Chortitza was the first Mennonite settlement in "New Russia" (later Ukraine), est. 1789. The last Mennonites left in 1943 (note 1).
During the Stalin years in Ukraine (after 1928), marriage
with Jewish neighbours—especially among better educated Mennonites in cities—had become
somewhat more common. When the Germans arrived mid-August 1941, however, it
meant certain death for the Jewish partner and usually for the children of
those marriages.
A family friend, Peter Harder, died in 2022 at age 96. Peter was
born in Osterwick to a teacher and grew up in Chortitza. As a 16-year-old in
1942, Peter was compelled by occupying German forces to participate in the war effort.
Ukrainians and Russians (prisoners of war?) were used by the Germans to rebuild
the massive dam at Einlage near Zaporizhzhia, and Peter was engaged as a translator.
In the next year he changed focus and started teachers college, which included
significant Nazi indoctrination.
In 2017 I interviewed Peter Harder, and he told me the most fascinating story about his Uncle Boris—who was Jewish.
Immediately prior to German occupation, Chortitza had 402
Jews. On May 29, 1942 there were none, according to the detailed village
reports by “Commando Dr. Stumpp” (note 2; pic). The report was signed by the
Mennonite village Mayor Klassen and by Gerhard Fast, a Mennonite leader (and
minister) charged with data gathering and report writing, with: “Heil dem
Führer!”
Peter’s aunt Aganetha Krahn (b. 1914) was married to a
Jewish man in the neighbouring village of Rosenthal, Boris (Bernhard)
Tinkelstein. “Onkel Boris” operated a store with candy, as Peter recalled
fondly.
Peter remembered clearly as a 16-year-old seeing a truck
loaded with local Jews leave Chortitza and then return empty. This was shortly
after the start of the occupation. Tinkelstein however had fled east before
occupation, while his young daughter and wife remained behind—assuming they
would be safe.
A few weeks later the daughter (Peter’s cousin) was
identified as half-Jewish by some neighbours. The girl and mother were required
to go to an administrative centre in Zaporizhzhia (across the Dnieper River
from Chortitza) where the daughter was "examined" behind doors. Peter’s
cousin was not returned. In hindsight his aunt of course wished they had fled
east together as a family (note 3).
The nearby town of Einlage had 633 Jews prior to occupation
(Stumpp’s unit counted carefully; note 4). Einlage was founded by
Mennonites, but since 1928 it was full of engineers etc. for the construction
of the Dnjeprostroy Hydro Dam on the Dnieper River.
A member of my extended Bräul clan—Johann A. Bräul, was an
engineer on the dam—had married and had children with two Jewish women (note 5).
These children of mixed marriages were not spared. Jacob
Braun recalls:
"Not long after [occupation], we heard of a Mennonite
woman in a neighbouring town who had married a Jewish man. Since he was Jewish,
he had fled east, leaving his wife and small child behind. When the Germans
found out this child had a Jewish father, they took him from his mother and
poisoned him. … About this time, we heard that German soldiers had shot and
killed ten Jewish men just outside our village. I was working with a number of
women in the field who decided to go and see these corpses after work. I went
with them and witnessed a pile of dead and decaying bodies. Some men were
stripping these corpses of any valuable items" (note 6).
It is estimated that a half-million Jews were murdered in
Nazi-occupied Ukraine alone. In Einlage like in Chortitza, there were "no
Jews" eleven months after the start of German occupation.
The large Ukrainian and Russian population in those two
villages was also cut in half. This is dark side of the Stumpp Reports.
Dozens of widows like Mrs. Krahn/Tinkelstein, a few of the
men charged to create the Stumpp reports (Gerhard Fast's family), and dozens of
the young boys conscripted into the German army--were among the members of the
Canadian Mennonite congregation of my youth.
The documentary evidence available today supports this
"old man's story".
---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast
---Notes---
Note 1: See Gerhard, Das Ende von Chortitza (Winnipeg, MB: Self-published, 1973). For Gerhard Fast's reflections after the war, cf. “The Mennonites under Stalin and Hitler,” Mennonite Life 2, no. 2 (April 1947) 18–21; 44, 2, no. 2 (April 1947), 18–21; 44. https://mla.bethelks.edu/mennonitelife/pre2000/1947apr.pdf.
Note 2/pics: “Familienverzeichnis des Dorfes Chortitza (mit
Rosental)” in “Chortitza Village Report Commando Dr. Stumpp.” Prepared for the
German Reichsministerfor the Occupied Eastern Territories, 1942. In
Bundesarchiv Koblenz, BArch R6_GSK, files 620 to 633; 702 to 709, via State
Electronic Archive of Ukraine. Pages
1, 46, 63, 97 (map); https://tsdea.archives.gov.ua/deutsch/gallery.php?tt=R_6_622+Gebiet%3A+Zwischen%0D%0ARayon%3A+Chortizza%0D%0AKreisgebiet%3A+Saporoshje%0D%0AGenerelbezirk%3A+Dnjepropertrowsk+Dorf%3A+Chortitza%0D%0Arussisch+%E2%80%93+Chortitza+&p=R_6_622%5C%D1%821_01-188%0D%0A#lg=1&slide=66.
Note 3: Interview with author November 7, 2017, St.
Catharines, ON. More generally, see my essay, Arnold Neufeldt-Fast, “German
Mennonite Theology in the Era of National Socialism,” in European Mennonites
and the Holocaust, edited by Mark Jantzen and John D. Thiesen, 125–152 (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 2020). See also the other chapters in this volume.
Note 4:
“Einlage Village Report Commando Dr. Stumpp,” https://tsdea.archives.gov.ua/deutsch/gallery.php?tt=R_6_622+Gebiet%3A+Zwischen%0D%0ARayon%3A+Chortizza%0D%0AKreisgebiet%3A+Saporoshje%0D%0AGenerelbezirk%3A+Dnjepropertrowsk+Dorf%3A+Einlage%0D%0Arussisch+%E2%80%93+Kitschkas+&p=R_6_622%5C%D1%823_842-975%0D%0A#lg=1&slide=1. For more on Stumpp, cf.
Eric J. Schmaltz and Samuel D. Zinner, “The Nazi Ethnographic Research of Georg
Leibbrandt and Karl Stumpp in Ukraine and Its North American Legacy,” Holocaust
and Genocide Studies 14, no. 1 (Spring 2000), 28-64, https://www.academia.edu/21430355/The_Nazi_Ethnographic_Research_of_Georg_Leibbrandt_and_Karl_Stumpp_in_Ukraine_and_Its_North_American_Legacy.
Note 5: John Dyck, compiler, Braeul Genealogy
(1670–1983) (Springstein, MB: Self-published, 1983), 31; the first marriage
ended in divorce.
Note 6: Jacob Braun, The Long Road to
Freedom (Winnipeg, MB: Word Alive, 2011), 66f. Cf. also Harry Loewen, Road
to Freedom: Mennonites Escape the Land of Suffering (Kitchener, ON:
Pandora, 2000), 61f.
Comments
Post a Comment