished. Among these last, the sowing of the winter grain, rye and wheat on fallow land, were important. Of these I cannot really have recollections, because the cool, sometimes cold, fall weather kept us children from helping. It was also time for school. But when, after the first fall rains on the newly seeded fields, the sun shone again and the weather was warm, and the seed had sprouted and wide stretches of the steppe were covered with a green veil, then, it is true, we were enticed to go out there on Sundays and, after we had finished our homework, even on weekdays.

The steppe acquired a peculiar life when a strong fall wind blew across that open flat area. Thousands upon thousands of black spheres rolled across it during a storm, in frantic wild jumps. As if all hell had broken loose! They were the Steppenhexen (witches of the steppe): so we read later in our books.* We called these round thistles Burian or Kurai. These may have been the Tartar collective names for all the weeds of the steppe. We called only the steppe witch by that name. And rightly so, because it had as many vices as all other weeds together. For one thing, it was a thistle, that is, its needle-like leaflets were sharp and prickly. When it was ripe, dead and black, or actually only dark gray, we could not handle it with our bare hands without getting pricks all over them. But as long as it was young and tender, camels and sheep liked to eat it. A further evil of this thistle was the extraordinarily generous way it spread its seed. Where it had stood, a whole fur layer of it developed the next spring. Every kind of grain choked unmercifully in it. This is why a piece of land was cleared of it before it was seeded. This weed grew so thick that it even choked itself as soon as a little dry weather prevailed. There were other years, however, when a relentless battle had to be waged against it. Even the cleanest land was not safe from it, for the wind uprooted the ripe thistle and carried it off allowing it to spread its seed everywhere. The best way to deal with it was to rake it together with harrows and forks when it was not yet ripe, let it dry somewhat and then burn it. In a good Kurai year immense piles of thistles smoked and burned everywhere. These many fires pro-vided a magnificent sight in the evening. If one stood close by, one saw a greedy, crackling burning. Nothing burned so quickly and cleanly and to such fine ashes as the witch of the steppe when it was dry. Only a small pile of white ashes remained. During poor years, when straw was rare and even wheat straw was used as fodder, poor people gathered the thistle as fuel for the winter. Naturally this fuel had to be handled with a fork. It heated much more quickly than straw; a forkful was barely in the stove when it was burnt up in a few seconds. Many were therefore needed.

Although this witch of the steppe was something undesirable and detrimental for our fathers, it was the source of much fun for us children. We ran out toward the storm and its wild, powerful, leaping companions. Like a ghostly army they came rolling on, inexhaustible, always new ones. We were interested in the roundest thistles. But catching them was not so simple. It was best accomplished with a stick, which one plunged into the monster's body, in order to spear it. Then it was tied to a long string and away we went with it in the wind far far out across the steppe, running always beside the witch until we couldn't go anymore. So we ran wild and lived with nature's sport and loved it. Toward evening we abandoned the fields, because at this time, according to our belief, the real ghosts and witches came on with the night. And with them one didn't joke. If we happened to be a little late and dusk overtook us, we saw the sinister children of the night behind every Kurai bush. It was no longer the wind that drove the witches of the steppe. Now it was a spirit of the night that was behind them and frightened them. Oh, how we breathed easily when we reached the first corner of a yard wall and once again had contact with the village and people. A cow mooed and human voices were heard again. One could, in case of necessity, call for help.

Incidentally, on such days it was dangerous to drive with wild and skittish horses, particularly when night came on. One guarded against that whenever possible.

After such a witches drive, the Kurai were piled high along the yard walls and along anything else" that stopped them. The thistles had to be raked up and burned, unless the yard wall happened to need repairing.

*The seed of the weed described here was brought to America from Russia in seed wheat, probably by Germans. The plant eventually became widely distributed in the midwestern States and in western Canada, where it was given the name Russian Thistle. Our immigrant forefathers called it by the name they had used for it in Russia, Hexe (witch). The phenomena described here by David Weigum were familiar sights to those of us raised on the North American prairies before the days of chemical weed killers.

46

For this the thistles were useful. They had to be trampled down and interspersed with layers of earth to weigh them down. They were also liked as cover for the roofs of the shady shelters for horses at the threshing floor.

WE SING OUR HISTORY Lawrence A. Weigel

The Germans from Russia sang a popular song in which a rich woman turns a deaf ear to her poor sister's plea for bread for her six hungry children. We are living in difficult times today. Because of the economy, millions of Americans are unemployed, and many do not have the money to buy food for their families. Those of us who are blessed should heed the admonishment in the Bible. "He who has the goods of this world and sees his brother in need and closes his heart to him, how does the love of God abide in him?" I John 3:17

I learned this song from Peter Rohr, whose parents Peter Rohr Sr. and Elizabeth Sander settled in Munjor, Kansas in 1876. They came from Obermunjor on the Wiesenseite of the Volga in Russia.

ES WAREN ZWEI GESCHWISTERLEIN

Y k> \^ J 1 \" ^ ^ - ^ f <Lh <2 V ^ A \ ' « » f \ r f —y-——w—— r f ^' <

1. Es wa-ren zwei Ge- schwi-ster lein dar- un-ter ein ar - mes Weib & E

sie hat sechs klein- e Kin - der

1. Es waren zwei Geschwisterlein darunter ein armes Weib. Sie hat sechs kleine Kinderlein fuer sie hat sie kein Brot.

2. Die Arme dreht sich um und um und ging den traurigen Gang zu ihrem reichen Schwesterlein und bittet um ein Stueck Brot.

3. Ach Schwester, herzliebste Schwester mem schneid mir ein Stuecklein Brot. Ich hab' sechs kleine Kinderlein fuer sie hab' ich kein Brot.

4. Die Reiche dreht sich um und um und ging den stolzen Gang Zu ihrem schoenen Zimmerlein und hoert sie gar nicht an.

5. Die Arme dreht sich um und um

und ging den traurigen Gang zu ihren kleinen Kinderlein und weinet fuer Hungersnot.

lein fuer sie hat sie kein Brot.

There were two sisters one of them a poor wife. She had six small children, for them she had no bread.

The poor one turned around and went the sad way to her rich sister,

and begged for a piece of bread.

Please sister, dear sister mine Cut me a piece of bread. I have six small children, for them I have no bread.

The rich one turned around and proudly walked away To her beautiful room

And refused to listen to her plea.

The poor one turned around, and sadly walked away to her small children and cried for hungersneed.

6. Und als ihr Mann vom Feld heim kam und wolit sich schneiden Brot, das Brot so hart wie Steine war das Messer steckte er ins Blut.

7. Ach Frau, herzliebste Ehfrau mein,

wo hast denn dieses verschuld?

An meinem armen Schwesterlein

hab' ich ja dieses verschuld.

8. Die Reiche dreht sich um und um

und ging den traurigen Gang

zu ihrem armen Schwesterlein

und bittet um verzeihnis das Wort.

9. Ach Schwester, herzliebste Schwester mein

verzeih doch mir das Wort.

Drei Kinder will ich dir ernaehren,

drei will ich geben das Brot.

10. Das kleinste Kind in der Wiege lag,

sprach: "Mama, verzeihe kein Wort.

So hat uns Gott so lang ernaehrt

so ernaehrt er uns ja fort."

Note: Song from the Lawrence Weigel collection. Transcribed for L. A. Weigel by G, Groeger, Deutsches Volkslied Archiv- Freiburg, Germany 1973

When the husband came home from the field and wanted to cut some bread, the bread was hard as a rock the knife he thrusted in blood.

My wife, my dearest wife

what blame have you earned?

For what I did to my poor sister

I am to be blamed.

The rich one turned around and went the sad way to her poor sister to beg for a word of forgiveness.

Oh sister, dearest sister mine

please forgive me.

Three children I will support

three I will give bread,

The smallest child in the cradle lay

said: "Mama, do not forgive her.

God supported us this long

and he will continue to take care of us."

