November 18, 2008

Mennonite Refugees After World War II: Those Who Came West and Those Who Were Sent Back East

by Harry Loewen

Introduction

Shortly after World War II Anna Gunther and her three children found themselves in Austria where they were to be sent back to the Soviet Union. An Austrian policeman and two American soldiers ordered them to board the train that was to take them East. In desperation, Anna Gunther said to the three men, “We are not going back!” Lining up her children in a row, she said, “You can shoot us all, but don’t send us back.” Seeing one of the soldiers with a rifle, little Jascha folded his hands, looked up to his mother and said, “Mama, I’ll give you a hundred kisses, but don’t let them shoot us!” The armed soldier lowered his rifle and said, “I can’t do it”--and all three men walked away. The Gunther family escaped to the woods, found their way to Holland, and in 1947, with the help of MCC, they emigrated to Canada (Loewen, Road to Freedom 75).

When my family (my mother, brother, sister and I) came to Coaldale, Alberta, in 1948, we were most grateful to God and to our relatives who had sponsored us. We had escaped from the clutches of the Red Army, were gathered in Germany in a refugee camp, and then emigrated to Canada, a land of freedom and opportunities.

There were many others who were grateful to God for bringing them to this country. At prayer meetings in homes and in church, women--and it was mostly women--with tears in their eyes, often prayed: “Wir danken dir, Herr, dass du uns vor so vielen anderen bevorzugt hast und uns in dieses Land gebracht hast” (We thank you, Lord, that you have favoured us above so many others and brought us to this country).

They did not mean that God was a respector of persons and for some reason favoured some and not others, although to me it sounded that way at the time. They were simply grateful that they were among those who were able to escape a harsh life in the old country, were not sent back to Russia, as so many were, and now enjoyed a new life.

This brings me to our theme for this evening: “Mennonite Refugees After World War II: Those Who Came West and Those Who Were Sent Back East.” In this reflective and very personal paper, I want to deal with those of our people who after World War II were able to immigrate to Canada, to South America, and a few to the United States. I then want to deal with those refugees who like us left the Soviet Union in 1943, but then were sent back by the Soviet forces against their will. I shall describe and compare the experiences of the two groups in their respective destinations. Lastly, we also want to cast a glance at those Russian Mennonites who, beginning in the 1970s, at last were able to leave the Soviet Union for Germany as Aussiedler (resettlers). All these groups were part of the Russian Mennonite refugees who after World War II began a migratory movement whose 60th anniversary we are celebrating this year.

1. The post-World War II Refugees Who Came West

After the Communist Revolution of 1917, the Russian-Mennonite world, which had existed for about 130 years, was drastically changed. The economic, cultural and spiritual life of Mennonites was not only disrupted, but came virtually to an end. Not seeing much hope under the new regime, and fearing for the future of their children, over 20,000 Russian Mennonites left Russia in the 1920s for Canada, many of whose descendants are here tonight. It was these Canadian Mennonites who later welcomed the post-war refugees to this country and helped them to become established.

In contrast to the post-World War II refugees, who in many instances had lost their husbands and fathers and whose communal life had been virtually destroyed, the 1920s immigrants to Canada were fortunate to enter this country with their families more or less intact. They were able to re-establish their communal and religious life similar to what it had been prior to 1917, although their beginnings in Canada were also very difficult.

Those who were unable to leave Russia prior to 1930, faced difficult times in the Soviet Union. Their homes and property were confiscated by the state, the villages were turned into collectives, and the churches were closed. In the 1930s the leading men-- teachers, ministers and professionals--were arrested, often tortured, and sometimes shot.

A child of six at the time, I still remember the dreaded “black raven,” the secret police vehicle, stopping at houses in the dead of night and taking away the men, who would never be seen again. Seven years ago, Art and my sister Helen Dick had access to the Ukrainian archives and discovered that in 1937 our father, Nikolai Loewen, and our grandfather, Johann Loewen, were executed by the NKVD in the Zaporozhye area. According to Peter Letkemann, “based on data for the Zaporozhe region...about 80 % of Mennonite and German men arrested in 1937-38 were shot, on average within 6 weeks of their arrest” (Letkemann 193).

