“Politically backwards but clean and high level of care”: Bethania Mental Hospital as Icon

The Bethania Mental Hospital was established by Mennonites in 1910 and remembered as their greatest cultural achievement. After the Bolshevik Revolution it was taken over by the province of Ekaterinoslav and nationalized in 1925, but supported in large part by the Mennonite community. A 1925 "political" assessment of the institution provides a window onto government concerns about "German" Mennonites more generally. 

The leadership and staffing (ca. 65) as well as a large number of patients (120 beds) continued to be Mennonites or Germans (note 1; pic). The following 1925 newspaper article gives us a hint of how authorities viewed the hospital and its Mennonite staff seven years after expropriation, and the connection to nearby church community more generally.

“In exemplary order, but political work needs to be improved. Located between Kitchkas (Einlage) and Chortitza; three buildings, one of which houses a kitchen, living room for visitors, the “red corner” [communist reading room] and the staff, and in the other two the women's and men's wards of the hospital, … a cattle barn and a farm, as well as houses for staff.

Nowhere will you see even any trace of garbage. The patients who have lost the appearance of a conscious are placed on … pure white linen.

To care for the mentally ill, half of whom are violent, requires a measure of tact, self-control, endurance. The hospital personnel is entirely composed of Germans - Mennonites - all with a strong work ethic, discipline and dedication.

This is facilitated by the fact that the German colonists treat the hospital and its whole population as their own offspring. The clinic was organized in 1911 by Mennonite communities and until 1919 existed exclusively on funds by the latter.

And now, when the hospitals are on the budget of the provincial health department, funds from various German communities continue to support its maintenance.

During the years of the Civil War, the sanatorium was raided many times by gangs and the property was looted. Nevertheless, the head of the community and the staff succeeded to save much.

The situation with the cult of political education among the staff is very bad. Political education needs to be delivered and conducted in a planned manner. Then one can be sure that Bethania will turn into a cultured place in all aspects." (Note 2)

This very public assessment of Bethania reflects a high level of official concern about Mennonites in 1925.

The following 1925 secret “Agitation and Propaganda Department Report” provides a fuller context:

“During the last six months [ca. November 1924 to April 1925] the work of Mennonite missionaries and ministers has increased. They agitate for strengthening Mennonite religion and at the same time agitate for emigration. Religious activity in Mennonite colonies is developing without restraint because no proper attention was given to its study.” (Note 3)

Also in May 1925 the Head of the Secret Operative Department of the GPU [Soviet secret police] and the Head of the Counter-Intelligence Office of the GPU cited what they called a “very classified report to the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Berlin” from the German consul in Kharkiv which they had intercepted: despite “the prohibition to have any religious organizations,” Mennonites are able “to arrange their life in spite of communist pressure”—they simply “exist under the name of the Union of Citizens of Dutch Lineage” [Mennonite cultural, social and economic union]. The same classified report deemed Mennonites to be “the best German elements” in Ukraine. This reinforced deep Soviet suspicions that the German government considered “Mennonites as a base on which it can rely in the USSR” (notes 4).

The Central Bureau of the German Section of the Central Committee of the Communist Party in Ukraine agreed in November 1925 to implement more “intensive and systematic” work and political education among “rank-and-file” Mennonites at the village level, in hopes that peasants “from the plow” would gradually be drawn into the party, who would then “carry out the reorganization and thereby liberate themselves from the harmful influence of the Union of Citizens of Dutch Lineage” (note 5).

This background report by the Central Bureau of the German Section to the Central Committee flagged the key problems of their Mennonite population: they are uniquely “characterized by a narrow-national [German-Mennonite] outlook, lack of class stratification, [and a] passive attitude … toward Soviet social life”—which makes party and Soviet work among them “more difficult.”

In another report of the same year: “It is extremely difficult to conduct party work in Mennonite colonies because it is carried out among a population saturated with religious fanaticism and caste isolation” (note 6).

“Extraordinary difficulties” were reported specifically in the former Mennonite colony of Chortitza (where Bethania was located), where authorities had little success in drawing the Mennonites “to active participation in the construction of the Soviet order” and into “the public life of village clubs and reading rooms.” The committee concluded that the youth were both “restrained by parents” and “by preachers in meeting houses” (note 7). In general, “[t]he political condition of colonies populated by German Mennonites until the present time is not good,” and given their peculiarities it would require “a specially careful and tactful approach,” according to the September 1925 report of the Central Bureau.

The proposed strategy would include more open peasant sessions and conferences, more German press attention with the newspaper “The New Village” (Das Neue Dorf) with rural correspondents to strengthen supervision of abuses; more funds for the purchase of “libraries, radio sets, sports equipment, moving pictures apparatus and lanterns;” the immediate dismissal of all local committee members “who discredit the party;” a new “permanent party school” with “a German as an agitation and propaganda worker;” regular reporting on work among Mennonites to the “Agitation and Propaganda Collegium,” and regional committee bureaus for further action; and, importantly, plots of land for the large number of landless in Molotschna.

