How they found my Grandmother
by Kornelius Hildebrand (1833-1920) translated by Louise Bergen Price

As my dear father, Jakob Hildebrand has recorded, on the night of July 18, while everyone slept, his mother, Helene, left the house.  She was barefoot, dressed only in her white nightgown and black night cap.  She was found dead in the shallow waters of the Dnieper seven kilometres away.  Her footprints showed that she had walked from the house to the river, apparently wading downstream to the shallow waters till she reached the Nachbarstein.  Here the huge rock barred her way; she could go no further and must leave the Dnieper and follow the village street around the cliff before heading down to the river again.  In doing so, she would pass Bernard Dyck’s yard.

Mrs. Bernard Dyck, still awake, heard the dog bark.  She looked out the window and saw three figures dressed in white walking down the road.  Panicking, she blew out her lamp and jumped into bed over top of her sleeping husband.  When he asked why she’d come to bed in such a rush, she told him about the three figures.  He didn’t believe her but she insisted that she’d heard the dog bark and seen the men.

On that same evening, Peter Wiens, who lived six households from my grandparents’ place, arrived home from his fishing trip just as the sun went down.  After supper, he and his wife went down to the boat to retrieve the fishing gear.  As Wiens stood there, he noticed a boat drifting toward Father’s garden.  The boat moved quickly even though the Dnieper was smooth as glass.  No one rowed the boat and it left no ripples on the water.  When the boat reached the shore, two people got out without first pulling the boat to shore.  They walked through the fence, across Father’s garden and up the hill called the Hofacker.

Wiens called to the people that they should tie the boat up, or the current would take it away.  There was no answer.  He called again, in Russian this time.  Still no response.  Wiens thought perhaps they were men who bring logs down from the Dnieper (Flößer) who wanted to steal mulberries from Father’s garden.  Wiens' wife had seen all these things.  Wiens walked over to the stranger’s boat to pull it ashore, but when he arrived, the boat had disappeared.  Neither he nor his wife could understand this puzzle.

While this was going on,  my mother was milking the cows next door (the cook, who usually milked, had a sore leg.)  Our cow pen was on Wiens’ side, our house stood in the middle of the property, and the garden on the other side.  The cook sat in the garden, taking care of us boys. Suddenly, she saw two white figures walk through our garden.  In fear, she left the three older boys and ran to the cow pen.  ‘Come quickly,’ she called to Mother.  ‘Two men in white are walking toward the Hofacker.’  Mother came and saw the men seemingly suspended in the air, gliding without difficulty through the high weeds.  They did not answer when Mother called.

Father had been rounding up some horses that had broken through the fence and gone up to the Hofacker.  On his return, he had to pass the graveyard.  Suddenly, his mare shifted and refused to move.  Father looked around and saw the two figures.  He assumed it was Neufeld and his wife.  These two often indulged in brandy—it would not surprise him to see them wandering around the graveyard in white clothes.

Father returned home where he heard what Mother and the cook had seen.  Whether he also heard about Wiens’ experiences that night, I don’t know, but he would likely have heard all about them the next day when the story of Grandmother’s disappearance was told.

Grandmother was found at the Butendick across from the city of Alexandrowsk, seven Werst (approx. 7 Km) below our village, lying where the water was very shallow.  The current could not have carried her this far—apparently she had walked up to there at night.  We concluded this from the footprints and from what Mrs. Bernhard Dyck had seen.  Why did she have to walk so far?

According to Johann Schellenberg, this is how Grandmother was found.  Cousin Heppner, who was also a fisherman, lived in Nieder Chortitza.  He took his boat down the Little Dnieper near Burwalde where he met Russian fishermen who told them that they’d seen the body of a dead Jew in the water.  ‘A Jew is holding Schabes.’ they said.

Heppner didn’t believe their mocking comments and headed to Chortitza Island to visit his cousins.  He pulled his boat ashore and struck out over land to the village.  His relatives met him with tear-stained faces and told him that Grandmother had left the house at night; they’d searched everywhere but had not found her.  Heppner remembered what the Russians had told him.  Quickly, a boat was made ready and a number of men set out to search the area.  Towards evening, the boat returned carrying the body of my grandmother.  The boat was heaped with branches to provide shade, for it was a very hot day.  Helene was buried that same day on the Insel Chortitza cemetery.

This story has been written down by Kornelius Hildebrand, grandson of Helene Hoeppner Hildebrand.  The information has been gathered from stories of the relatives, 77 years after the event.  My parents never gave direct answers when we asked about this event.

Kornelius Hildebrand.