During the German occupation of the Ukraine between 1941 and 1943, Mennonites began to breathe a bit easier. Some of them resumed their religious life, often with women leading the worship services, since there were hardly any men left. Mennonites saw the German military as liberators from Communism. But they also saw the evil face of the German occupiers. Most German military men did not share the Mennonites’ faith, and they regarded the Slavic and Jewish people as sub-humans and treated them accordingly. As Volksdeutsche (i.e. ethnic Germans), Mennonites were generally treated well by the German army. But Mennonites also knew that in the event of a Soviet victory, they too would suffer the fate of the conquered side.

In 1943, after the German defeat at Stalingrad, about 35,000 Russian Mennonites embarked upon their Great Trek west, hoping to reach Germany ahead of the Red Army. A few, like our family, were able to travel by train, but the majority, including my wife’s family, moved slowly by horse and wagons through rain, mud, cold, snow and ice. Tired horses collapsed pulling the heavy loads, wagons broke down and had to be repaired or abandoned. Mothers had to search for food for their children. Sick and old people died and were buried by the wayside, often in shallow graves or just under a few inches of snow. After a few minutes of reflection and a short prayer, the trek moved on again.

When the Soviet forces entered East Prussia, Poland and eastern Germany, they took terrible revenge on the German population for what the German armies had done to the Slavic people. In the initial stages of occupation, the Soviet soldiers behaved most brutally: They killed, burned and looted, letting out their rage on the German population and especially on women of any age. Estimates based on documents and on contemporary records indicate that perhaps as many as two million German women were raped, sometimes repeatedly (Anonymous, p. xx).

Mennonite refugees from Russia and Poland were caught in the midst of this chaos and brutallity. While German women later reported what they had suffered at the hands of the Soviets and got help, Mennonite women were reluctant to talk about such experiences when they came to the refugee camps and later to Canada. Given their cultural and moral background, “there was a kind of conspiracy of silence regarding the darkest aspects of the refugee experience.” Moreover, Mennonite male leaders, as Ted Regehr and Marlene Epp observe, were largely unable to deal with such problems as rape and other abuses (Regehr 97-98; Epp 144ff.; see also Anonymous, p. xxi).

The worst fear the refugees experienced was the real possibility of being sent back to the Soviet Union. Of the 35,000 Mennonites who had fled west, at least 23,000 were captured by the Red Army and with the help of the Allies sent back to the Soviet Union. These refugees endured untold hardships and many faced abuse and death. They were packed into boxcars and shipped back, not to their former homes in Ukraine, but to northern places, beyond the Ural Mountains and to the far reaches of Siberia.

In the first year after the war, the western allies helped the Soviet forces to apprehend the refugees and hand them back to the Soviets. According to the Yalta agreement between Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin early in 1945, the Soviet leader regarded his former citizens as his own. Even in the western zones, right after the war, children were told by their mothers to be careful when walking the streets, for both Russian and Allied soldiers were on the lookout for Soviet citizens to be sent back. In the summer of 1945 two million Soviet nationals were forcibly sent back to Russia (Cohen 444). The 23,000 Russian Mennonites were among them.

In Soviet-occupied Berlin right after the war it was especially dangerous for the refugees. A man by the name of Hans Kroeker, the son of Jakob Kroeker of Licht im Osten fame, a former SS man and given to drink, was used by God to provide safety and shelter for the frightened refugees (Kroeker’s diary). Robert Kreider and Peter Dyck of MCC discovered Kroeker’s work and then took over the rescue operation. Peter Dyck admits that, “If it hadn’t been for Hans, there would not have been an MCC refugee camp in Berlin later. There would have been no Volendam sailing to South America with several thousand people. And probably there would be no colony in Paraguay today called Volendam” (Up From the Rubble 134).