The AHSGR headquarters staff, shown here at the door of the society's recently completed Heritage Center, is busy with preparations for the influx of hundreds of' visitors on the occasion of the Fourteenth International Convention of the society on June 14-19, 1983, during which the new Heritage Center will be dedicated.

48

HEALTH CARE PRACTICES IN THE LIFE OF KATHERINE SCHRAG KAUFMAN

JoEllen Koerner

This article consists of extracts from a master's dissertation presented at South Dakota State University. The author is the daughter of our long-time AHSGR board member, Reuben Goertz.

Katherine Schrag was born April 10, 1863 in Waldheim, province of Volhynia, Russia, the daughter of Rev. John and Anna Graber Schrag. She was the youngest in a family of four brothers and four sisters. When she was a year and a half old, her mother died, leaving her to be cared for by her older sisters,

Childhood among the Mennonites in Volhynia was work and church oriented. Because the father was a minister, church activities were particularly prominent in the Schrag household. Ministers received no salary and the family was dependent upon farm income from cheese and butter. Their diet consisted of foods raised on the farm: milk, rye bread, potatoes and vegetables. Intake was dependent upon the foods available. Katherine was a sickly child with frequent eye and ear disorders. Eye problems were common among the Mennonites because of nutritional imbalances.

When Katherine was older, she attended elementary school, which was administered by the church. Reading and writing were the primary educational goals for young men, but girls were not required to learn to write. Their school days were shorter, as they were expected to help their mothers in the home. Health care practices, based on the Biblical admonition of moderation in all things, were passed on traditionally through the older women to the young girls.

Superstition was common in Katherine's childhood. There was a strong belief that the origin of illness lay in witchcraft and the cures in sympathetic magic. Stories of unusual deaths, mysterious lights in the graveyard and the use of hexes were often told. Certain individuals in Katherine's community were known to cure illnesses in both humans and animals by repetition of magic words. Health restoration could also be accomplished through the laying on of hands by the faith healer of the community."

Certain signs and symbols with special significance were an integral part of their belief system. At one time the family dog disappeared. It was believed that dogs return in three days. The third night Katherine's father slept outside for some reason or other. The dog returned and bit him on his hand. It had rabies, which was common in Russia. There were no village doctors, so the villagers relied on their homecare remedies. An iron was made hot and applied to the open wound to kill the germs. Katherine's father survived the treatment with no complications.

In another incident involving a rabid animal, healing was by sympathetic magic. A rabid horse dashed out of the barn and was immediately put to death. Katherine, unaware of the danger, played in the barn's manger. The family, believing in contagious magic, was alarmed and promptly treated her with a standard home remedy. Small pieces of paper on which Bible verses had been written were swallowed by Katherine. She did not contract rabies.

Their sense of brotherhood led the Mennonites in Russia to provide care for the aged and infirm. Within the Mennonite community, individuals who were feeble-minded or epileptic inherited twice the amount that the healthy siblings received. The extra funds provided the needed care.'3

In the 1870's the introduction of compulsory military service in Russia caused the Mennonites in Volhynia to leave the country. America looked to them the most promising land for relocation. They left Volhynia in three groups. The Schrag family was in the third group, fifty-three families who left in June 1874 for New York.3

Arrived in New York, the Schrags boarded a train for Yankton, Dakota Territory, which was the end of the railroad line. Tickets for the trip were $17.50 per person, with luggage riding free.'3 Upon arrival at Yankton, the men bought oxen, horses, wagons, farm equipment and a cow. While the women and children stayed in Yankton, the men made a three-day trip to the Freeman area, where they chose to settle. Rev. Schrag, Katherine and her sister Mary homesteaded on a farm seven miles east of Freeman. Soon after their arrival, when her older sister got married, Katherine assumed all household duties.

Food was scarce and the family often went hungry, but never suffered real starvation. Meals were simple and often consisted of roasted barley coffee and burnt flour soup. Wild fowl and rabbits were plentiful.

Young people married early, primarily for economic reasons. Marriages were often arranged by the parents. When Katherine was fifteen, her father chose for her a widower with two children, but this choice did not

49

meet with Katherine's approval. Instead, she selected a newcomer to the community. On June 21, 1979 she was married to Jacob P. Kaufman. He had no brothers or sisters living in America. He was well educated and vitally interested in community and national affairs. He subscribed to publications in three languages and showed extraordinary interest in education.

Early marriage and many children were the experiences of most of the women. The young wife was encouraged by everyone to have children immediately and as many as possible. Katherine's five sons and six daughters were delivered by a midwife, because there were no medical doctors, Midwives were held in high esteem by the community. Losses of mothers and babies took place in only a small percentage of the total births. If complications were expected, the Mitfrau (midwife) called in a second midwife for assistance. Sympathetic magic was often used, such as opening a window or door to facilitate the birth.

After the birth the midwife and the grandmother carefully inspected the infant. A birthmark indicated that the mother had been frightened during the pregnancy. A child born with red hair was considered as being a punishment for something. (Old country witches traditionally had red hair.) The mother and newborn were both considered in danger immediately after the birth. The mother stayed in bed for ten days until the womb went back into place the ninth day. The child was kept at the mother's bedside, but tended by the midwife or grandmother.

Infants who survived birth were prone to many childhood illnesses. Those who reached adulthood were also not immune. Home remedies for the more common ailments of adults and children were known and practiced by the mothers and grandmothers. These home remedies, superstitions and other practices of local healers comprised the health care system of the early Mennonite settlers.

One of the most sought after and highly regarded of the healers was der Knoche Arzt (the bone doctor). He was a combination of bone setter and masseur. These healers had deft fingers and had a special touch that enabled them to set dislocated and broken bones. Drugs were not used for anesthesia. Instead, patience and kindness relaxed the patient. Pork lard and turpentine were used to massage the patient. A charge for setting services was 50<P — $1.00. The same fee was paid a midwife. Katherine was well aware of the activities of a bone doctor, for her father served the community well in that capacity. When she became an adult, Katherine was an active midwife and delivered many of her neighbor's children.

Another important healer was der Braucher (the faith healer). He had sets of prayers to relieve a variety of ailments. Though the Mennonite church frowned on this practice, people continued to believe in him and sought his services. His services closely paralleled the taboos and beliefs of the people.4

A popular healing art was bloodletting. Participants in this ritual thought an overabundance of body humors (blood and bile) caused many illnesses, especially fever. Loewen has described some of the procedures used.10 One method was by venesection using a single blade lancet. The vein at the elbow was the preferred site, although over thirty other regions offered possibilities. A tourniquet above the elbow made the vein firm and easier to cut, thus hastening the flow of blood. Another commonly used method was leeching. Leeches were dull olive green color with longitudinal stripes along their two to four-inch length. These creatures attached themselves to the patient with two suckers. Their saliva contained an anticoagulant which prevented the blood from clotting. Engorged leeches sometimes reached six inches in length and the thickness of a man's finger before they were satiated and dropped off. One drawback to leeching was the leech's digestion time for each meal (up to eight months). Their readiness for another meal was hastened by placing them in salty water and stroking them, causing regurgitation. It was not uncommon to use four or five dozen leeches at once. Leeches sold for five dollars per hundred in the late nineteenth century, and could be purchased in a Yankton drugstore as late as 1920.

The town of Freeman changed as the Kaufman children grew up. Grasshopper plagues, blizzards, drought and floods were balanced with adequate rainfall and abundant crops. Homes were improved and churches and schools were constructed. The influence of non-Mennonite neighbors began to be important. One such new influence was the self-trained country doctor.

