A Heart can Endure Anything: the life journey of Elisabeth Thiessen

Charlotte Hofmann-Hege. Alles kann ein Herz ertragen: die weite Lebensreise der Elisabeth Thiessen.  Heilbronn:  Eugen Salzer-Verlag, 1989.
by Louise Bergen Price

 When German author Charlotte Hofmann-Hege first met her cousin Elisabeth Thiessen, a Rücksiedler just returned from Russia, her compassion was tinged with relief that she herself was not in that situation.  Over the next twelve years, the two women met often at family events, and although Hofmann-Hege heard stories of Thiessen’s experiences, much remained untold.  That all changed after Thiessen’s death, when the author received a box of yellowed papers and letters.  The story that unfolds in this book is heartbreaking, yet it represents what happened to millions.  Although Alles kann ein Herz ertragen has not been translated into English (all the translations below are my own), it is a story that deserves to be heard.

 Elisabeth (Liesel), the third child of Anna and David Muselmann, was born in the summer of 1897 in Schweinfurt am Main, Germany.   When she was 12, both parents died of tuberculosis, and Liesel and her six siblings were taken in by their maternal grandmother.  Liesel learned to be a seamstress, and the next few years were placid and uneventful.

 In 1911, Benjamin Unruh and his wife, Frida (Liesel’s aunt), came to Germany for an extended visit from their home in Ukraine.  Frida was pregnant with her fourth child.  Would Liesel be interested in a job as nursemaid?   Liesel agreed, and accompanied the Unruhs to Ukraine in 1912.  She was happy there.  “I feel like a fish in water,” she wrote to her Grandmother.  “Everything is so different here, nature, the life around me, everything.  When the children and I wander over meadow and fields, everything blooms.  Birds, flowers, grasses, all rejoice.  It is a wonderful land” (33).

 But for Liesel the time of rejoicing was short.  Two years later, Germany and Russia were at war; anti-German feelings ran high.   Those with German citizenship were especially at risk, and on Liesel's eighteenth birthday, July 20, 1915, she was deported to the Mennonite village of Ufa, near Siberia.  After a difficult beginning with a family that treated her as a slave, she was invited to join the Thiessen family in their estate nearby.  On October 13, 1916, she wrote an enthusiastic letter home.  “Nature here is glorious.  Now in autumn the many birches with their golden colours are especially beautiful” (47).  The Thiessens had seven children, but only daughter Katja was then at home.   Three girls were away at school; three sons had joined the Russian army.  Katja and Liese became best friends, playing guitar, piano and balalaika together, crocheting, embroidering, sewing.

 In March 1917, the Czarist regime was overthrown.  Kerensky took over the government, and promised a delegation of Mennonites that they’d have representation in the new government; Liesel’s uncle  Benjamin Unruh was voted in to the new Ukrainian Congress.  “It seemed that the day of freedom and peace was nearer than ever before, and a new and better time was breaking...” (51).
 The promised peace was not to be.  The October Revolution which brought Lenin to power also unleashed a civil war with unimaginable horrors.  In February, the Thiessen estate was burned and looted, and the family became refugees.  “Four black angels ride over Russian soil…. Plunder, Destruction, Hunger and Death.  They transform Holy Russia into a hell” (60).

An end to the war against Germany was negotiated, and the Thiessens’ sons returned home.  Liesel and Hans Thiessen (Liesel referred to him as Wanja or Hansel) were drawn to each other.  In a letter in summer 1920, Liesel announced their engagement.  “I love my Hansel more than anything, but I also love my homeland.  Today I can’t imagine that I’ll grow old and grey here.  But becoming old and grey is an unlikelihood in times such as these.  This is how far the Red Paradise has brought us” (68).