MCC was a godsend in those difficult times. C. F. Klassen and Peter and Elfrieda Dyck gathered the Mennonites in camps, including Berlin, Gronau, Falingbostel and other places, provided food, shelter and clothes for them, and helped them with their papers for emigration to South and North America.
Early in 1947, the Berlin group, together with refugees from Munich, was able to escape the Soviet zone and leave for Paraguay on the ship Volendam. This group considered the escape a miracle. And it was a miracle in which God used a man like Hans Kroeker as well as Soviet and American military personnel. Elfrieda Dyck prayed with the refugees in Berlin, while MCC and Soviet and American military men guided the escape train from Berlin through the Russian zone to Bremerhaven without an “incident,” as it was called. The refugees had escaped from a potentially terrible fate.

Mennonites who went to Paraguay in 1947 and 1948 were not the first to settle in the so-called “green hell” of the Chaco. Canadian Mennonites had established the Menno Colony there in 1927 (see Martin W. Friesen), and Russian Mennonites had founded the Fernheim Colony in 1930. Their beginnings in Paraguay were most difficult and they required much help from MCC and other organizations. With wise planning, hard work, reliance on God, and perseverance, they developed into manageable and eventually prosperous communities.

When the post-World War II Mennonites came to Paraguay, they faced almost insurmountable material, social, and cultural difficulties, exacerbated by the fact that there were few men among them. Women with their children had to fell trees, dig wells, build their first sud-huts, and work the dry and sandy soil to eke out a modest living. The village of Friedensheim in the Neuland Colony became known as Frauendorf (women’s village) because in its beginning almost all of the 147 adult inhabitants were women. Only three men were among them (Warkentin email). The earlier Chaco settlers and MCC objected to the idea of a village of women only. “You can’t do that,” they said, “you won’t survive” (Epp 100-101). However, the women supported each other, got help from MCC, and with the assistance of the Menno and Fernheim colonies, the women’s village and the Neuland Colony not only survived, but also prospered as time went on.

Today the Neuland Colony, with its capital Neu-Halbstadt, is a picture of success in many ways. Many of the first immigrants to Neuland, mostly mothers and grandmothers, lie buried in the well-kept cemeteries of the colony. Their children and grandchildren do well economically, educationally, culturally and spiritually. The young people are being educated in modern school buildings and taught by qualified teachers. Many of the teachers and ministers in the colony have studied in Germany, North America and in the capital of Asuncion. The architecturally beautiful churches rival those of Mennonite churches in North America. Those of you who will attend the Mennonite World Conference in Paraguay next year, will have a chance to observe the miracle that has happened in that country. It has been said before but it bears repeating, wherever Mennonites settle, the deserts begin to bloom and the waste places become homelands (see Warkentin “Das Schulwesen”).

Mennonites who came to Canada in 1948 also followed in the footsteps of earlier Mennonite settlers. In eastern Canada, mostly in Ontario, it was the so-called Swiss Mennonites who had come after the American Wars of independence in the 18th century, and in Manitoba it was Russian Mennonites, called “Kanadier,” who came between 1874 and 1880. In the 1920s it was Russian Mennonites, the so-called “Russlaender,” who came to the western provinces of Canada. Many of the descendants of the 1920s Mennonites, are here today celebrating the 60th anniversary with the 1948 Mennonites.

Those of you, or your forbears, who came in the 1920s, endured many difficulties in this country, especially economically. While your people had been able to come as entire families and could resurrect in this country their religious life which had been destroyed during the early Soviet period, they nevertheless faced hard times during the depression years of the 1930s. During World War II, however, economic conditions improved in agriculture, in manufacturing and in the service sectors. When the 1948 “displaced persons” (DPs) came, there were many jobs, including house work for young women and ample employment on the farms. And the “Russlaender,” the 1920s Mennonites, who sponsored and welcomed the new arrivals, helped the immigrants materially and spiritually.