Katherine's introduction to the country doctor came in a most tragic way. One day, after the birth of her fourth child, Katherine took her children with her to visit a neighbor. Three-year-old Ben, accompanying his mother, while playing in a hayfield, stepped on a thistle and sat down in the tall grass to remove it. Not visible to the operator, he was overrun with a mower and had his foot cut off. Ben himself told the story later:8

Though Uncle advanced without noticing me, I was not slow in comprehending danger. Like a frightened fawn I sprang to my feet and bounded forward, but like a stricken deer I dropped headlong on the dry sod. While trying to run out of harm's way, I, in my intellectual blindness, plunged into the sickle

50

where the last tooth caught me, and with the quickness of a lightning flash, I was separated from my left foot. . . . My innocent eyes were riveted on Uncle as if pleading for help. ... He bounded forth, grasped me into his arms, and drawing me to his heart, he pressed one kiss upon my burning forehead and with rapid strides he turned his course towards home. . . . About two-thirds of the distance was covered when I was startled by the well known voice of my father. Only little was said on either side. Calm and quiet father enclosed me into his powerful arms. Then, as if unwilling to gaze at the fresh wound, he placed his hand over it, as if to check the flow of blood. . . .

Ben was laid on a bed and his stump washed with alcohol to stop the bleeding. The foot, wrapped in a cloth, lay on a sewing machine. What was the community response to illness and tragedy? People quickly filled the room and wept for the fate of a small boy suddenly made unfit for the rigorous work of a farmer. The community decided that a doctor should amputate the severed stump. Ben later described the amputation as follows:8

A medium-sized man, neatly dressed, with a valise and a frown upon his face, stepped up to my humble bed. His voice was low and harsh, and when he drew off and roughly grasped hold of my aching leg, to look at the sore, I knew him to be the doctor. ... I now had my eyes riveted on the doctor as he drew all sorts of tools from his valise. Among which were knives of different sizes, saws, hooks, scissors, and many other tools that I thought were more fit to butcher or make sores than to heal them. All this I watched with a fast beating heart, but when he asked all others to leave the room and then ordered my father and two others to lay me on the table over which was spread a white sheet, my courage sank. And when I saw father with his own hands help them to put me on a ^butchers shelf", I cried aloud and implored for mercy and pity. . . . Chloroform was put on a cloth and placed before my nose which soon made me unconscious of what was going on. Now the bloody work began. ... It is true that all during this time, I rolled my large eyeballs from father to the doctor and again to some other object in the room, but I never felt the least pain, till it was over.

A large crowd of church friends stayed the night. The foot was placed in a box and buried in the orchard. The doctor visited regularly and the sound of barking dogs announced his coming. This gave Ben time to hide under the porch. The total fee for the service was $60.00.

Jacob was determined that his son remain mobile and fashioned a pair of crutches, which were quickly discarded by Ben. Father then made an artificial leg, which proved more acceptable and helped Ben to run with his friends. What was Ben's emotional adjustment to the handicap? As a boy he often lingered at the graveside of his lost foot with his violin or a book, eyes filled with tears. Feelings of inadequacy and fear for the future filled his mind. He expressed his state of mind in writing as follows:8

When I see other boys fancy their future bright and sunny, and when I see them not only happy themselves but also making others of the finer sex happy, the question involuntarily arises within me and I ask myself: Will I ever have the privilege to do some good? If not, how could I ever be happy? I have often wondered why God lets a poor cripple toil on in this earth. If no one will ever care for me, He will . . .

Changes in self-care practices emerged with the advent of the patent medicine peddler.'2 His wares, which included liniment, salves, stomach tablets, cough medicine, Forni's Alpenkrauter, and other medicinal items, were now used along with such earlier home remedies as sassafras and camomile tea.

There were few psychiatric problems. The friendly community atmosphere, the high degree of extended family support, and the opportunity to speak confidentially to the preacher evoked a high level of mental health.

The most significant change to enter the Mennonite settlement was the advent of the physician, a man with a University education in the science of healing. Traditionally the doctor had been self-taught, wore a beard and ran a drugstore. Early formal training for physicians lasted two years. Hartzler6 tells us that medical education was composed of lectures by various professors, who were hired by the students. Considerable rowdiness prevailed in the classes.

51

Katherine's son, Edward, had a strong desire to become a physician. The educational opportunity was reluctantly provided by his parents. They recalled the fate of men who went to college and then often drifted away from the brotherhood, dissatisfied with the simplicity of life in the settlement. The educated physician often felt the scorn and disbelief of traditional Mennonite people, who believed that all lawyers and two-thirds of the doctors went to hell.

Medical school requirements were: to read English and one other language, to have a high school education, and to be of good moral character. The medical education obtained by Ed lasted three years and seven months, a major part of the time being spent with a cadaver. Since the dissecting room was messy and the smell unpleasant, many a student took up smoking to ingest the smell of tobacco smoke rather than the stench of rotten flesh. Ed was no exception, and his smoking was never well received by Katherine or the Mennonite community.

Ed set up practice in Marion, a town eleven miles from Freeman, South Dakota. Initially, he had to impress upon the skeptical people that his services were needed in the community. Goertz relates the following incident:5

Ed would go to the livery stable and get a horse and of town (with no particular destination) until the horse was fatigued and foaming ride furiously out. He would get a fresh horse from the stable and repeat the act in a different direction. That act, plus his skill, soon paid off and Ed quickly became an established practitioner who offered much in the area of health care.

The Mennonites did not believe in immunizations or in any type of insurance. They believed that illness was determined by the providence of God. In 1907, however, a Mennonite Aid Plan was developed in Freeman, South Dakota. This cooperative sharing plan is still operating today. Money paid into the plan was shared on the basis of need. None of the holdings were invested for the purpose of making a profit.'1

The Mennonites were not spared when the deadly influenza plague of 1918-1919 swept across the country and killed more than twenty million people. The entire outbreak was treated with aspirin, quinine, liquid diet and bed rest. Family members cared for each other, if any one of them was strong enough to do so. Neighbors brought hot chicken soup, left it on the porch and quickly ran away again. Sulfur candles burned for twenty-four hours in the sick rooms after the victims recovered. Businesses, theaters and restaurants closed. There was a fine for spitting on the street.2

Ed worked for twenty-hour periods during the epidemic. His brother John, then thirty-four years old, and his sister Laura, eighteen, died within five days of each other. In a letter to his sister in Kansas, Ed wrote:9

We are doing as well as can be expected under the circumstances. Although my work has been very crowding and often times I was answering calls with swollen hands and feet and had to drag myself to every move that I made ... I have treated during the epidemic some 350 cases and lost only 3 ... and my heart almost breaks when I think that one has to be my brother and the other my sister. You cannot imagine what responsibility I felt, both as a doctor and a brother. . . . John's case I took for doubtful from the first examination I had made ... I was out in the morning and found Laura to be in good condition, yet when I came home Carrie told me she was dead. Oh you cannot imagine what a feeling. I could not believe it. We started for home and truly found Laura dead. What a pain, what a sadness . . .

Because so many died of influenza, bodies were taken directly to the cemetery rather than the church. Both John and Laura were buried at the same place. Ben gave this account to his sister in Kansas:7

Ed and I washed her and dressed her. Then we made arrangements for the funeral. ... In the evening the undertaker brought a coffin from Marion, also a dress and flowers woven into an "anchor". He helped us put her into the casket, then put some embalming fluid on her face and Laura looked as pretty as she ever looked alive, , . . Mama and Papa were dreadfully broken down. Papa often times wept like a little child and Mama could find no resting place. . .

After the epidemic subsided, life returned to the previous routine. The Mennonites continued to prosper in their farming enterprises. Katherine lost several of her adult children through illness and accidents. Her beloved husband of fifty-five years passed away following a two-year illness, on November 21, 1934. She lived alone at the original homestead after his death. Age and two fractured hips forced her out of her home

52

and she went to live, alternately, with three of her children in the Freeman area. Her sight and hearing failed, and the loss of those faculties made hers a lonely and secluded life. When interviewed on her eighty-sixth birthday, she stated:'

I am not worthy of all the blessings I have received. I never suffered. I have nothing to complain. I cannot thank the good Lord enough for all that He has done for me.

She died a few weeks later, in the spring of 1949.