Moreover, authorities were very concerned that Mennonite youth “are under a strong religious influence and take an active part in religious youth unions that act under the cover of sports organizations” and even attracting some transfer members from the Communist Party youth organization (note 8).

To counter these efforts, the plan called for “cultural and educational work among Mennonite youth by creating youth sections at village clubs and organizing sports clubs,” as well as more frequent youth conferences for Mennonites (note 9).

The Bethania Mental Hospital was located near the Dnjper River and was dismantled with the construction of the massive Dneprostroy power dam in 1927. The Mennonite community appealed to the government to keep staff and patients together in a Mennonite community, specifically at Halbstadt (Molotschna). “However, this did not materialize. On 9 May 1927 the patients, among them 33 Mennonites, were transferred to a mental hospital at Igren without the Mennonite personnel. That was the end of Bethania, one of the mot successful and generally supported projects among the Mennonites of Russia” (note 10).

For Mennonites Bethania was an icon representing the highest cultural expression of their faith community. Its dismantling was met with dismay and signaled with clarity the larger government agenda to dismantle and reconfigure the Mennonite community as such.

            ---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

 

---Notes---

Note 1: Cf. Jacob Wiebe, “Die letzte Nachricht aus Bethania,” Unser Blatt 2, no. 10 (July 1927), 304, https://chortitza.org/Pis/UB26_10.pdf; Erich Tavonius and Isaak Thiessen, "Bericht aus Molotchansk," Unser Blatt 2, no. 6 (March 1927),178-179, https://chortitza.org/Pis/UB26_06.pdf. Pic: staff posing on the adjacent Dnieper River; from personal collection by John VanDyck Jr.

Note 2 : “Колония для душевно-больных- Бетания,” Красное Запорожье no. 98 (May 2, 1925), in “Chortitza and Moltotschna Colonies in Ukrainian publications, 1913-15, edited by Alexander Panjko, 13f., https://chor.square7.ch/0v853.pdf. (Thanks to Google Translate!).

Note 3: “Report by the Agitation and Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine regarding issues in German colonies, Late April-early May 1925,” in John B. Toews and Paul Toews, eds., Union of Citizens of Dutch Lineage in Ukraine (1922–1927): Mennonite and Soviet Documents, translated by J. B. Toews, O. Shmakina, and W. Regehr (Fresno, CA: Center for Mennonite Brethren Studies, 2011) 270, https://archive.org/details/unionofcitizenso0000unse.

Note 4: “Instructions of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine for registration and minimizing the influence of religious groups, including Mennonites, May 25, 1925,” in Toews and Toews, Union of Citizens of Dutch Lineage in Ukraine, 271. It was well known that B. B. Janz had been using German diplomatic courier service to communicate with Benjamin Unruh in Germany since November 1921. Cf. John B. Toews, With Courage to Spare: The Life of B. B. Janz (1877–1964) (Winnipeg, MB: Christian, 1978) 26, https://archive.org/details/WithCourageToSpareOCRopt/page/n37/mode/2up. On "Menno-Union" (Union of Citizens of Dutch Lineage in Ukraine), see previous post, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/01/1921-formation-of-union-of-citizens-of.html.

Note 5: “Minutes of a joint session of the Central Bureau of the German Section of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine with German sections of okrug committees about work with Mennonites November 10–12, 1925,” in Toews and Toews, Union of Citizens of Dutch Lineage in Ukraine, 318–324.

Note 6: Cf. “Conclusions of the Commission of the Presidium Commission following inspection of the Union of Citizens of Dutch Lineage, Late July 1925,” in ibid., 291–296; 294.

Note 7: “Report of the German Section of the Zaporozhye Okrug Committee, January 4, 1926,” in ibid., 324–329. Similarly, see the 1924 newspaper piece: "Коммунист № 263 Дата: 16.11.1924 В немецких колониях Запорожья (От нашего корреспондента)," in “Chortitza and Moltotschna Colonies in Ukrainian publications," 2f.

Note 8: Cited in Matthew D. Pauly, Breaking the Tongue: Language, Education, and Power in Soviet Ukraine, 1923-1934 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014), 181.

Note 9: “Minutes of a joint session of the Central Bureau of the German Section of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine with German sections of okrug committees about work with Mennonites November 10-12, 1925,” in Toews and Toews, Union of Citizens of Dutch Lineage in Ukraine, 318–324.

Note 10: From “Bethania Mental Hospital (Chortitza Mennonite Settlement),” GAMEO, https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Bethania_Mental_Hospital_(Chortitza_Mennonite_Settlement,_Zaporizhia_Oblast,_Ukraine). See note 1 for source. Cf. Helmut T. Huebert, “The Bethania Mental Hospital of Russia,1910-1927,” Journal of Mennonite Studies 29 (2011), 215-219, https://jms.uwinnipeg.ca/index.php/jms/article/view/1414.