A Collective Memory

by Andre Pekovich

Of the millions who lost their lives in Hitler's maelstrom of hate were dozens of Mennonites of the family Wiehler from the Ellerwald region, a lowland area on the Vistula near Gdansk (Danzig) in the former German state of West Prussia. Many of those who survived committed themselves to passing on the memories of the fallen, the history of the family dating back to the 1700s, and the lessons history taught, painful as they often were.

Most of those who survived escaped to western Germany during WWII to places as widely dispersed as Munster, Munich and the Weierhof. Many later emigrated to Vancouver, Abbotsford, Calgary, New York and Fiji where they reside today.

Since 1921, five reunions have been held to celebrate the family's growth and achievements. This latest, in July 22-24, was held in Oberwesel, a picturesque village on the Rhine near Bingen. It was attended by 250 family members including some twenty from BC, and several from Calgary, and featured seminars on mission and family history by members such as Marc Wiehler (Calgary) and Marianne Ullrich (Munster). A chronicle of the family's past (the Wiehlerkronik) samples personal stories from the past, and includes a genealogy of more than a thousand names, some 500 of which are still alive today.

Especially touching this time was the release of a translation of the personal diary of Hans-Joachim Wiehler, a 14-year-old boy in 1945 at the time of the flight from West Prussia, who kept his diary on scraps of paper, saving it when refugees lost everything but the clothes on their backs. The participants at the reunion were drawn into the story by a selection of readings from the diary by Ulrike Wiehler.

In a story common to nearly all who fled the Russian advance, he tells of leaving their farm in Klettendorf on wagons loaded with household goods in the bitter winter of January 1945, turning the livestock out on its own, and joining the column of refugees all bent on the same months-long mission--safety away from the front. Frequent aerial sorties and artillery duels interrupted the daily search for food and shelter in a countryside whose people were only too ready to turn them away due to overcrowding. Death due to cold and illness claimed refugees almost daily, and the hazards of the road included gang rape for women and girls, and violence, theft and murder for boys. Few men made the trek, many having already been seized for the war effort or killed as spies, sometimes in front of their families.

The frozen, rutted roads were lined with dead horses and wagons full of household goods damaged and left by their owners, sometimes aflame. Families struggled on with nothing more than what they could carry, becoming separated, while stragglers joined other families. Finally, reaching port cities such as Gotenhafen and Neustadt, they risked flight on ships that were routinely bombed and sunk, most notably, the liner Wilhelm Gustloff torpedoed by a Russian sub with the loss of more than 9,000 of its 10,250 mostly civilian refugees, including some Wiehlers among other Mennonites on board, the largest civilian loss of life in a single shipping incident ever.

The diary is honest and frank, reflecting the dismay of a young boy in an expatriate population accustomed to peace and security under benevolent Germany tyranny as it is uprooted, and forced to consider itself an unwitting enemy, an accidental criminal in the world around them. Until the last minutes of the coldest days in January 1945, hoping that Goebbels' "secret weapon" could win the peace back for them, they planned their retreat, only to see it destroyed piece by piece beginning only a few kilometres from their home:

In the bright moonlight reflected off the snow we can see our beautiful old house once more. Oh! When will we ever drive along this way again?

We have to wait a long time until we can get onto the main street, the old Reichstrasse #1. In carts, on horses, on foot, everyone is moving westward. Our army is disintegrating. The soldiers are fleeing for their safety - each man for himself. The [icy] road is smooth as glass and our progress is very slow. The thundering of the artillery comes closer and closer. The horses slip flat onto their stomachs frequently although they were freshly shod earlier today... Our bicycles are damaged by passing tanks because we secured them to the outside of the wagons. They are the first thing that we throw into the ditch. Because of this Reinhard cries for the first time.⁽¹⁾

The diary's economy with words often belies the importance of the events Hans witnessed. This simple passage produced echoes down the history of the family:

We meet up with the Penners from Fürstenau. They weren't able to find anywhere to sleep and had spent the whole night sitting in their cart. They are completely apathetic and say that if they have to live through another night like that one, they would shoot themselves. This they did the following night.

Though there were many times when help was given or arrived unexpectedly, the boy-author still expresses surprise at how quickly the world changed. The hubris evident in the boy at this time passed entirely out of him after this period, and those who met him (as I did just a few years before his death) could not fail to remark upon his humbleness and gentle spirit. Contrast his later humbleness with this passage from earlier:

Apparently our troops have once again occupied the small town of Neustadt. That's the town we drove through a few days ago just before the Russians captured it. The two of us must quickly find tickets for the ship and get out of this town of suffering with its two million refugees. Polish people stand around on the street corners and some of the shop assistants can't even understand German anymore.

Hans and his mother, separated from his aunt, grandmother and brothers, are taken aboard a refugee boat that is torpedoed by a Russian sub only hours out into the ocean. They are rescued by a patrol boat, but he sees others are not so lucky:

A few men in lifeboats are tackling the wreck, armed with metal saws, crowbars and other tools. They want to rescue the people who are trapped in the storerooms behind the buckled iron walls. The terrified screams of those who are trapped, wounded, and burnt, suffocating in smoke, reach our ears. Suddenly we see in the light of exploding munitions, a woman, high up in the iron wreck of the radar tower. She falls, burning like a torch, her arms thrown upward. It is hard to find words to describe such an experience. How did this poor woman manage to work her way up onto that tangle of iron beams? She must have been crazy with pain. And no one could save her.

Everyone knows someone who will not or cannot talk about the war. In reading a story such as this, who could fail to understand? What words are there to evoke such a tragedy, and how many are fortunate enough to possess the means to use them? To go back into the halls of memory and remember the screams of the victims is more tragically painful than many can bear.

This diary is but one of several in this family chronicling life in the West Prussian lowlands. This family is but one of many who remember the past so that we are not 'doomed to repeat it' (Santayana). There were many other family groups in the area - Lutherans, Catholics, other Anabaptists, and all suffered in different ways. Even those that expelled them had suffered in unique ways.

One of the families (Franz and Marie Cornelsen nee Wiehler) owned a small farm in Tragheimerweide, some 40 km south of Klettendorf. Forced to flee in 1945 as well, most did not make it, and ended up as prisoner-servants in their own house to their new Polish overlords. Their harsh treatment until their deportation to Germany in 1946 was tempered by the knowledge that the bitter family who displaced them were themselves displaced from eastern Poland by the Russians, their property destroyed and their relatives murdered.

Despite this, the surviving Cornelsens have exercised forgiveness and have continued to meet with the family through the years of Communism and into freedom. As time passed on, slowly the relationship was restored, and during recent visits, the son and daughter-in-law accepted the gift of a new roof paid for by the Cornelsens, when it became obvious that there was no means for the Polish family to pay for the roof themselves.

These stories bring to life six generations of history. Younger members of the family continue to contribute to the collective memory in many ways, commemorating the sacrifices of the elders. At the 2000 gathering, the family members brought quilt squares commemorating their family's part in the collective history. Over the past four years, these squares were sewn into an 8' x 6' quilt by Hannelore Schowalter (Vancouver). This family quilt was then auctioned at this 2005 reunion for 575 euros ($850) with the proceeds going to benefit an Umsiedler education centre in Germany at which Marc Wiehler (Calgary) serves.

The search continues for family history further afield - for instance, connections are being sought with the Peter & Katharina Wieler family who emigrated from Ellerwald to Siberia in 1803 and are known to have over 7000 descendants. We are certain they are part of us, but where, exactly? With these gatherings, the Wiehlers give thanks to those who went before us to make a better life. May God's grace fall on them all.