References

\. Anon. "A Biography of Katherine Schrag Kaufman 1863-1949." Written by an unidentified child of hers. 2. Associated Press Wire Release. Sioux Falls Argus Leader, March 10, 1919, page 2, column 4. 3. Eduardsdorf-Kotosufka Church Book stored in Salem Zion Mennonite Church, Freeman, South Dakota. (Brought to

America from Russia in 1874). 4. Gering, J. J. After Fifty Years. Marion: Pine Hill Press, 1924. 5. Goertz, Reuben, Mennonite historian, descendant of 1874 immigrants, interviewed April 10 and May 9, 1982. 6. Hartzler, A. E. The Horse and Buggy Doctor. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1938, 7. Kaufman, Ben. Letter of November 20, 1918 to his sister Lydia Goering, McPherson, Kansas. 8. Kaufman, Ben. "A Thread of Sadness Woven through my Life". Unpublished autobiography telling of the trauma of

losing a leg at age three, and its impact on his life. 9. Kaufman, Edward. Letter of November 18, 1918 to his sister Lydia Goering, McPherson, Kansas. 10. Loewen, Solomon L. "The Art of Bloodletting: as Practiced by my Father". Journal AHSGR, Vol. 3, No. 2, (Fall

1980), 13-17. 11. Schrag, M. "The Swiss-Volhynia Mennonite Background". Mennonite Life, 10: 157-160. October 1954. 12. Schrag, Pauline, 85-year-old daughter of one of the 1874 immigrants, interviewed April 10, 1982. 13. Unruh, H. G. "The Journey of Mary and Jacob K. Graber". Unpublished Manuscript. March 1979.

BOOK REVIEWS

Waffen der Wehrlosen: Ersatzdienst der Mennoniten in der UdSSR. (The Weapons of the Noncombatant: Alternative Service of the Mennonites in the USSR). Collected and edited by Hans Rempel. Winnipeg, Canada: CMBC Publications 1980, 175 pp.

Reviewed by Donald H. Darner Czarist Russia instituted military conscription in 1874, and thereafter military service was a perplexing problem to

Mennonites living in Russia. A few saw fit to serve in the military, while many sought alternative service. The testimonials found in this book are personal accounts of men who did select the course of the noncombatant. This service in the armies of the Czar Nicholas II and the Soviets was often deadlier to the body and more trying to the soul than actual service in the military.

Hans Rempel, himself a participant, presents in his excellent collection the various forms this alternative service took in the course of history from 1914-1955. Mennonites served on both sides of the civil war which followed Russia's withdrawal from World War I. During this period of turmoil, hospital work, frequent transfers, communist indoctrination, and extreme hardships were the daily bill of fare. Aaron Langemann's vivid account of his service under the aegis of Kolchak's White Army portrays vividly the agony of civil war, and the testing of the religious spirit.

Part II of Rempel's collection centers around the Ersatzdienst in the Kiev area from 1927-1928. Jacob Neufeld and A. W. Janzen in their accounts portray how the Mennonites, while stumbling through the barrier of the Russian language, built supports for existing dams. During this period many were sent to Siberia to work in the forests.

The next section deals with service during the period of collectivization (1929-1935). Bridge building over the Dnieper river and the development of hydroelectric power were work for which Mennonites were impressed into forced service. Hans Rempel's account of this harsh and often inhuman treatment is tempered by the biblical passage from Psalms 23:3: "Er fuehrer mich auf rechter Strasse, um seines Namens

53

willen . . . und vergiss es nicht." God was the catalyst that kept man's spirit alive, and his body in a condition that would endure the physical duress.

The last section concerns itself with the persecution of the pre-war and war years from 1935-55..During this period the government would not accept pre-military application for alternative service. The Mennonites had to indicate this desire during their mustering into the military service. This also was the period of extreme religious persecution for the Mennonites. Abram Fast's account of his labor in the Trud Army describes an experience endured by tens of thousands of Germans living in Russia during this period.

The weapons of the unarmed, as presented in the illustration by David Neudorf, and entitled "Waffen der Wehrlosen", were the blockhouse dwelling in the forest and the work tools of their trade. They were the chopping block, the axe, the sledge, and of course the human body with its great resiliency, and shielded by the faith in God. With these tools, the unarmed spent their service in many sections of Russia, from the Ukraine through Siberia, and on to the Far East. There were few documents available to the author, so he had to go to the personal accounts of those who participated in this service. Through it all most of them lived true to their faith.

To the reader who has a good working knowledge of German, the book will be a rewarding experience showing the perseverance of a people deeply steeped in faith, who believe that non-violence and alternative service to the military are the only answers to God's will. Their story has been vividly told to us.

Lawrence Klippenstein of the Mennonite Heritage Center in Winnipeg, Canada has donated a copy of this book to the Archives.

The book may be purchased from the Mennonite Heritage Center, 600 Shaftesbury Blvd., Winnipeg, Canada R3P OM4 for $9.00 plus shipping costs.

David Klassen and the Mennonites by Lawrence Klippenstein. In the "We Built Canada" series, Keith Wilson, gen. ed. Agincourt, Ontario: The Book Society of Canada Ltd., 1982. 76 pp., illus., pb.

Reviewed by Adam Giesinger.

This is a beautifully illustrated brief history of the Manitoba Mennonites, prepared for younger readers and for use in schools.

The first chapter looks back to the origins of the Mennonites, describes their migration to Prussia and later to Russia, and then mentions the problems they encountered there, which led some of them to leave Russia in the 1870's. The well known story is told of the twelve delegates who visited America in 1873 and of the agreement which four of them made with the Canadian government to settle their people in Manitoba.

The second chapter then describes the founding of the settlements in southern Manitoba, the difficulties encountered by the settlers in the early years, and their relatively rapid progress. The pictures here are exceptionally well chosen to illustrate this story.

The third chapter is devoted to developments in the closely connected fields of religion and education. Both church and school for many years were conducted entirely in the German language. The school was a church institution, its curriculum confined to religion and a minimum of the three R's, with the catechism and the bible as the basic texts. When the Manitoba government eventually insisted on teaching in English and a broadened curriculum, the majority adapted to the situation, but a conservative minority left Canada to go to Mexico and Paraguay.

A new element was introduced into Manitoba Mennonite society by the arrival of refugees from Russia in the 1920's, who were not so conservative as the old settlers. Their influence and increasing migration out of the old Mennonite Reserves into new areas and into the cities, brought many progressive changes in Mennonite life. These are described in chapter four.

The last chapter is headed "Mennonites Today" and describes the prominent role they now play in Manitoba life. Very helpful to the reader are the excellent maps that make this Mennonite story more comprehensible. This book will be found interesting by many other people besides those for whom it was primarily written. A copy of David Klassen and the Mennonites was presented to the Journal for review purposes by the publishers. It is

being placed into the AHSGR Archives. This book is available from: The Book Society of Canada Ltd., Box 200, Agincourt, Ontario MIS 3B6, at a price of

$4.50

54

BOOKS AND ARTICLES RECENTLY DONATED TO THE AHSGR ARCHIVES Emma S. Haynes

GR — 1349 Bartlett, Roger P.

"Colonists, *Gastarbeiter' and the Problems of Agriculture in post-Emancipation Russia." Offprint from The Slavonic and East European Review. Volume 89, No. 4 (October 1982). London, pp. 547-571. Donated by author.

In the year 1866 Friedrich Matthaei published a book in Leipzig about the German settlements in Russia. Matthaei felt that Russia needed new cultural forces to develop her agriculture. This problem could be solved by bringing in colonist farmers from Germany. Matthaei's advice was not followed except in Volhynia, where Germans settled on land without obtaining any privileges. With the approach of World War 1, German colonists were looked upon as potential traitors, who could not be trusted in the event of war between Russia and Germany.

GR — 1348 Becker, Wilhelm Martin.

"Russlandfahrer in Friedberg, 1767." (Russian Travelers in Friedberg, 1767). Volk und Scholle. Heimatblaetter fuer Hessen, Nassau, und Frankfurt a. M. Jahrgang 1931. Darmstadt: Verlag des historischen Vereins fuer Hessen. pp. 69-71. Donated by Prof. Wilfried Schlau of Mainz, who also gave us GR — 1350 and GR — 1351.

