1920s: Those who left and those who stayed behind

The picture below is my grandmother's family in 1928. Some could leave but most stayed behind. In 1928 a small group of some 511 Soviet Mennonites were unexpectedly approved for emigration (note 1).

None of the circa 21,000 Mennonites who emigrated from Russia in the 1920s “simply” left. And for everyone who left, at least three more hoped to leave but couldn’t.

It is a complex story.

Canada only wanted a certain type—young healthy farmers—and not all were transparent about their skills and intentions
The Soviet Union wanted to rid itself of a specifically-defined “excess,” and Mennonite leadership knew how to leverage that
Estate owners, and Selbstschutz /White Army militia were the first to be helped to leave, because they were deemed as most threatened community members;
What role did money play? Thousands paid cash for their tickets;
Who made the final decision on group lists, and for which regions? This was not transparent. Exit visa applications were also regularly rejected, and applications fees not refunded;
North American Mennonite relief too had its limits. American Mennonites knew it was much cheaper to send tractors than to encourage immigration and guarantee their “keep” for 5 years;
And who would stay back with "Oma" and the infirm? Who would shepherd the church?

Yes, some chose to stay. Yet a secret police GPU report in December 1926 indicated that “ninety-percent of the Mennonite population wishes to emigrate, and in some village, fifty-percent of the Mennonites have already sold their property, largely to Russian farmers. … The situation is dire” (note 2).

In 1926 collectivization and mass persecution were still years away and there were some reasonable options—though far from ideal—for rebuilding and adjustments to the new regime.

Indeed as the doors were closing to mass migration, these were the last words of leader B.B. Janz to his congregation in May 1926 before fleeing in disguise to join his son in Canada. Janz reassured his people that he is not leaving because he sensed the worst was still to come; on the contrary:

"Nothing terrible stands before us; everything is in order. We have looked broader society and the government directly in the eye; we are not fleeing. … Look how much better things are now [in contrast to December 1921]! God cannot use a wealthy Mennonite people as effectively as a poorer people. … That we are all poor is not bad. The consequences will be positive. … Earlier, prior to 1914, there were differences between us, our churches. But in difficult times we were all one: one affliction, one God—with some doctrinal variations—but united. Everything went steadily downhill between 1914 and 1922; from 1922 until now—uphill … a common search for the path of life—a beautiful thing. In the Union we all worked together … and have decided to remain together." (Note 3)

There is lots of drama as well as tragedy to tell as Canadian Russländer celebrate 100 years in Canada. My encouragement is to write up those stories in ways that show the complexities and dilemmas and choices of the 1920s.

To that end it is exciting to see the 2011 volume of t primary materials from the 1920s online in an edited collection by John B. Toews and Paul Toews, Union of Citizens of Dutch Lineage in Ukraine (1922–1927) (note 4).

The documents of this volume can help you build-up your family immigration story with texture and context. Jacob A. Neufeld’s memories--also available in English--are an important complement to those documents (note 5).

Years later in Canada, Neufeld addressed the question of “motives.” He was as one of the leaders with Janz in the 1920s, but also lived through the Stalin years and the Trek through World War 2.

'Were those who remained back the imprudent, the simple-minded, those lacking foresight and insight, … closed to the warning of an inner voice, lacking the courage and will power to make the break?' Were those who left opportunists seeking prosperity, leaving their responsibility to church, seniors, the infirm, and others who could not farm, 'defying Christian principles and identifying with the materialistic side of life?' ... I do not believe that any of these were the strongest or only motives—if so, it would be distressing and regrettable. Nonetheless, beyond the practical impossibility of a further emigration, the psychological, immaterial motives were the weightiest" (note 6).

Indeed in the 1920s much was still in flux and unpredictable. “Although many would deny it today,” James Urry argues, “the early Mennonite emigrants to Canada in the 1920s were not really escaping an established, oppressive regime, but were economic refugees, victims of the Civil War and subsequent periods.” The motivation “was largely economic,” and “some might also be better considered as exiles who along with other sections of the massive Russian diaspora of the 1920s contemplated returning to Russia, if and when the economic and political situation improved” (note 7).

For my family, a few things happened that made for tragic decades to come. That is not to take away from celebrating the Mennonite Exodus in the next years. But our celebrations should be told as complex family, historical stories, even theologically complex: if God opened doors, others--many more--were shut.

All of these things should be discussed as we celebrate the Mennonite exodus of the 1920s and write our family stories.

---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Note 1: Cf. John B. Toews, The Lost Fatherland: The Story of the Mennonite Emigration from Soviet Russia, 1921–1927 (Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1967), 196, https://archive.org/details/lostfatherlandst0000toew. The photo above was taken on the departure of Heinrich and Maria [Thiessen] Bräul for Canada in 1928 (middle); cf. Canadian Mennonite Board of Colonization, Heinrich Breul, Family Registration Form No. 5208. Mennonite Leader C. F. Klassen from Neu Samara with his family also migrated in September 1928.

Note 2: “Meldung über die Emigrationsbewegung der deutschen Kolonisten” (December 1926), in Gerhard Hildebrandt, editor and translator, Die Mennoniten in der Ukraine und im Gebiet Orenburg: Dokumente aus Archiven in Kiev und Orenburg (Göttingen: Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2006), no. 53, p. 58.

Note 3: In A. A. Toews, ed., Mennonitische Märtyrer der jüngsten Vergangenheit und der Gegenwart, vol. 2: Der große Leidensweg (North Clearbrook, BC: Self-published, 1954), 484, 486.

Note 4: 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), https://archive.org/details/unionofcitizenso0000unse.

