My Mother's Story
by Al Pauls

Elizabeth Pauls was born into what is for us a large family. Six boys and three girls were born to Heinrich Janzen, a farmer and preacher, and his wife Maria (born Bartel). Two of the boys died as babies, and a four year old girl died during the famine in Ukraine. Mom was the oldest of the siblings who survived early childhood.

The challenges of life began early. After the collectivization of agriculture by the Soviet régime some Mennonite families began emigrating from the USSR. During the late 1920s this led to a large number of families selling what they could of their property and goods, moving to Moscow, and petitioning the government in person for emigration visas. My grandfather, too, took his family to Moscow, after selling the family assets. However, after several months during which the family lived in crowded apartments, the government gave notice that no more visas would be granted. Fearing banishment to Siberia, my grandfather took his family back to his home area, found a place to live, and resumed daily life. Mom was about eight years old at the time.

The period after the return to Ukraine was also the time when the damages of the collectivization program were the most severe. Combined with a drought that lasted several years, and the redirection of grain from the agricultural south to the industrial north, Ukraine suffered under a two year famine that killed millions. Mom remembers her mother making soup from potato peelings and whatever edible vegetation was available. Starvation loomed as a reality.

Mom was able to attend school for only 4 years. She would dearly have liked to pursue a career as medical doctor. However, her position in the family and the expectations of her father meant that she had to help support the family by working in the kolkhoz (collective farm), milking cows and working in the vegetable fields. As the oldest daughter, housework was another important area of work for her. When Mom’s mother died in 1939, Mom was 18 years old. At this point she also took care of her younger siblings, the youngest being just about a year old.

 When she was about 20 Mom met a tall, handsome man, Heinrich Pauls (he was nine years older), at a wedding. She was small and pretty. Although he was from another village they found occasions to meet, and love had its way with them. It was a love that was to grow and last through nearly 40 years, including a separation of nearly 21 years.

Dad was the manager of a flour mill. He had a meticulous knowledge of the mill, having precise drawings of all the parts and places, including nuts and bolts. When the war started and the Soviet Union drafted its young men, Dad was spared because he was indispensable for the continued operation of the flour mill. Later when the Germans invaded Ukraine and drafted ethnic German youths, he was still exempted.

In 1943 the Soviet military was able to push the German forces back toward Germany. As the front moved closer toward the Mennonite areas the ethnic Germans and Mennonites of the region realized that reoccupation by the Soviets would likely result in extreme consequences for them. Their fears were confirmed later when the Soviet government demolished many of the villages and sent the remaining people off to labour camps or Siberian exile. Well in advance, Mom and Dad prepared for evacuation by constructing a horse-drawn wagon that could  provide protection from the weather. They also prepared supplies to take along. On October 19, 1943 they were notified that it was time to leave. At this time Mom was about two months pregnant. A group of three families left together, following other refugees that had left the day before. They trekked for a week. At one point they avoided serious problems on a bridge spanning a deep river. Dad decided, on approaching the bridge, to be cautious. He went onto the bridge on foot and found the bridge had a large hole. Had the three wagons been on the bridge they would not have been able to turn the horse and wagons around. Being on the bridge was also dangerous, as on two consecutive nights the villages where they stayed were bombed by Russian planes.

After a week of travelling on foot with their wagons Mom and Dad and other families were put aboard a train going west. Their trip into Poland was interrupted several times by Soviet aerial bombing and train stoppages to check the tracks. They were taken as far as Lodz, in central Poland, where they were deloused and then given temporary quarters. The trip so far had taken over a month. They stayed in Lodz for about 2 months. The advance of the Russian forces forced them to move west to Kruschwitz (near Poznan). Mom and Dad stayed there for about a year, during which time I was born. Dad found work in some odd jobs and in a mill.

In September of 1944 Dad was pressed into German military service. Mom received several letters from him, but after she was forced to move again in January they lost touch, and she did not hear from him again for about 12 years. At this time Mom was pregnant with her second child.