This interesting article tells of people who left for the Volga from Friedberg in 1767. The rulers of Giessen, to which Friedberg belonged, had passed an ordinance saying that all travelers had to leave town within twenty-four hours, but a letter was sent to the authorities asking for permission to stay until April 10th. Names of people trying to emigrate are included.

GR — 1350 Fleischhauer, Ingeborg.

'"Unternehmen Barbarosa' und die Zwangsumsiedlung der Deutschen in der UdSSR.'' (Operation Barbarosa and the forcible re-settlement of Germans m the USSR). Viertel-jahreschrift fur Zeitgeschichte. Heft 2, 1982. Munich, pp. 299-321. (Photocopy)

The article shows that Ingeborg Fleischhauer has done a great deal of serious work on the deportation in 1941 of Germans in Russia. She seems to have read all available sources and has interviewed many Russian Germans now living in Germany.

GR — 1346 Massier, Edwin, editor.

Fratautz und die Fratautzer, Vom Werden und Hergehen einer Dorfgemeinschaft in der Bukovina. (Fratautz and the Fratautzers. The Development and Progress of a German Village in Bukovina.) English translator unknown. Druck Heidelberger Reprographic. No date given. Various paging. Donated by Mr. and Mrs. K. Engel of Pilot Butte, Saskatchewan. (Photocopy)

A history in English of the village of Fratautz in Bukovina. The authors also tell about the folklore of the village and end with a discussion of the dialect spoken there which resembles that of the Palatinate.

GR — 1351 Schlau, Wilfried.

"Materialen zum Referat von Prof. Dr. Wilfried Schlau an die Russlanddeutschen." 1980. 14 typed pages with a map and charts.

Prof. Schlau begins his reports by telling that on June 7, 1965 a delegation of Russian Germans met with Anastas Mikoyan in Moscow to ask for the restoration of the Volga German Republic. This request was refused on the grounds that the Germans were needed in the wheat fields of Siberia and Central Asia. Dr. Schlau then gives a general history of the Russian German people, pointing out the differences between the City Germans and the Volga and Black Sea Germans and Mennonites. The former had become assimilated into Russian life quite rapidly but the Germans in the colonies had retained their language, customs and religion. In addition they had an amazing fertility. On the Volga alone there were only 23,000 settlers in 1775, but in 1914 there were 600,000 plus hundreds of thousands more in North and South America, Siberia and the Caucasus.

GR — 1347 Stremel, Alex G.

"Religious and Educational Contributions of German-Russians to the Development of Rush and Ellis Counties." Unpublished Master's thesis. Fort Hays State College (Kansas), 1948. 148 pp. Typewritten photocopy. Donated by Martha Issinghoff of Wichita, Kansas.

Father Stremel relied upon the much quoted article by Rev. Francis S. Laing on "German-Russian Settlements in Ellis County, Kansas" for his opening pages on the coming of Volga Ger- 55

man Catholics to America. He then discusses each of the seven settlements in which they lived: Liebenthal, Catherine, Victoria (Herzog), Munjor, Pfeifer, Schoenchen, and Hays. He tells of the churches and parish schools which they established and lists all teachers, priests and nuns from these villages. The largest and most imposing church which they built is found in Victoria and is called "The Cathedral of the Plains.*' However, some people regard the Gothic church in Pfeifer as the most beautiful.

GR — 1353 Voronaeff, Paul.

Thirteen Years in Soviet Russia. Beach Grove, Indiana: Published by the Author, 1945. 46 pp. Donated by Marie Olson of Denver.

The parents of Paul Voronaeff had come to America from Orenburg province in Russia before World War I, but they returned to Russia to do missionary work after the war ended. During the following years they lived in Odessa on the Black Sea. At first they had no difficulties with the communist regime, but this changed after 1928 when many priests and ministers were arrested and churches were closed. Paul's father was also arrested and taken to a prison in Odessa. He was then transferred to another prison about 2000 miles north where he was condemned to five years of hard labor in a concentration camp. Paul eventually received permission to visit his father for ten days in this northern prison. After that, his mother was arrested and sent to Siberia, but Paul, his brother and sister were allowed to leave for the United States.

GR — 1352 Williams, Robert C.

Culture in Exile. Russian Emigres in Germany. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1972. Chapter VIII, The Third Reich. pp. 331-362. Donated by Irma Eichhorn. Photocopy.

The eighth chapter of this book deals with Russian German emigres who settled in Germany in the 1920's. It implies that their writings in general were Nazi propaganda, which is an unfair view of some of the men that he mentions, whose stories about the Soviet regime were basically truthful.

The following books and articles were donated to our Archives by Emma S. Haynes of Washington D.C. All are photocopies.

GR — 1357 Allard, William Albert.

"The Hutterites. Plain People of the West." National Geographic. July 1970. pp. 100-125.

The history of the Hutterites is told, with particular emphasis on those who settled in Spring Creek, southeast of Great Falls, Montana. Hutterites still live today as they have since the 16th century. During World War I, most of them moved to Canada because of harassment and jailing as conscientious objectors in the United States, but after World War II, new colonies sprouted south of the border. The article is beautifully illustrated.

GR — 1358 Auhagen, Otto, editor.

Bei den deutschen Bauern an der Wolga. Berlin: Verlag Neues Dorf, 1928. 56 pp.

Dr. Auhagen, in 1928 a professor of agriculture at the University of Berlin, tells in his introduction that he had visited the Volga German Republic in September 1927 and had been received in a most friendly way by officials and the people of the Republic. They had furnished him with an automobile to take him on a five day tour of the colonies. He had been amazed at the speed with which the area had recovered from the disastrous famine of 1920-1922 and the civil war of those years. This book was written and signed by seven out of eleven Germans farmers who had also been invited to Russia in 1927 to report on conditions there. The committee spent nine days in the Volga German Republic visiting Pokrowsk, Katharinenstadt (then Marxstadt) and Krasny Kut, as well as small colonies, on their automobile tour. They were able to communicate directly with the people whom they met and were satisfied that all was being done to improve agricultural conditions there. They also attended the 10th celebration of the October Revolution in Marxstadt and in Pokrowsk visited the "Heimatmuseum der Wolgadeutschen", which impressed them very much.

GR — 1359 Bartsch, Franz.

Unser Auszug nach Mittelasien. First printed in Halbstadt in 1907. Reprinted as Vol. 5 of Historische Schriftenreihe des Echo Verlags. North Kildonan, Manitoba, 1948. 90 pp.

This book tells the story of groups of Mennonites leaving for Central Asia in the 1880's, where they hoped to see the Second Coming of Christ. Eventually, many became disillusioned. Some of them settled down to farm in Central Asia, others emigrated to America. Franz Bartsch was a participant in the trek to Asia. Richard Belk used the Bartsch account in writing his book of 1976, Great Trek of the Russian Mennonites to Central Asia 1880-1884. (GR — 478)

56

GR — 1360 Bruder in Not? Sowjetdeutsche Berichten. Moskau-

Leningrad: Verlagsgenossenschaft auslaendischer Arbeiter in der UdSSR, 1933. 78 pp.

In 1932 German newspapers reported on a famine in the Soviet Union, using the heading "Bruder in Not" (Brothers in Need) as applied to the Soviet Germans. The Soviet press denied that there was any famine, and printed letters written by Germans on the Volga, the Black Sea and the Caucasus testifying to their well being in the summer of 1933. In some cases, as in Brunenthal on the Volga and Helenendorf in the Caucasus, the signatures of the people signing these letters were reproduced. There are also letters from Selz in the Ukraine and from East Siberia and Central Asia, all expressing outrage at the "lies" printed in Germany. One can only assume that pressure was put upon these individuals to write what they did. The fact that millions of people died of starvation cannot be denied. Khrushchev himself admitted this in his speech denouncing Stalin in 1956.

GR — 1361 Deutsche in der Sowjetunion, Bericht ueber eine

Konferenz am 8. und 9. Februar in Koeln. (Germans in the Soviet Union. A report on a Conference held in Cologne on February 8-9, 1982).