During the 50th anniversary celebration ten years ago in Winnipeg, questions were asked whether there had been any tensions between the DPs and the “Russlaender.” The answer was yes, perhaps here and there, but not serious ones. Especially the young people of the two groups fell in love and got married. D. D. Klassen, a minister in Manitoba at the time, put it this way: “Dee Oole jachte sich, enn dee Junge befriede sich!” (The old people quarreled and the young people got married!) (Loewen, Road... 242-43).

Many “Russlaender” actually admired the hard-working newcomers. Former editor of the Der Bote, Gerhard Ens, observed at the 50th anniversary celebration in Manitoba that there were some who envied the new immigrants, especially for their hard work and their family solidarity. The newcomers pooled their resources, built houses and acquired property (Loewen, Road... 241ff.). My wife Gertrude and I, for example, moved into our newly-built home when we got married in 1953, only five years after setting foot on Canadian soil.

But some young people among the 1948 immigrants also envied the young people of the “Russlaender.” For example, the Canadian young men drove their parents’ cars when taking their girl-friends on dates, whereas most of the young people among the newcomers had no cars to get away from the prying eyes of their neighbours! Even after an engagement, the DP couple had to walk along the street for all to see what they were up to! They couldn’t even walk arm in arm, which was a no-no at the time!

I remember how I envied some Canadian-Mennonite young people like Arnold Baerg in the Coaldale Bible School or Hugo Jantz at MBBC in Winnipeg. They were intelligent, read English magazines, and had completed their high school. I, on the other hand, had to struggle with my English and still had to complete my secondary education. I remember how Gertrude sweated profusely when she in 1955 prayed for the first time in English in Winnipegosis, Manitoba, where we worked as young home mission workers. Yet we hardly ever felt despised by the superior “Russlaender”-Mennonites. In fact, our Canadian Mennonite friends often listened with great interest to the stories we had to tell, in German of course. In Bible School and at MBBC, I remember reciting and reading German poems my fellow Canadian students loved to hear.

More importantly, the 1920s Mennonites had well-established institutions which benefitted the newcomers in many ways. The churches, most of which were still German, took the immigrants in and provided for them fellowship and instruction in the Christian faith. Young people were drawn into the life of the church, including music-making, choral singing, and Sunday school, activities we had missed during the Soviet and war periods. Some of us were even asked to lead at prayer meetings and deliver sermonnets, as our German was generally better that that of the Canadians.

Many immigrant young people were encouraged to attend Mennonite high schools and Bible schools. In Coaldale, Alberta, for example, there were 18 young people, both MBs and GCs, who were given free tuition and board, all subsidized by the churches. I was among those who attended the Coaldale Bible School for three years, graduated, and then was strongly encouraged by the church leadership to attend the Mennonite Brethren Bible College in Winnipeg, where again I studied for three years and graduated in 1955. Had it not been for the encouragement and support I received toward my initial education, I would not be standing here today.

Many immigrants worked on the farms and in the various trades, such as carpentry, and in a short time they were able to pay off their travel debs and build modest homes for themselves. The 1920s people had it much more difficult in this regard. When they came to Canada, they had incurred heavy travel debts, and Mennonite leaders such as David Toews and C. F. Klassen had to see to it that their loans were repaid to the CPR.

Today the 1948 immigrants are well intergrated in the Mennonite communities and in Canadian society. They are generally well off, there are many professionals among them, and with other Canadians they live in towns and cities. They vote for the parties of their choice, and some even enter the political arena. The German language, once the vehicle of their faith and values, has given way to English, which many now speak better than German. While most are members of Mennonite congregations, for many, especially the young, the difficult times in the old country are but a distant memory or are forgotten altogether. Many, thank God, seek to serve their Lord, but there are also some who are forgetting their past and their spiritual heritage.