She was now about 4 months pregnant and travelling alone in midwinter with a baby. At first she was able to travel by train – the first day on an open car. On the second day a German officer noticed her condition and the baby, and made room for her in a closed car. Later she had to continue on foot. She had a baby carriage and a small suitcase. She was forced to scrounge and beg for food along the way. She sometimes spoke of that with some anxiety – worried that she may have been stealing. She reached a place near Stettin and was able to stay in an old castle for some time.

Shortly after her arrival, the Soviet army moved in and occupied the castle. The victorious soldiers were given a period of liberty. The room where Mom was quartered housed 7 women, all with young children, and some elderly parents – 21 people in all. One night Mom woke up and was startled see a Russian soldier standing over her. She started screaming, the other adults joined in – along with the children – and the soldier fled. In other parts of the building women had been raped by the Soviet soldiers, so the women in the room decided that if a soldier touched any one of them or the children, they would all scream together. It seems that no one in that room was molested. Mom also mentioned a Soviet officer who, upon hearing of the rapes, took control of his soldiers and put a stop to it. The castle also housed a home for the aged with some medical staff. Here my sister Anne was born.

In June Mom was again forced to leave. Her situation now was even more desperate. She had a baby lying in the baby carriage and a toddler lying across the top of the carriage; some essentials were loaded wherever they could be attached. At one point the carriage lost a wheel and landed in a ditch. She could not find the clip that held the wheel in place. At this point she just sat there and cried, realizing her helpless situation. All she could do was to pray and tell God of her reliance on Him. She had no way of attaching the wheel, and could see no way of continuing. After some time she noticed a person standing up on the road. He told her to look at the bottom of the baby carriage. When she did, she found a package of wheel clips required to hold the wheels in place. She had no knowledge of how the clips got there. To Mom this event has been a powerful demonstration of God’s caring for her.

 Despite being able to continue on her way this was a terrible time for her. She would go from village to village and request lodging, but since there were thousands of refugees on the roads, permission was repeatedly refused. Finally, at a little town called Friedland in northern East Germany Mom decided she would go no further. She went to the town’s housing office and was directed by staff to several homes, but all the owners had just received relatives and would not take Mom in. Finally, a very kindly official went with her to an elderly couple, and when the lady refused to put us up in their house, the official read her a letter from the local Soviet government empowering him to evict them if they would not provide us with shelter. Angrily, she let us move in. After about a week of  tense interactions the lady recognized that Mom was not an ignorant Russian peasant girl, but rather quite capable of being very helpful to her and her sick husband. Thereafter the lady, whom we came to call “Oma,” came to rely on Mom, and later, when after 4 years we were about to leave, she cried inconsolably over her loss.

During our 4 years in Friedland Mom worked for various farmers with field work, and helped clear up the postwar rubble of the town. While Mom was working Oma would take care of us, and later we went to a daycare for part of the day.

I believe that Mom was fortunate not to have been sent back to Russia, as many people were. Only once was she interviewed by Russian officials, but they never bothered us. However, when the Berlin blockade started in 1948, Mom realized that unless she made a move she might never be able to join other family members. She had found her father living in southern West Germany and was in correspondence with Dad’s sister, who lived near Munich. Ironically Dad had been in the Dachau prisoner of war camp just outside of Munich until he was sent back to Russia (to Magadan in far eastern Siberia) shortly after the war. So Mom was in northern East Germany and Dad was in southern West Germany, neither knowing of the other’s whereabouts.

While in Friedland Mom had been able to save some money so that when the opportunity arose she would be able move to again. In 1948, her father emigrated to Canada; she now had a place to go. The planes that brought supplies to Berlin as part of the program to break the Berlin Blockade returned empty to West Germany – except for refugees that used the opportunity to flee to the West. We were able to get to Berlin; and Mom believed that we may have been on the last plane that enabled refugees to leave in this way.

We were successful in getting to West Germany and were taken to the Mennonite refugee camp at Gronau near the border with the Netherlands. We stayed there for a number of months while a passenger ship was readied to take a full load of refugees to North America. A short stay at another camp was needed to enable final processing of the necessary papers required for emigration. Mom’s dad provided sponsorship for us.