This conference was held under the sponsorship of the secretariat for the coordination of East European Research by the West German government, About thirty different people doing research on the problems of the Russian German people took part in the conference. They discussed problems of assimilation of the Germans into Russian society, the numbers of Germans in the Soviet Union, what newspapers and magazines are published in the German language, schools and religion and the question of future sources of research. Such people as Alfred Bohmann, author of Menschen und Grenzen and Mr. von Sarnowski of the Landsmannschaft der Deutschen aus Russland participated in the conference.

GR — 1362 Dinges, Georg.

"Zur Erforschung der wolgadeutschen Mundarten." Teuthonista. Bonn und Liepzig: Kurt Schroeder Verlag, 1925. Heft 4, pp. 299-313.

According to Georg Dinges, the schoolteacher, Johann Kromm of Jagodnaja Poljana, was the first person to draw attention to the Volga German dialect. He did this by writing to the Schottener Kreisblatt in 1913 telling the history of the Volga Germans and sending some stories in dialect form. Scholars identified this dialect as being typical of Oberhessen from where most of the

ancestors of the people living in Jagodnaja Poljana had come, Between 1913-1915 a Volga German schoolteacher, August Lonsinger, then sent the forty sentences, that are used in Marburg to identify various German dialects, to all Volga German colonies. The responses which he received were used by Georg Dinges in identifying the place of origin of the Volga Germans in Germany. Further work was done during World War I by Prof. W. von Unwerth with Volga German and Black Sea German prisoners of war in Germany. Georg Dinges became the most outstanding authority in this field in the 1920's.

GR — 1363 Dukmeyer, Friedrich.

Die Deutschen in Russland. Berlin: Puttkammer&Muehlbrecht, 1916. pp. 49-191.

The first two chapters of this book describe the City Germans and the Baltic Germans and have not been photocopied. The remaining chapters deal with the German colonists on the Volga, the Black Sea and in Volhynia. Colonists later moved to Siberia, the Caucasus and Asia. They retained their German language and seldom spoke Russian. Their homes contained few books outside of the German Bible. In contrast, the Baltic Germans often changed their names and took positions of importance in the Russian army and government. In Russian literature, Germans are presented in a very unflattering way. They are shown as pedantic, cold-hearted and unable to speak Russian. It is seldom that one finds a really good German in the writings of Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and Gogol.

GR — 1364 Ehrt, Adolf.

Das Mennonitentum in Rusland von seiner Einwanderung bis zur Gegenwart. Langensalza — Berlin — Leipzig: Verlag von Julius Beltz, 1932. 171 pp.

This is a very scholarly book on the history of the Mennonites to 1932. The bibliography covers six pages and includes many Russian laws and statistics which Ehrt uses to document his facts. At first all Mennonites engaged in agriculture, but after the late 19th century, big business was introduced and some people became very wealthy, while the number of landless peasants increased. The communists attempted to wipe out all wealthy people as "kulaks." For this and other reasons, an immigration of Mennonites to Canada took place from 1921-1927.

GR — 1365 Erdmann. Johann Friedrich.

Beitraege zur Kenntnis von Russland. Leipzig, 57

1825. Zweiter Theil, Erste Halite, Chapter 2. "Reise durch das Simbirsksche, Saratowsche und Astrakanische Gouvernement im Sommer 1815. pp. 30-31, 62-81, 238-243 and 282-288.

Prof. Erdmann was born in Germany but arrived in Russia in 1810 and became a professor at the University of Kasan on the Volga. The xeroxed pages given above describe a trip that he took in 1815 through the colonies of Beideck, Anton, Messer, Kamenka, Goebel and Leichtling. On pages 238-243 he describes the schools that he found there and makes four suggestions on how to improve the educational system in the Volga colonies. Pages 282-288 consist of economic statistics on the colonies.

GR — 1366 Fast, M. B.

Meine Reise nach Russland und Zurueck. Nebst Autobiographie des Verfassers und kurze Geschichte der Mennoniten bis jetzt. (My trip to Russia and Back. As well as an autobiography of the author and a short history of the Mennonites to the present.) Scottdale, Pennsylvania, 1909. 235 pp.

M. B. Fast was a nineteen year old boy when his family left Tiegerweide in South Russia for Beatrice, Nebraska. In 1908, after he had become editor of a Mennonite publication, Die Rundschau, he decided to return to Russia on a visit. He went through Berlin, Warsaw, and Kiev to Halbstadt. On the way he met a Mennonite woman who told him of the uprising of 1905 and of the pogroms against the Jewish people. She said that she had opened her home to Jewish women and children to save them from Russian mobs. When he reached his native village of Tiegerweide, he found that very little had changed since he had left. The following weeks were spent holding religious meetings, visiting with friends and relatives, and enjoying the good food which the women had prepared. He was taken from village to village by friends, and visited in this way Rueckenau, Tiege, Kleefeld, Lichtfelde, Orloff, Halbstadt, Steinfeld and many others. He then went to Berdyansk where ships were still loaded by hand, just as he remembered from his childhood. From here he proceeded by steamship to the Crimea, sailing past Yalta and Livadia, where the czar's family had a summer home, to Sebastopol. Here he stayed with a Mennonite family that did missionary work among the Russians. From the Crimea, he returned to Tiegerweide and then left for the United States.

GR — 1367 Hamm, Wilhelm.

Suedoestliche Steppen und Staedte nach eigener

Anschauung geschildert. (Southeastern steppes and cities described from the author's own observations). Frankfurt a.M.: J. D. Sauerlanders Verlag, 1862, pp. 179-272.

Three chapters from this book have been photocopied. The first describes in dramatic fashion a grasshopper invasion that Hamm and his Ukrainian companion had encountered while traveling across Taurida. As they proceeded, it became darker and darker and not a bit of sunlight reached the people traveling below. Russians regarded these plagues as punishment from Heaven, but the Germans had successfully united in combating them. The second chapter is called "German Settlers in New Russia." Here Hamm describes the schools, agriculture, government and population statistics, not only for the Germans but also for Bulgarians and Jews. The final chapter consists of a twelve page report on the colonies of the Liebenthal district from the district mayor's office (Schulzenamt) to the president of the German colonies in 1858. It includes statistics on the amount of land the district possessed, the number of inhabitants, taxes paid, religious census, medical provisions, crops harvested, and court cases. Hamm concludes that the Germans are better off in Russia than they would have been if they had stayed in Germany.

GR — 1368 Jansen, Peter.

Memoirs of Peter Jansen. An Autobiography. Beatrice, Nebraska. Published by the author, 1921. 140pp.

Peter Jansen was the son of Cornelius Jansen, the Prussian consul at Berdyansk who was expelled from Russia for his activities in encouraging Mennonites to emigrate to North America. Peter Jansen became a sheepherder in Beatrice, Nebraska, and later fattened sheep for the market. He was elected to both the House of Representatives and the Senate of Nebraska. He supported the nomination of McKinley at the Republican National Convention of 1896 and subsequently went to Paris to represent the United States at the International Exhibition of 1900, He used this occasion to make a tour of Germany, Italy, Turkey and Russia where he visited his native city of Berd-yansk, and then returned to France and home. In 1898 he was invited by English Quakers to visit the Dukhobors in Saskatchewan. (The Dukhobors were a Russian religious sect that rejected the authority of both church and state. They aroused the sympathy of the Quakers because they refused to serve in the Russian army and were persecuted for this. The Quakers helped bring them to Canada, but they continued to cause trouble. Jansen tried unsuccessfully to persuade them to

58

cooperate with the Canadian government.) This trip resulted in the organization of a Mennonite Settlement Company which bought fifteen townships in Saskatchewan and helped many people to settle there. The book is interesting for its presentation of the views of a conservative Republican at the turn of the century and during the first World War.

GR — 1369 Keller, C.

"Materialien zur Geschichte der deutschen Kolonien an der Wolga." (From Pallas, Peter Simon. Reise aus Sibirien zurueck an die Wolga. III. Teil, 2. Buch, Seite 608 ff.) Jahrbuch des Landwirts. 1914, pp. 184-198.