2. Those Who Were Sent Back to the Soviet Union

The Mennonites who came West after World War II, were only a fraction of the 35,000 who in 1943 tried to escape from the rapidly advancing Red Army. Only 12,000 made it to West Germany in 1945 and from there, as we have seen, to South America and Canada. Some 23,000 were repatriated to the Soviet Union after the war. The Mennonites who were sent back were mostly women and their children. Like the refugees who came West, these women had lost their husbands and older sons in the 1930s, and then in 1941, just before the Germans invaded the Soviet Union. Some of the men had been executed by the NKVD as traitors and spies, but most had been exiled to hard-labour camps in Arkhangelsk, Vorkuta in the far north, Kazakhstan, Sverdlovsk beyond the Ural Mountains, and Magadan in far eastern Siberia. Just a handful of the men returned to their loved ones after Stalin’s death in 1953, but most of them were never seen again.

Maria Regehr and her children came as far as Poland in 1943. In September, 1945, the family was sent back to Russia, not to their former home, but to the Vorkuta region in the Komi Republic. Peter, Maria’s husband, had been arrested in 1938 and shot in the same year by the NKVD. Maria died in 1947 of hard work and lack of food, and her daughter Sarah died soon thereafter. One of her sons, Isaak, was able to emigrate to Canada in 1948 as a forest worker. Three of her other sons were able to return to Germany in the 1990s. Today they live in Neuwied, Germany (Regehr interview).

Maria Kornelsen from Fuerstenwerder, Ukraine, speaks of her experiences and reports of how she and her family were sent back to the Soviet Union. She writes, “Under German occupation and also on the trek [west] things were better [than under Communism]. We had meetings and Sunday school. But this did not last. [At the end of the war] we were gathered by the [Soviets] into a compound in order to be sent back. Awakening there in the middle of the night, one would hear soft sighing and quiet prayers. During the day all was quiet, [but at night] after every visit by the soldiers, crying and praying could be heard” (Woelk, 47).

There is little doubt that Maria Kornelsen here refers to abuse at the hands of Russian soldiers. She then speaks of a long train ride to the Irkutsk region in eastern Siberia where they lived and had to work hard. In 1956, three years after Stalin’s death, the militia control (Komendatura) relaxed somewhat, but they were still not allowed to move back to their former home in Ukraine.

Frieda Funk, who originally came from Melitopel, was sent back and came to live with her children in Central Asia. “We were underway for six months,” she writes. “Our lot was to go to Tajikistan in the hottest region of Russia. In 1947 we were sent to the cotton commune ‘Karl Marx.’ The families consisted mainly of women and children. For the first year we lived from trading the things we had brought along. The commune [colective] in which we worked the cotton fields under a burning sun gave us nothing more than a few kilos of corn” (Woelk, 48-49).

The reports of these exiles don’t dwell much on the phyisical and material hardships they experienced. Difficulties were almost taken for granted. Instead, they emphasize God’s daily provisions and speak especially of how they were able to keep the faith.

For example, Klara Martens was sent with her children to the deep forests of the Komi Republic in the Vologda region north of Moscow. As early as 1948 the women and children were holding worship services in their homes, which of course was against the law. Martens writes, “My mother and several others with her were arrested immediately and imprisoned. The meetings were stopped.” But in 1951 the women resumed their Bible studies and church services in their homes.

Martens relates, with a touch of humour, no doubt, “While the grownups were in the worship service, the children were brought to one of the homes, where they played together. Usually they would ‘play church.’ One day an old grandmother came to the house where the children were playing church and asked where their mothers were. The children answered that they had gone to a service. When the old woman wanted to leave, the children surrounded her and said: ‘First we must pray together, grandma,’!” According to Klara Martens, this Russian woman later turned to God (Woelk, 50).

Anna Thiessen, originally from Kronsweide, Chortitza, reports of their trip of three months from Germany to the region of Novosibirsk in Western Siberia, in 1945. Some families, Thiessen writes, came to a ship repair yard where the women, lying on their backs on the ice, had to paint the undersides of the ships. Others were sent to the coal mines, where men and women had to perform back-breaking tasks with little food. Others were scattered throughout the villages to do all kinds of menial hard labour.

Thiessen writes of the importance of religious instruction for their children, and the hunger they all had for the Word of God. According to Thiessen, “Children were taught to pray by their mothers. The beautiful spiritual songs sung in family settings also performed a great service. They were our sermons and they were of great influence in the religious education of our children.”