 In August 1921, the young couple married and moved into a small wooden cabin.  “In spite of everything …we are happy together, we’re healthy and enjoy working…. If we can manage to bring together enough so that we have more-or-less enough to eat, and don’t have to freeze too much, then we’ll be satisfied” (76).  These modest hopes were not to be.  Millions starved in the famine of 1921/22, and typhus struck again.  Liesel, who’d already survived the disease once, fell ill again, although this time not as seriously.  In Germany, concerned relatives worked hard to get emigration papers for her.  Liesel thanked them for the papers.  She could not come now, she wrote, because she was married; her mother-in-law did not want Hans to leave.  “How could I be happy without my Hansel?” she asked.  “And what if I couldn’t return?” (78)

 The end of the civil war was a relief to everyone.  Any kind of government was better than anarchy.

 The crops of 1924 were better than expected; now life would become easier.  And the young couple was expecting their first child.  But no sooner was the crop under cover than everything was taken from them, simply because Hans was the son of an estate owner.  In a nearby village they found a plundered schoolhouse with no doors, windows or heating.  Here they were permitted to stay for a few weeks, and here on October 24, their daughter Magdalene was born.

 The following day, a blizzard hit; it was freezing in their shelter.  Liesel, weakened from the difficult birth, contracted pneumonia.  Soon she was no longer able to nurse little Magdalene.  Although the Russian babuschka Hans had hired to help did everything she could, the baby died.  It was several months before Liesel regained her strength.

 In the meantime, emigration fever consumed Russian Mennonites.  Benjamin Unruh and Abraham Friesen started negotiations with Canada.  But although the CPR and the German government helped with funding, the money raised was a drop in the bucket for the many thousands who wished to escape.  In December 1925 Liesel wrote: “Our parents now definitely want to emigrate to America.  They see no future here…. Everything we have has been sold, yet it is still not enough money for us all.  Wanja and I cannot come along yet.  In the south, many Mennonites were able to get credit … but here in the north so many difficulties…”  (90).

 Finally, Liesel decided that she’d travel to Germany and try to rescue Hans from there, but before she could do so, Hans’ mother fell ill.  Liesel stayed with her until she died.  Now travel to Germany was impossible since Liesel was expecting a child.  Still, she and Hans kept working towards emigrating together.

 By December, all the papers except for the Russian passports were in order.  Money for bribes was needed to obtain passports, money they did not have.  And there were cases where desperate people had spent all their money in a bid to get passports, and still did not receive them.  Their dream of leaving became an impossibility.  To her eighty-year-old grandmother, Liesel wrote:  “Not to see you again breaks my heart.  Can you send me a photo of yourself?  We’ve wished to have photos taken ourselves, but sometimes we have no money, other times no clothes, and then the roads become impassable” (96).

 The following year, a package from Germany, sent years earlier, arrived; the contents saved their lives.  “Our poverty teaches us to be thankful.  That is why we don’t despair.  Every sunbeam brings deep joy; every day of grace, unending bliss.  Each evening that our hunger is mostly satisfied, is a gift for us.  And how happy our child [Jascha] is in spite of it all, and how he beams even in his rags” (99).
 But fate had more hardships in store.  In spring 1929, their small house was set afire.  The family escaped with their lives.  Eventually, they were able to move into a small cabin.  Here baby David was born.
 In 1931, when kulaks  were being sent to Siberia, Liesel, Hans and their two children were "resettled" to Anscheka, just south of the taiga.  That summer, Hans was arrested and imprisoned for several weeks.  After his release, he suffered from poor health, both physical and mental.

 Liesel’s Christmas letter of 1931 to relatives in Canada was heart-breaking.  First she expressed thanks for the five dollar gift.  Then the terrible news:  little Jascha had had the measles.  “Finally he stood up in his bed and looked up, as if seeing something wonderful. He had always wished for a drum.  Then he laughed so happily, laughed and laughed loudly and happily, until after a few moments, he suddenly fell down.  Eyes and lips closed forever…. He was five years old, a wonderful child.”  But that wasn’t all the bad news: “A few days later, our dear dear little David was full of red spots.  He did not seem ill…. But this especially patient and happy child also had to die after one week…. [H]e was two years old” (108).