Keller reproduces this report, which Pallas wrote in 1773, because he says that it had never been used by historians before. It is our first description of the Volga colonies and was written only five years after most of them were founded. Pallas was traveling from Siberia, and the first colony which he entered was Hoelzel on the Wiesenseite. He then turned north as far as Jost where he spent the night. He gives both the Russian and the German names of all colonies from Brabander south to Seelmann, including Keller and Leitsinger which were destroyed in 1774 by the Kirghiz. They lay between Preuss and Seelmann. It is interesting to note that whereas the Russian names are the same as those which we know, the only colony which had the correct German name was Warenburg. Thus Laub was called Weidenfeld and Dinkel was Oberholstein. It could be that the names of later German mayors were adopted subsequently by the Germans. Pallas gives only the Russian names of other German colonies. From Jost he continued to Katharinenstadt, which he describes in detail. We also hear a great deal about Saratov, but he tells nothing about the Bergseite colonies.

GR — 1370 Kletke, H.

Alexander von Humboldts Reisen im europaeischen und asiatischen Russland. Third chapter "Die deutschen Kolonien an der Wolga." pp. 33-56, and fifth chapter, "Sarepta." pp. 76-85. Berlin: Hasselberg.

Alexander von Humboldt visited the Volga colonies about eighty years after Pallas had been there. He also began his tour on the Wiesenseite and describes the occupations and homes of the forty-one colonies which lay north of Saratov and along the Great Karaman River. He crossed the Volga from Pokrowsk to Saratov and then continued on the Bergseite going first to Beideck where he had lunch with the mayor of the town,

and then proceeding to Messer and Kamenka towards Kamyshin. Humboldt had hoped to obtain horses here to visit the Elton Lake to observe the production of salt but no horses were available. He went on to Dubowka, a Russian village, and there did find horses. After seeing Lake Elton he visited Sarepta, a Moravian Brethren village near Tsaritsyn (today Volgograd). He also saw the museum of Dr. Zwick, who had been a missionary to the Kalmucks and possessed a fabulous collection of their religious art and coins. He also had objects of gold, silver and bronze from their 14th century tombs called "turgan".

GR — 1371 Kloberdanz, Timothy.

"Sing in your Broken Attic to the Sun. A Profile of Sister Michael Marie Kaiser." An unpublished manuscript. 26 typed pages and 8 pages of pictures.

Timothy Kloberdanz has written a very moving description of Pauline Kaiser (Sister Michael Marie) who was born 1943 in the "Rooshun Corner" of Sterling, Colorado, which consisted of several blocks of shanties built for migrant Volga German sugar beet workers. Within a few years her parents had become tenant farmers and then bought some land on the S. Platte River. Sister Michael Marie is remembered as a tomboy who wore a boy's cap and overalls and was often seen in the Sterling cemetery. It was at this time that she began writing short stories, plays and poetry. While she was still a senior at St. Anthony's High School, she decided to become a nun and entered the Congregation of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament of Corpus Christi, Texas. But the loneliness that had hitherto filled her life did not leave her. In 1949 she published a widely acclaimed book of verse entitled "You Have Filled the Days." During these years she was often in great pain. She died of cancer in 1960 when she was only thirty-six years old.

GR — 1372 Ljubowirow, P. G. Die wirtschaftliche Lage der deutschen Kolonien

des Saratower und Wolsker Bezirks im Jahre 1791. (The economic condition of the German colonies of the Saratov and Volsk Districts in the year 1791.) Pokrowsk: Wolgadeutscher Staatsverlag, 1925. 95 pp.

The Volsk district consisted of 20 of the most northern Volga German colonies, starting with Schaffhausen and continuing southward to Paulskoje. The Saratov district, according to Ljubowirow, consisted of 44 villages, including Jagodnaja Poljana and Poboschnaja on the

59

Bergseite and 42 on the Wiesenseite, with colonies on both sides of the Great Karaman River and its tributaries. The population of these colonies is given as at the time of settlement and again in 1775 and in 1791. In 23 cases the number of families had decreased after settlement, in 14 cases it had increased and in 8 colonies it had remained the same. It has usually been assumed that the decrease was due to sickness, poor living conditions, and the attacks of the Kirghiz. Ljubomirow believes that another factor was the movement of German craftsmen to Russian villages. Early statistics give the number of German colonists that were not trained in agriculture. It is interesting to note that villages with the largest number of people who were not farmers were also the ones with a declining population, whereas those with an abundance of farmers, either remained the same or even increased in population. Prof. Ljubomirow then gives charts showing the amount of farmland, pasture land, and acres of wooded land for both the colony and for each settler. These statistics are taken from an atlas compiled by an economic director of the Volga col-onies named Ogarew who did this work in 1791. The atlas is being preserved in the Academy of Science in Leningrad where it was studied by Ljubowirow. Unfortunately, there are no statistics for most of the Bergseite colonies.

GR — 1373 Niehaus, Lovella.

The John Walter Family. 24 typed pages. No date given.

Miss Niehaus has collected the passport of John Walter of Frank (Volga Bergseite), his marriage certificate, church membership lists in Kansas, and death certificates of both John and Katherine Walter in Lodi, California, as well as letters from Russian relatives and reports of American relatives. John and Katherine Walter came to the United States on the City of Berlin which arrived in New York from Liverpool on June 26, 1876.

GR — 1374 Petri, Hans.

"Kirche und Schule in den ersten Jahrzehnten evang. wolgadeutscher Gemeinden." Ostdeutsche Wissenschaft. Munich: Verlag Oldenbourg, 1960. pp. 286-316.

Among the early ministers on the Volga, Petri mentions Johannes Janet who served in Anton from 1765-1767 and after that was pastor of the Reformed Church in Messer until his death in 1803. He also mentions Rev. Balthasar Wernborner, the Lutheran pastor of Katharinenstadt, who died at the hands of the Kirghiz in 1774.

Pastor Johann Georg Herwig was the first minister of Norka. He was followed by Pastor Johannes Georg Cattaneo of Switzerland who became famous for his knowledge of medicine. The importance of Ignatius Fessler is then stressed. He was made superintendent of the Saratov consistory of the Lutheran Church and introduced many reforms in the organization of the churches. He was even more important for his role in the revitalization of the school system of the Protestant colonies. The reforms suggested by Prof. Erdmann were familiar to him and he attempted to fulfill them during his lifetime. Ignatius Fessler was assisted in his work both in the churches and the schools by Pastor Johann S. Huber of Katharinenstadt and Pastor Adam C. Kohlreiff of Bettinger.

GR — 1375 Schirmunski, Viktor.

Die deutschen Kolonien in der Ukraine. Geschichte, Mundarten, Volkslied und Volkskunde. (German colonies in the Ukraine. History, Dialects, Folk Songs and Folklore.) Zentral Voelkerverlag der Sowjet-Union, 1928. 161 pp.

This is a very interesting book on the various subjects mentioned above. Schirmunski was a pro-fessor at the University of Leningrad and devoted much of his time to Germans in Russia. His book was published one year after Professor Schirmunski and Hermann Bachmann traveled together through the Beresan region of the Ukraine to which Rohrbach belonged. (Rohrbach was the native village of Bachmann.) The trip was later described by Bachmann in very humorous fashion in his book, Durch die deutschen Kolonien des Beresaner Gebiets, which was republished by the Landsmannschaft der Deutschen aus Russland in 1974. (GR — 435) Prof. Schirmunski's account is much more scholarly than the Bachmann book.

GR — 1376 Schmunk, Tobias. The Story of My Life. Unpublished manuscript

written in Greeley, Colorado around 1971. 89pp. The ancestors of Tobias Schmunk came to Russia

with the Volga Germans but accepted the offer of a Russian nobleman to settle on his estate south of Voronezh. Here they helped establish the colony of Riebensdorf. In 1868, when the colony had become overcrowded, the grandfather of Tobias moved to Ruhental on the Sea of Azov. This is where Tobias was born. He decided early to become a minister. After studying in Neusatz in the Crimea for several years, he transferred to the University of Dorpat where he learned to know Dr. Karl Stumpp. Tobias was 19 years old

60

when World War I broke out, but he was not drafted because he was a student of theology. He met his future wife in 1915. Her name was Rosalie Scholl and her ancestors had helped found the colony of Worms. Years later, her father had moved to Orenburg where Rosalie was born.