She relates how a visiting minister was received by the spiritually starved exiles: “Hearers had come together from the neighbouring villages,” she writes. “Many tears were shed and conversions took place. Hunger for the Word of God was great. At distances of up to 60 kilometres some came on bicycles through the snow of a Siberian winter to attend the meetings. When a visiting brother came to preach, the news was spread during the [preceeding] evening and night, so that the people could attend a meeting the next morning, often coming on foot” (Woelk, 51-52).

Anna Thiessen speaks of a first baptism held in 1955. “It took place at night,” she writes. “The candidates made their confession of faith in the evening, before the congregation.” The baptismal candidates were mostly young people, some of whom, after their baptism, spread the Gospel in the villages, which of course was against the law.

Toward the end of the 1950s, persecutions increased again and there were more threats of imprisonment. Then a minister, Otto Wiebe, from Karaganda, as Thiessen writes, “came for a visit and told of a German M.B. Church there. He invited us to move to Karaganda. In the following year we and most of the membership accepted this invitation” (Woelk, 51-52). Minister Otto Wiebe was arrested repeatedly for his church work and died in prison in 1964 (Aber wo... 191-217).

Karaganda in Kazakhstan became the largest centre of post-World War II Mennonites in the Soviet Union. Exiles from the 1930s, 1940s, and those who were sent back after the war, established large communities of faith in and around this city. After 1956, when Soviet control over the exiles relaxed somewhat, religious groups, including Lutherans, Baptists and Mennonites, gathered in this city for fellowship. At first, meetings were held in private homes, but later, when congregations grew, they built Bethäuser (“houses of prayer”). The German M.B. church in Karaganda was especially active and successful in organizing its church life.

Karaganda began in 1856 as a coal-mining town, but under the tsars it remained underdeveloped. By the end of the 1920s, however, the Soviet Union began to exploit the large coal reserves which were worked by exiles, prisoners and other deportees. At the beginning of 1931 there were still only 2,000 residents in Karaganda, but by 1933, two years later, the town had swelled to 180,000 residents, consisting mostly of convicts and their supervisers (Wasserströme, 37 ff.)

After World War II, some 200,000 Russian-German refugees from Germany and Poland were repatriated to the Soviet Union, including the 23,000 Mennonites, many of whom came to Karaganda as early as 1945. These Germans and Mennonites were called “special settlers” (Sondersiedler). These “special settlers” were considered spies and traitors, prisoners with very few if any rights. They could never leave their place of residence without special permission.

Here is one example of how these “special settlers” were treated: Anna Wall, born in 1904, had to sign in 1948 that as a “special settler” she would never leave the area. If she did, she would be considered a criminal and liable to 20 years of imprisonment with hard labour. This order applied to her children as well.

According to official documents, in 1949 there were over 400,000 “special settlers” in Kazakhstan, half of whom were Russian Germans. By the middle of the 1950s there lived more than 40,000 German “special settlers” in the Karaganda area alone (Wasserströme 52). Ordinary, i.e. non-political, settlers had certain privileges to jobs, food provisions and education. The “special settlers,” on the other hand, were considered enemies of the state, often called “fascists,” and thus discriminated against by the government and society.

Stalin died in 1953. In 1956 his successor Nikita Khrushchev condemned the “personality cult” of the Soviet dictator and some of his repressions. This ended some of the strict rules of the Komendatura (militia conrol) and many political prisoners were set “free.” In Karaganda alone, 46,790 German settlers were freed from the supervision of the Komendatura, thus allowing them to get passports for travel, but only within Russia. However, they were not allowed to go back to their former homes.

The German settlers, including the Mennonites, used their new “freedom” to build modest homes, churches, and to develop their congregational life. As honest and hard-working people, they began to enjoy a certain respect among the population. They were known to build better houses, cultivate more beautiful gardens, and in time have large church buildings. Some Mennonites joined Russian Baptist churches, but some decided to establish their own German-speaking congregations. The German M. B. Church became one of the largest Mennonite congregations in Karaganda.

