“First Christmas for the Black Sea Germans in the Reich,” Warthegau, 1944

In 2022 I asked Katharine Bräul Fast (b.1937), if she had any memories of Christmas 1944 in Warthegau--Nazi German annexed Poland. She turned 7 just before the Advent season began. The “1 millionth ethnic German” resettler in Warthegau had arrived earlier that year from the east, and to accommodate them hundreds of thousands of Warthegau’s Poles had been disenfranchised or removed, while 385,000 Jews from the region were placed in ghettos and eventually sent to concentration camps. 

Katharine's family had been evacuated from German-occupied Ukraine together with some other 35,000 ethnic Mennonites. In March 1944 they were resettled in Waldtal/Schwarzerde in Warthegau, and here she had her first experience of school. Her teacher was a Mennonite, Aron Becker--now officially "Arnold," a non-Jewish sounding name--but by the Fall he too was conscripted. School continued, but she does not recall the details. They had a Christmas celebration in the school; she remembers walking through “crunchy snow” from their house with her mother Helene and sister Sarah—now officially “Else”. She remembers that she recited a Christmas poem which went well. Her two oldest brothers Franz and Heinrich were in the military. That is about all she could recall.

Katharine mentions how bad her mother felt for the Polish family that was removed from the house --now her new home--and forced to live with their family members down the road. Katharine then recalled that the two younger brothers were away as well: Peter had just turned 18 and had been conscripted earlier in the year, and Walter had turned 16 and was sent to a Hitler youth pre-military camp. She remembers that Helene was given a large Hitler portrait to hang in their house because of the number of sons Helene had in the military. Katharine noted that Herr Becker would again be her teacher in Neuland, Paraguay after the war. In Paraguay she would often recall the sound of the snow that December night in Warthegau—similar, she thought, to the sound of the hot Chaco sand under her feet.

Helen Bräul (b. 1903) and her children were from Marienthal, Molotschna--near Tokmak today--and their village was part of the larger "Gnadenfeld trek" out of Ukraine. A number of those participants have written memoirs.

Katie Friesen was a little older than Katharine and upon arrival in Warthegau became a student at the National Socialist teacher training institute at Lutbrandau. This was a continuation of training she and other Mennonite young adults were receiving at the Prischib school near Halbstadt, Molotschna. She recalls in her book, Into the Unknown, that by Christmas 1944

“... all but three of the male students had been drafted into the German army. Those that remained were too young to be enlisted. … our preparations for Christmas were quite subdued and somber… It was a Christmas without Christ. … That is not to say that we did not enjoy the family atmosphere, the singing we did and the gifts we received. Well in advance of Christmas we had also made all kinds of beautiful Christmas cards for our families. Fortunately we could go home for Christmas … My Christmas at home was much more joyous, although we missed [brother] Heinrich very much [in military]. We were happy that he had been able to send a Christmas card and letter. Over Christmas we were able to visit with aunt Susa Dirks and family …” (Note 1)

Helene Dueck was also a teacher-in-training in Lutbrandau. In her book Trübsal und Not, she writes:

“Christmas 1944 ... mother was working for [sic] a Polish farmer. We were poor. We had no presents but we were together and that was worth more than presents. I gave my sister Anni my flute, which I had acquired at the school [Lutbrandau]l; I wanted to give her something, and this was the only thing I owned. ... On Christmas Eve, mother read the Christmas story, then she prayed and we sang several Christmas carols. It had been a quiet, peaceful evening. We talked about father and the boys and went to bed early.” (Note 2)

In Warthegau, Katharina Heinrichs Esau was a 15-year-old participant in the elite one-year Landjahr farm and service program. On December 19, 1944, she was allowed to join her mother in Grenzdorf for Christmas. They had time to travel 24 km to Hohensalza to finalize her application to become a naturalized German citizen, on December 22. On Christmas Eve they walked 4 km to Bartelstätt for a worship service at the Lutheran Church. On Christmas Day, they went to Pakosch (12 km from Grenzdorf) where other relatives were living (note 3). Another participant in housed in Exin recalls that they had each received a swastika pin upon naturalization, and how special this was for her as an eight-year-old child refugee.

Jacob A. Neufeld was handicapped because of Soviet imprisonments and one of the few adult males on the trek. He provides another perspective and important details.

"We celebrated Christmas in 1944 as joyfully and festively as we could, but quietly. We managed to put the times and pain briefly out of mind. This was our first Christmas in Germany. We were impressed with the effort and expense all Germans poured into the celebrations despite the heavy material and spiritual burdens that the sixth year of war had exacted. As refugees from Russia it was a special thrill for us who had foregone the festivity for many years. Almost every family had a small Christmas tree, with or without candles, and many of our refugee families had them as well. There were small gifts and pastries for young and old. Extra foodstuffs were distributed including a chicken or goose for every refugee family. On Christmas Eve almost everyone attended the Evangelical [Protestant-Lutheran] church service that was unusually beautiful and exalting. The minister was home on leave and delivered a deeply serious sermon. There were lovely songs and speeches, all under the words, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace and good will to all.”