This book is especially interesting in its description of the years of war and revolution from 1916-1919. We are told of how a mob of Russian women looted the store of Tobias's father in Ruhental, and of how Tobias heard of the assassination of Rasputin while traveling to Orenburg to meet the parents of Rosalie in November 1916. He and Rosalie were married at that time but left thereafter for Dorpat. In March 1917, students at the university welcomed the news of the revolution at first. In the fall of 1917, the University was closed because the German army was advancing on the city. Tobias and Rosalie then went to Orenburg where Tobias became an assistant to Rev. Johannes Stenzel. (See GR — 731). The city passed back and forth between the Reds and Whites, with many rich people being arrested and shot by the communists. They decided to return to Dorpat and left Orenburg, going by way of Smolensk, where they were told it was impossible to reach their destination. By chance, Tobias heard that about 600 German P.W/s would leave for Germany in a few day's time. He joined them and after enduring much hardship, managed to reach Germany and later, America.

Although stories of the war years were fascinating to read, the book was marred for me by Rev. Schmunk's denial of the holocaust. He thinks that the bodies of the people found in the crematoria were actually those of German citizens who were killed in allied bombing raids and then cremated to avoid the spread of disease!

GR — 1377 Schrenk, M. Fr.

Aus der Geschichte der Entstehung und Entmckelung der evang-luth. Kolonien in den Gouvernements Bessarabien und Cherson. (The History of the Origin and Development of the evan.-luth. colonies in the provinces of Bessarabia and Kherson.) Odessa: L. Nitzsche, 1901. pp. 1-71 (incomplete).

This is the history of the evan.-luth. colonies of Bessarabia and Kherson with special reference to their religious background. Schrenk tells of the organization of Lutheran and Reformed churches in those colonies and gives the names of all pastors who served there. He has little sympathy for the emotionalism of such people as Pastor Eduard Wuest and Pastor Johannes Bonekemper.

GR — 1378 Spieskowa, Emma.

Memoiren. Unpublished manuscript written in 1960 in Germany. 19 typed pages.

Emma Spieskowa was born in Berlin, but in 1906 she left for Moscow to be with a friend. She met her husband, a Russian lawyer, and married him in 1908. Her life was very happy until the revolution of 1917 and the great famine of 1920-1923. In 1929 the persecution of religion began. Churches were closed and ministers were arrested. Bishop Alexander Theophil Meyer was in Moscow at the time. He called together nine reliable Christians who were members of the church, including Emma Spieskowa, and told them that they would have to carry on after all ministers were gone. They had his permission to baptize, marry, and bury people and to give the Lord's Supper. After the death of Bishop Meyer in 1935, Rev. Streck became pastor. In May 1936 three members of the church had to sign a statement that they would be responsible for financial arrangements. Everyone was afraid to sign but eventually, Emma Spieskowa and two other elderly people without children agreed to do it. These papers were handed in on August 1st 1936 but on November 4th, Rev. Streck and the three signers were all arrested and sent to Siberia for five years.

After 1941 Emma was placed under the same restrictions that were passed against all other German people, but she remembered her promise to Bishop Meyer and would gather together German people to hold religious services. By Pentecost 1944 people were covered with lice and had no bread, flour or salt, and their clothes consisted only of rags, but they came together to sing religious songs and to hear the Bible read. Finally in 1955, they were released from their camps on condition that they never try to go back to their original homes. At this time, Emma moved to Central Asia to escape from the bitter Siberian cold. In 1958 she received permission to emigrate to East Germany where a brother lived. But he had become a communist and after five weeks, threw Emma out of his house. Christian friends then helped her move to West Germany where she wrote these memoirs.

GR — 1379 Toepfer, Annie Mane (Amy) The Toepfer Family. Unpublished manuscript

written in the 1970's. 19 typed pages. The Toepfer family came originally from Fischer, a

Protestant colony on the east side of the Volga. Three brothers named Christian, Johann Heinrich and Wilhelm Toepfer came to

61

the United States on the S.S. Mosel, arriving in New York on July 29, 1876. The following year Wilhelm Toepfer died in Ellsworth, Kansas. His widow then married a Mr., Denning of Herzog, Kansas and joined the Catholic Church.

GR — 1380 Toepfer, Anna Marie (Amy)

The Goetz Family. Unpublished manuscript, no date given, 15 typed pages.

Amy Toepfer tells of six families named Goetz. Not all of them came to the United States. Sometimes, the parents stayed in Russia but their children and grandchildren immigrated to America. Unfortunately, Amy Toepfer does not give us the ships on which they sailed.

GR — 1381 Toepfer, Anna Marie (Amy).

The family of Catherine Marie Graus Toepfer Denning. Unpublished manuscript, no date given. 29pp.

Catherine Marie Graus was born 1846 in Paulskoje, Russia, on the eastern side of the Volga. In 1864 she married Johann Wilhelm Toepfer. Twelve years later they came to America on the S.S, Mosel with three children. (Two Toepfer brothers, Christian and Johann Heinrich came on the same ship.) In May of 1877 Johann Wilhelm died quite suddenly. A few months after his death, Catherine gave birth to twins. In 1879 she moved to Herzog, Kansas and in 1880 she married Michael Denning, who was a widower with six children. Catherine had five children and they had three sons together. Later, Catherine Marie died while delivering additional twins. She was buried at the side of the first wife in the new cemetery of Victoria, Kansas,

GR — 1382 Warkentin, Sarah Harder.

The Life and Experiences of Sarah Harder Warkentin. Translated from the German by her daughter, Susanna Warkentin Meinzer. 9 typed pages plus genealogical charts and letters. Unpublished manuscript, no date given, but probably 1933.

Sarah Harder Warkentin was 75 years old when she wrote these memoirs in 1933. She was born in the Mennonite village of Schoenfeld of the Bergtal group of colonies, but when she was 2 1/2 years old, her family moved to the village of Silberfeld, where she had four years of schooling. In 1869 the family moved across the Dnieper River to Fuerstenfeld where there were no schools. For that reason, the eleven year old Sarah had to act as schoolteacher to her younger brothers and sisters. In 1874 when Sarah was fifteen years old and working in Bergtal the entire community decided to leave for the New World. The Harder family had to remain behind because Sarah's brother was working for a miller and her sister in another home. Sarah and her father found temporary work until they were able to join another group from the Molotschna. They arrived in Philadelphia on the S.S. Switzerland, sailing from Antwerp. The Harders joined a car bound for York, Nebraska, where they were befriended by a Mr. Goetz and later rented some land outside of town. On Feb. 22, 1883 Sarah married a man named Warkentin and left with him for Oregon. Their train was hit by another train and a fire broke out. They spent a terrifying night in the mountains, but eventually arrived in Independence, Oregon, where Sarah's brother-in-law lived. Later they moved to Reedley, California, and after her husband died, Sarah lived with her daughter in Sacramento.

GR — 1383 Weber, Gale.

A History of the Political Geography of the German Republic of Volga (sic). An unpublished manuscript, 1968. 23 typed pages. (Written for a geography class at college.)

This paper was written by Gale Weber before the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia was founded. Consequently, she had to rely primarily upon English historians for her material. Her account is, on the whole, accurate except that she assumed falsely that the Russian names of the German colonies were given after the people were deported in 1941. On the contrary, every colony had both a German and a Russian name throughout its entire existence.

62

On the Cover: A view of Bergdorf, a beautifully located village in the hilly country east of the Dniester, visited several times by Jacob Hieb, Sr. during his trip to Russia in 1928, described in "My Return to Russia." END OF VOLUME 6, No. 1 SPRING 1983

of the · 3. a brief summary of the history of the germans in russia, concluding with reasons why...

Documents