In 1956, this church began with 21 members. In short order large baptisms took place, adding to the membership. Other Mennonite settlers were attracted to this church from near and far-away places. By the end of 1957 this church had 450 members, by the end of 1958 there were 770 members, and by 1959, one year later, the church had swelled to 980 members (Wasserströme... 110).

A man by the name of Willi Berg, living in a village some 700 km away from Karaganda, heard of the newly established German Mennonite church and moved there. When he first heard the congregation sing, he was reminded of his mother back home in Ukraine whom he had lost as a child. Throughout the service he sat there and wept. When an opportunity was given to pray, he prayed the prayer his mother had taught him many years ago: “Lieber Heiland mach mich fromm...” (Dear Saviour make me good). It was said that there was not a dry eye to be seen in the large congregation (Wasserströme... 111).

David Klassen (1899-1990) was an outstanding minister of this congregation. In 1918, still in Ukraine, he had been baptized by Benjamin Janz and received into the church in Tiege. In 1929 he had married Sara Hamm of Lichtenau, and together they served in this church until they were deported. In 1957 Klassen became the first elder of the Karaganda M. B. congregation. He was arrested and imprisoned three times for his religious activities, the first time in 1936. In prison he wrote letters and poems to strengthen his congregation at home, he encouraged fellow-prisoners in the faith, and testified wherever he could about his experiences with God. In all the pictures of him, whether in exile or in prison, Klassen smiles. He and his wife did not emigrate to Germany when so many others did. He died in 1990, serving his congregation faithfully to the very end. His wife Sara had died four years earlier (Wasserströme 419-26).

3. The Aussiedler in Germany

In the 1950s and 1960s the German chancellor Konrad Adenauer (1876-1967) and the German government negotiated with the Soviet government terms by which the last German prisoners would be freed and returned home. They also discussed terms according to which Russian Germans could leave the Soviet Union and move to Germany, their so-called “ancestral homeland” (Klassen 57-60). It was a slow process; the Soviet government stalled and did not want to release its citizens and valuable workers. But by the 1970s and 1980s many Mennonites availed themselves of the opportunity to leave the Soviet Union for what promised to be a better life in Germany.

Today there are about 60,000 Russian Mennonites living in Germany. They were first called Umsiedler, today more commonly Aussiedler (resettlers). Many of those who were sent back to the Soviet Union in 1945, together with their children and grandchildren, today reside in Espelkamp, Neuwied, Detmold, Frankenthal and other centres in Germany. While their German neighbors still see them as “Russians,” the German government has treated them as their own citizens, providing them with housing, employment, German language study, and generous retirement income for older people.

These “Russians,” as they are often called, are often the envy of their German neighbours. The new immigrants work hard, help each other in building their homes and churches, thus often by-passing the German builders, craftsmen, and professionals. This is viewed negatively by their German neighbours because their own suppliers of materials and services thus lose potential income. The Aussiedler communities in Germany are generally pictures of material success.

The native German Mennonites are also often critical of the Russian-Mennonites. They find that the Aussiedler are reluctant to cooperate with them in their church life and activities. The late Peter Foth, pastor of the large Mennonite church in Hamburg-Altona, had hoped that the Aussiedler would join the native German congregations and help them halt their declining church attendance and contribute to their spiritual revival (Foth 88-90). Instead, the Russian Mennonites established their own congregations, developed vibrant church programmes, and more often than not declined to join the native Mennonite churches and conferences. One prominent native German Mennonite was not surprised. “The Aussiedler churches are alive,” he bluntly told me, “whereas the German Mennonite churches are dead” (Waltner interview).

There are reasons for the Aussiedler wanting to remain separate from the German-Mennonite churches. They believe that the German Mennonites have become much like other Protestants--“too liberal and worldly.” Specifically, the Aussiedler miss among German Mennonites an emphasis on conversion, church discipline, and what they consider a modest and “biblical” dress code. Moreover, such things as ecumenism, feminism, modern culture, including rock music and movies, are things they reject. Some ministers among the Aussiedler I spoke with also mentioned that the German Mennonites generally lack an Anabaptist-Mennonite faith and lifestyle (Wölk interview).