 Still, Liesel did not despair.  The joy in Jascha’s eyes before he died comforted her.  Soon she was pregnant again.  There was little food, and after the birth, Liesel became ill.  The baby died in six weeks.
 In 1935, the German relatives received the last letter from the USSR, this one from Liesel’s father-in-law.  Then there was silence.  Later, Liesel’s brother Heinrich put all the letters into a large envelope marked, “Elisabeth Thiessen, geb. (born) Muselmann, 1897-1933 – the story of an orphan child.”

 For Stalin, sending kulaks to Siberia was not enough punishment, it seems.  His Great Purge of 1937-38 reached even into the poorest homes.  In November, Hans was arrested.  “You don’t need to handcuff me,” he said.  Then he turned to Liesel, now six months pregnant.  “Raise our child well,” he said.
 Again Liesel had a hard labour.  And again her child died, this time at just under one year.

 Liesel was devastated.  Neighbours took care of her, and buried the child.  It was a long time before she regained both physical and mental health.

 Years went by.  Liesel still hoped for Hans’ return, but, like most who "disappeared" during those years, he was never heard from again.  Several times Liesel was severely injured in the work place. An accident in a mine resulted in broken bones and memory loss: Liesel could no longer remember her brother’s address.

 In 1953, news of Stalin’s death brought hope for change.  It was a discouraging time for Liesel – while others now received mail from relatives in foreign lands, none came to her door.  Finally, in 1966, she remembered a fragment of her brother’s address.  On March 19, neighbour and friend, Anna Ewert, encouraged Liesel to write a short letter to her family members.  Anna enclosed this letter and the address fragment in a letter to her own friends in East Germany.  On May 2, Anna Ewert’s friends received the letter and forwarded it to the Muselmann home where it arrived a few days later, and an astonished Heinrich Muselmann realized that his sister was still alive.

 It seems fitting that in her reply to her brother’s letter, Liesel quotes a verse from the book of Job. Yet she does not quote a passage of complaints against God; rather she writes: “My dear, very dear, brothers and sister, far away, but close to my heart:  ‘God does great things that we cannot comprehend. (Job 37:5)’ After 32 years, I receive a sign of life from you!  And aside from Christian and David, all are still alive! … I assumed no one had survived, or perhaps no one was interested in me.... I cried to God that he would help me understand why you were silent.  It was too bitter.  Then, at night in a dream, I remembered part of Heinrich’s address.... When I received your letter, I became ill from joy for 3 days, and couldn’t write back…. My motto is: Love your fate, for it is God’s way to your heart” (146-147).

 One year later, on May 6, 1967, Liesel was on her way to Germany.  After a joyous reunion, Liesel tried to adjust to life there, but it was difficult.  She was bewildered by the consumerism, the stress, the busyness.  People had everything they needed, and still fussed about unnecessary things.  When did people actually find the time to learn how to live and how to die, she wondered.  Topics that made an impression on them one day had been forgotten by the next.  “The whole Western world is a murky pool of sin” (160), she complained.  She remembered the clear starlit Siberian sky, the deep silence, the simple folk with whom she felt a closer connection than with her German relatives.

 Liesel’s relatives did their best for her, but the culture gap was great, and Liesel was unhappy.  A change came when she provided hospice care for an old woman; later, after the woman’s death, her children gave Liesel their mother’s furniture.  Now Liesel was no longer dependant on others for everything, and gradually she began to enjoy life again.  When author Charlotte Hofmann-Hege telephoned her cousin to inquire how she was doing, Liesel responded, “At this moment, I’m doing very well. But as a whole, something always occurs to make sure that I’m not too happy.  Let’s see what happens next” (171).  What happened next was a stroke.  It seemed that Liesel would now have to live in a retirement home. During the wait for a place to become available, Ernst and Liese Landes, a couple who offered hospice, took Liesel in.  Before long, the Landes decided to offer Liesel a permanent home with them, and to care for her as long as possible.  This they did, and Liesel lived to celebrate her 85 birthday with family and friends.  A month later, she quietly passed on.  Her last words, in a scribbled note found clutched in her hands, were:  “Body, soul, spirit: three-in-one.... Love!  Love!  Love!... Till we meet again up above...” (182).