We arrived in Halifax in February of 1950. From there we took the train to Clearbrook where we moved into my grandfather’s little farmhouse. We lived with him for about two years, sharing the house with him and his two youngest children, Mary and George. Later another family of 4 moved in – also refugee relatives. Mom found work cooking in the kitchen at the cadet training facilities at the Abbotsford Airport, as well as painting and gyproc-filling houses.

In 1952 she found a benefactor who loaned her the money to buy a property and she was able purchase a cabin from the Herman Doerksen family. Mom had the cabin moved to our property on Dahlstrom Road. Within a short time Mom had paid off the personal loan and we were in our own home in a secure and peaceful community.

Mom was baptized and joined the Clearbrook MB Church. This was her spiritual home and the centre of her social life for about 50 years. She loved the people here, appreciated the support given her, and contributed to her church community what she could.
For Mom the next few years were a time of establishing herself and her family in the community, and also anxiously using the church and MCC resources to search for Dad’s whereabouts. Finally, in 1956, Mom received a letter from an acquaintance living in Paraguay, who wrote of receiving information from a contact in Ukraine who had been informed that Dad was still alive and living somewhere in Siberia. I remember the time as being extremely stressful for Mom. Without more information about his situation she imagined all kinds of possibilities. From the experiences of others, including a close friend, she knew that some men who were in Siberia, and had not known their spouse’s whereabouts, had remarried or lived with other women. But as was typical of her character, she steadfastly believed that they would be able to reunite at some point. And she was overjoyed when we received our first letter directly from him in 1957. Her trust and faith were rewarded as their mutual faithfulness was confirmed.

Mom spent 7 years repeatedly petitioning the Soviet government to grant an exit visa to Dad. Finally, in 1965, Dad was able to emigrate to Canada. My sister and I were there when he arrived.

I will always remember that day. We drove to Vancouver to pick him up at the airport. It was a mainly sunny day and the few clouds were highlighted by a brilliant light that seemed somewhat surreal. Mom did not speak. Over twenty years of separation were finally over! At the airport we were able to go to a rooftop terrace to watch as planes arrived and unloaded their passengers. The distance and the light made it difficult to recognize people at a distance. Mom was quite agitated as people began walking down the steps from the plane. I think it was Anne who spotted Dad first. After Mom saw him she seemed to turn into a young girl as she cried out, “Hein! Hein!” For me, that moment gave me an inkling of what love between a man and a woman could be – the faithfulness, patience, and hope beyond despair.
Mom and Dad were given 15 more beautiful years together. They shared a love for travel, and so they journeyed to the Prairies to visit friend and relatives, to Hawaii, to Germany and twice to South Africa, where my sister, Anne, had moved. They were able to attend her wedding, and later spent 4 months in South Africa after Anne and Rene’s 3 boys had been born.

In October of 1980 Dad died after a two year struggle with cancer. After Dad died Mom sold her home and moved into an apartment. She continued to work at Columbia Bible Institute until she herself was struck by cancer in 1984. Two series of radiation and chemotherapy treatments resulted in her going into remission for about 10 years. Then, after experiencing increasing bowel discomfort and pain, she was found to have a large tumour pressing against her colon. Although the tumour itself was very slow growing she had to undergo a colostomy to restore functioning.

The earlier treatments for cancer had a long term effect on her health. Mom more frequently became dizzy, sometimes collapsing into unconsciousness. She injured herself several times, including fracturing her skull and her shoulder. We finally persuaded her that she deserved some care now herself. Mom moved into  Hallmark Assisted Living Home for several months and then into her final earthly residence at Tabor Home.

As the cancer spread, and it became clear that any treatment would make her feel worse without a promise of relief from the spread of the cancer, we came to terms with the fact that we would soon lose Mom. She refused to try chemotherapy again and began to recognize and to hope for her final release from pain and struggle. Toward the end the painkilling regimen of morphine enabled her to be comfortable but at the expense of her being able to respond to people around her. On Sunday, March 3, 2002, Mom breathed her last.

Mom lived in turbulent times. The difficulties, dangers and challenges that she experienced were encountered with resiliency, courage and strength. Her experiences forged a character that enabled her to overcome her challenges and become an inspiration for those of us who knew and loved her.