C.F. Klassen
by Selma Hooge

In October, 1945 while we were refugees living in a small village in the Lueneburger Heide, my mother, Anna Kornelsen, wrote in her diary, “Peter Becker came in a rush to get my husband for a meeting with a man from Amerika, C.F. Klassen.”

Years later we learned that when C.F. Klassen toured our area he had already looked up and registered hundreds of other Mennonite refugees in camps in Denmark and in many towns and cities in the American and British zones of a destroyed Germany. MCC had sent him on this mission to find these displaced Mennonites from Russia who would need to find permanent homes in other countries. He was to spend six weeks in Europe but it took eighteen weeks before he returned to Canada with his lists of names and needs.

 Frank Epp in Mennonite Exodus (p.369) writes: “Seven thousand refugees were registered and identified complete with date and place of birth, family ties, and relatives abroad. Through the Mennonitische Rundschau and Der Bote, and through the MCC and Board tracing service, relatives were being located.”

 Soon after C.F. Klassen returned to Canada late 1945 he began traveling again to report to the churches, boards and individuals. Following are a few excerpts of a long report written by  B. Schellenberg in the January 9,1946 Rundschau:
Bro. C.F. Klassen has had a successful trip and was protected in many dangers thanks to the many prayers on his behalf. Even though the rations were very sparse he always had enough to eat. He experienced many difficulties on this trip.  Often it seemed impossible for him to find a seat in the airplanes, but somehow he always managed. God answered prayers. Bro. C.F. Klassen thanks the Lord  that the MCC Executive and the C.P.R. made this trip possible. He found many refugees and he helped restore their courage to go on....
There were deeply moving scenes during his interaction with the refugees who wept in gratitude when they heard that the brothers in America remembered them and wanted to help. These refugees had heard that the German speaking people in the U.S.A. and Canada were kept in concentration camps. It seemed like a miracle to them that some of their family members could still be alive. Bro. C.F. Klassen felt it was a special  grace that he had met so many of the families  who immigrated to Canada earlier (1920s). He could tell those refugees  that he had met their relatives…

So he made lists of the refugees which would have to be processed for Canada….Whether these refugees would be permitted to enter Canada was always their question. The answer was:  we do not know as yet but we will do our utmost to make this possible.  (Mennonite Exodus, page 424.)

 For  nine years, C.F.  helped thousands of World War II Mennonite refugees find new homes in Canada.  For months at a time, he was separated form his own family. He once wrote to J.J. Thiessen, ‘“I am often very lonely. Especially when I am on the road, the separation from my family becomes unbearable.”’

 The Mennonite community was shocked and bereaved when CF died quite suddenly ofa heart attack while on a visit to a church in Gronau, Westphalia, May 8, 1954.  His grave is in Leutesdorf, Germany.