Everything proceeded in the glow of a candlelit tree. Our Gnadenfeld women’s choir was asked to sing a few songs. Small gifts for the children completed the happiness.

On the previous Sunday the National Socialist [Nazi] Party had invited all refugees to its own Christmas celebration. A Christmas tree again stood at the centre of the festivities and there were Christmas carols, speeches, recitations, and small presents for the children. Lacking, however, was a sense of inner exaltation.

Finally, on the evening of Christmas Day, we had our own Gnadenfeld Christmas festivity in the home of Frau Edelburg. Bound together as we were by our common homeland, we gathered with our children, likewise under a sparkling Christmas tree. We read a Christmas sermon and sang familiar carols. The women’s choir added its usual touch of beautiful songs and the children recited well-known poems. We talked about church services and festivities as we remembered them from the Gnadenfeld church and our loved ones buried in the Gnadenfeld cemetery or banished to nameless places. Would we ever see them again? We also remembered Christmas on the trek. The entire evening called forth memories of our old Molochna. It was a familiar fellowship in which we could feel simply at home after all of our sorrows, hardships, and privations. Bound together by mutual sympathy and understanding, we shared our common joys and sorrows.” (Note 4)

Memoir literature is selective and today these memories or edited diaries can be more readily complemented by archival sources, in this case from the Party-controlled newspaper, the Litzmannstädter Zeitung (see pic). All of the Molotschna-area resettlers entered Warthegau via Litzmannstadt.

“First Christmas for the Black Sea Germans in the Reich.” We still remember what it was like when we all sang the Deutschlandlied [national anthem: “Germany, Germany above all, Above everything in the world”] here for the first time.

Also what we felt when we heard the Christmas broadcasts now as not as Germans-living-abroad, but as those who belonged to the German Reich. To be in the Reich! No one can understand this feeling like the one who has stood outside the Reich their whole life.

Then one day a gate opened for the Black Sea Germans—something they could never have imagined in their wildest dreams. Suddenly it was a reality and they entered the Reich!

Even if the sacrifices were painful, even if it was a bitter fact that so many had to leave their husbands and sons behind, nevertheless it was very fortunate for them to be able to enter the Reich. Above all, it means a future for the children.

We saw Black Sea Germans at a Christmas celebration, which many in the Litzmannstadt district are commemorating these days. It was a group of women, two or three old men and some in uniform, plus a handful of children around each woman. It was a good thing that they were not required to sing; they would have been unable because of their emotion.

But devoutly they listened as old and new festive songs were performed for them. The poems read by the women and youth of the [Nazi] Party spoke deeply to them. One noticed how they listened intently when it was said: “We want to work and build, not stand idly by!”

And how all the words of the local [Party] group leader about our love for Germany--which is now in such a difficult battle—touched their hearts.

They really have only one wish, that the Fnhrer should remain alive and lead us to victory. The concern for their livelihood seems almost secondary to them. All the Black Sea German families of the district are now settled. Recently the last ones were getting the most necessary furniture, allowing them to celebrate Christmas in nicer surroundings. But more important to them than these essentials is what the celebration sought to show, namely, that they belong to us, and that we love them.

And then they approached the gift table. The large packages contained a practical gift for each family member. They were tied with a ribbon and on top was the blue candle that they should light in memory of the Germans all over the world.

The women wept as they thought of their past hardship and suffering, but they also cried with joy--that they could actually experience this day. In contrast the eyes of the children shone brightly. It was the first happy Christmas of their lives.

One woman said that she did not want any more Christmas presents. She had already received so many gifts in Germany--she had never been able to give so much to her children as now. What seems meager to us, appeared to her as a princely gift.

Now on Christmas Eve every family will sit around the Christmas tree in their own room and thank God that they were allowed home to the Reich. Never will they forget this Christmas.” (Note 5)

By Christmas 1944, the Nazi regime was exceptionally happy with the Mennonite resettlers, and especially through their strong cooperation with Prof. Benjamin H. Unruh, whom SS Reichsführer Himmler had called the “Moses of the Mennonites.” Unruh had already secured religious freedom for Russian Mennonites as an ethnic, Germanic church, and provided SS authorities with extensive Mennonite ancestral and immigration data based on the work of the Mennonite Kinship Research Working Group which he chaired. Unruh was also working to ensure the Mennonite/ Mennonite Brethren division would not raise its head again; he called for a holy unity of land, blood, faith and mission in Warthegau.