The Aussiedler are grateful for the help they have received from the German government and from German Mennonites. But out of mere gratitude they will not join the native German churches. Hans von Niessen, a long-time leader among the Aussiedler, put it this way, “A believer who has come to Germany, will hardly find anything in the old congregations that will encourage him to integrate with them” (Klassen 354).

The Aussiedler congregations remind me of the way Canadian Mennonites, both Canadians and former immigrants, were 60 years ago: culturally and religiously conservative, afraid of the “world” making inroads, living by rules, and somewhat legalistic in their expressions of faith. Some Aussiedler, observing Canadian Mennonites today, see them as examples of “worldliness” and how not to do church (Wölk interview).

4. Summary and Conclusion

At this 60th anniversary we have several Mennonite groups represented. During and after World War II their experiences were more or less similar. They all came out of very difficult times during and after the war years. A majority of them were women and their children who were driven out of their homeland and faced an uncertain future. Many of their men, husbands and fathers, as we have seen, were either exiled or executed.

At the end of the war, the 35,000 Mennonites were divided involuntarily into two groups. The largest group was repatriated to the dreaded Soviet Union, where Mennonites suffered as never before, at least not since the time of the 16th-century Anabaptist martyrs (Smith 525). The smaller group, only 12,000, was able to come West, to South and North America. Mennonites during and after the war experienced what we read in Psalm 66:10-12: “For you, O God, have tested us; you have tried us as silver is tried. You brought us into the net; you laid burdens on our backs; you let people ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water.” But then the Psalm concludes on a note of gratitude and joy: “yet you have brought us out to a spacious place” [or a place of plenty].

Many of these people are today in Germany where they enjoy a freedom they have never known before. This freedom to serve God, as they have experienced him in difficult times, they guard jealously. They may be somewhat strict and perhaps a bit too legalistic in applying their faith and ethical practices, but there is no doubt that their witness is both sincere and biblical. They remain grateful to God for bringing them to a “spacious place,” a country of freedom, and they pray that they will never lose this faith and freedom again.

The group that went to South America, beginning in 1947, joined other Mennonites in what they called the “green hell” and eventually created their homes in what are now blooming deserts. The Paraguayan Mennonites are perhaps the only group that was able to reproduce the life which their ancestors enjoyed in pre-revolution Russia, an existence that combined the religious and the so-called secular aspects of life all in one (Isaak, 107). The Neuland Colony and the other post-WWII Paraguayan groups today model a Christian faith and life for both Mennonites and non-Mennonites around them. Like Canadian Mennonites, they struggle, to be sure, with materialism and the “world,” but they sincerely seek to live by the biblical faith of their forebears.

The group that came to Canada after World War II was perhaps the most fortunate, for it came to a modern democratic country which allowed the newcomers to strike roots, to prosper materially, and to enjoy the freedom to worship their God. God has brought this group “to a spacious place.” In these sixty years there was much space to grow, not only materially and culturally, but also spiritually. Those of us who belong to this group, are grateful to God and to our fellow Canadian Mennonites who helped us on our way.

But today there is also a need for all of us to recommit ourselves to this God of our fathers and mothers--and for some of us it is also necesssary to return to our spiriual roots. There are some who not only want to forget their dark and painful past, but also forget the God who has led them so faithfully. We need to remember and to study our tear-filled and blood-drenched history, and God’s faithful leading in it--and we must pass this heritage on to our children and grandchildren.

I might close with the words of Psalm 78:1-4 (our Society’s motto, by the eway): “Give ear, O my people... I will utter dark sayings from of old, things that we have heard and known, that our ancestors have told us. We will not hide them from [our] children; we will tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might, and the wonders that he has done.”

We trust that this 60th anniversary celebration will help us in this important resolve. And we want to thank our Historical Society for keeping our historical memory alive. Our Society deserves our whole-hearted support. I thank you!