"As Mennonites we have been eyed as quality farmers. Once the victory has been achieved, they want to deploy our people. Here in particular we need an undivided Volk-community. We are too believing not to know that it must be carried and consecrated not only by blood—that too—but by Christian faith." (Note 6)

In a year end review, the Party commissioner had the following to say:

“The best we could save from Russia in terms of [Germanic] blood and ways are the Mennonites, most of whom have been resettled in West Prussia [from Chortitza] and others in Warthegau [others including Molotschna]. The very fact that about 90% of them remained (racially) pure, and linguistically almost exclusively German (Plattdeutsch), speaks in their favour.

Particularly noteworthy is the unwavering will to live even under the most difficult conditions, expressed by a very high number of children.

Their Old Testament first names, partly also surnames, such as Isaac, Esau, Benjamin, Sarah, etc., were exchanged with good German names. Through conversations with their leader, Prof. Benjamin Unruh, I was able to gain an even deeper impression of this strongly Nordic ethnic group. With about 120 surnames the whole ethnic group is captured, which gave the settlements in the area of Saporoshje, Halbstadt, Melitopol, the Volga region and partly to the Caucasus, their character.

In contrast, the Lutheran ethnic Germans from East Volhynia cannot prove the same abundance of children, have entered into more mixed marriages, and are not as racially valuable as the Mennonites. Nevertheless, they represent an asset to the German Reich. ... The Catholics... are racially the least valuable because a large proportion have entered into mixed marriages.” (Note 7)

Unruh was already in discussions with officials who recommended a sooner than planned "return" of the Paraguayan and Brazilian Mennonites as fellow Warthegau colonizers (note 8).

All of the above schemes and plans for the racial colonization of Warthegau--with Mennonites playing a leading agricultural, cultural and racial (!) role--would collapse like a stack of cards within a month and the entire German population of Warthegau and West Prussia was in flight.

This was the last "Nazi Christmas." It was in fact quite forgettable for participants. What Katharine could not forget however was the dispossessed Polish family, the Hitler portrait in their house, and her mother's desire for her boys to return home safely (the youngest, Walter, survived).

                                                            --Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Map: Kreis Burgund, Warthegau, https://kpbc.umk.pl/dlibra/publication/167966/edition/170631/content. 

Note 1: Katie Friesen, Into the Unknown (Steinbach, MB: Self-published, 1986), 82f.

Note 2: Helene Dueck, Durch Trübsal und Not (Winnipeg, MB: Centre for Mennonite Brethren Studies, 1995), 80f., https://archive.org/details/durch-truebsal-und-not/mode/2up. 

Note 3: Katharina Heinrichs Esau, “So bleibt es nicht. Erinnerungen aus meiner Kindheit [bis 1945],” 2002, p. 35. In author’s possession.

Note 4: Jacob A. Neufeld, Path of Thorns: Soviet Mennonite Life under Communist and Nazi Rule, edited by H. L. Dyck, translated by H. L. Dyck and S. Dyck (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014), 303f. The original German: Tiefenwege. Erfahrungen und Erlebnisse bis 1949 (Virgil, ON: Niagara, 1958). See also his shorter article: “Die Flucht: 1943–46,” Mennonite Life 6, no. 1 (January 1951), 12, https://mla.bethelks.edu/mennonitelife/pre2000/1951jan.pdf.

Note 5: “Erste Weihnachten der Schwarzmeerdeutschen im Reich,” Litzmannstädter Zeitung 27, no. 340 (December 24, 1944), 5, https://bc.wimbp.lodz.pl/dlibra/publication/31691/edition/30232/content. Also "Das Weihnachtspüppchen mit Holzkopf," LZ 27, no. 336 (December 20, 1944), 3, https://bc.wimbp.lodz.pl/dlibra/publication/31687/edition/30228/content; also "Reges vorweihnachtliches Wirken der Partei in Litzmannstadt," LZ 27, no. 334 (December 17, 1944), 3, https://bc.wimbp.lodz.pl/dlibra/publication/31685/edition/30226/content.

Note 6: Benjamin H. Unruh, “Ergänzung I zur Einigungsfrage: Zur Taufe (January 31, 1944),” 6b., in Vereinigung Collection, File Folder 1944, Mennonitische Forschungsstelle Weierhof. For fuller background on Unruh, see my essay, “Benjamin Unruh, MCC [Mennonite Central Committee] and National Socialism,” Mennonite Quarterly Review 96, no. 2 (April 2022), 157–205, https://digitalcollections.tyndale.ca/handle/20.500.12730/1571.

Note 7: SS-Untersturmführer P. Godzik, “Jahresbericht Überprüfungsarbeiten in Litzmannstadt,” December 3, 1944, p. 10 (27), Bundesarchiv Berlin-Lichterfeld, R 59/88, https://invenio.bundesarchiv.de/invenio/direktlink/ff10bcb5-3e63-4e0a-ab33-7988251c7709/.

Note 8: Benjamin H. Unruh to the Vereinigung Executive, July 17, 1944, in Vereinigung Collection, File Folder 1944, Mennonitische Forschungsstelle Weierhof.