Note 5: Jacob A. Neufeld, “Memories of the former activities of the Verband by a participant in the Union of the Citizens of Dutch Origin in the Ukraine,” unpublished manuscript, translated by Lena Unger, Bethel College, North Newton, KS, 1953. From Mennonite Library and Archives, Bethel College (MLA-B), https://mla.bethelks.edu/books/289_74771_N394ea/. Original German: “Erinnerungen eines Beteiligten des ‘Verbandes der Bürger Holländischer Herkunft in der Ukraine,’” MLA-B, https://mla.bethelks.edu/books/289_74771_N394e/.

Note 6: J. Neufeld, “Erinnerungen eines Beteiligten,” 23.

Note 7: James Urry, “After the rooster crowed: Some issues concerning the interpretation of Mennonite/ Bolshevik relations during the early Soviet period,” Journal of Mennonite Studies 13 (1995), 29, https://jms.uwinnipeg.ca/index.php/jms/article/view/442. A large group of Doukhobors returned to the Molotschna / Prischib region “from America” in 1926; cf. “Bericht der Zentralkommission für nationale Minderheiten beim Allukrainischen Zentralvollzugskomitee über die fehlende Umsetzung von Direktiven des Zentralkomitees” (June 19, 1926), in Hildebrandt, Mennoniten in der Ukraine und im Gebiet Orenburg, no. 45, 54. At least one Mennonite family returned from Canada in 1926, and another inquired in 1933 how it might be done. Cf. “Anzahl der ausgewanderten Mennoniten,” (April 1926), in Hildebrandt, Mennoniten in der Ukraine und im Gebiet Orenburg, no. 42, 49; also “Ein Brief von Johann Sawadskij an die Deutsche Zentralzeitung” (September 14, 1933), in ibid., no. 83, 62f.

---

To cite this post: Arnold Neufeldt-Fast, “1920s: Those who left and those who stayed behind,” History of the Russian Mennonites (blog), February 3, 2023, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/02/1920s-those-who-left-and-those-who.html.

Comments

The Executioner of Dnepropetrovsk, 1937-38

Naum Turbovsky likely killed more Mennonites than anyone in the longer history of the Anabaptist-Mennonite movement. This is an emotionally difficult post to write because one of those men was my grandfather, Franz Bräul, born 1896. In 2019, I received the translation of his 30-page arrest, trial and execution file. To this point my mother never knew her father's fate. Naum Turbovsky's signature is on Bräul's execution order. Bräul was shot on December 11, 1937. Together with my grandfather's NKVD/ KGB file, I have the files of eight others arrested with him. Turbovsky's file is available online. Days before he signed the execution papers for those in this group, Turbovsky was given an award for the security of his prison and for his method of isolating and transferring prisoners to their interrogation—all of which “greatly contributed to the success of the investigations over the enemies of the people,” namely “military-fascist conspirators, spies and saboteurs.” T

Village Reports Commando Dr. Stumpp, 1942: List and Links

Each of the "Commando Dr. Stumpp" village reports written during German occupation of Ukraine 1942 contains a mountain of demographic data, names, dates, occupations, numbers of untimely deaths (revolution, famines, abductions), narratives of life in the 1930s, of repression and liberation, maps, and much more. The reports are critical for telling the story of Mennonites in the Soviet Union before 1942, albeit written with the dynamics of Nazi German rule at play. Reports for some 56 (predominantly) Mennonite villages from the historic Mennonite settlement areas of Chortitza, Sagradovka, Baratow, Schlachtin, Milorodovka, and Borosenko have survived. Unfortunately no village reports from the Molotschna area (known under occupation as “Halbstadt”) have been found. Dr. Karl Stumpp, a prolific chronicler of “Germans abroad,” became well-known to German Mennonites (Prof. Benjamin Unruh/ Dr. Walter Quiring) before the war as the director of the Research Center for Russian Germans

Prof. Benjamin Unruh as a Public Figure in the Nazi Era

Professor Benjamin H. Unruh (1881-1959) was a relief and immigration leader, educator, leading churchman, and official representative of Russian Mennonites outside of the Soviet Union throughout the National Socialism era in Germany. Unruh’s biography is connected to the very beginnings of Mennonite Central Committee in 1920-1922 when he served as a key spokesperson in Germany for the famine-stricken Mennonites in South Russia. Some years later he again played the central role in the rescue of thousands of Mennonites from Moscow in 1929 and, along with MCC, their resettlement in Paraguay, Brazil, and Canada. Because of Unruh’s influence and deep connections with key German government agencies in Berlin, his home office in Karlsruhe, Germany, became a relief hub for Mennonites internationally. Unruh facilitated large-scale debt forgiveness for Mennonites in Paraguay and Brazil, and negotiated preferential consideration for Mennonite relief work to the Soviet Union during the Great Famin

"Women Talking" -- and Canadian Mennonites

In March 2023 the film "Women Talking" won an Oscar for "Best adapted Screenplay." It was based on the novel of the same name by Mennonite Miriam Toews. The conservative Mennonites portrayed in the film are from the "Manitoba Colony" in Bolivia--with obvious Canadian connections. Now that many Canadians have seen the the film, Mennonites like me are being asked, "So how are you [in Markham-Stouffville, Waterloo or in St. Catharines] connected to that group?" Most would say, "We're not that type of Mennonite." And mostly that is a true answer, though unnuanced. Others will say, "Well, it is complex," but they can't quite unfold the complexity. Below is my attempt to do just that. At the heart of the story are things that happened in Ukraine (at the time "New" or "South" Russia) over 200 years ago. It is not easy to rebuild the influence and contribution of "Russian Mennonite" women and th

The Shift from Dutch to German, 1700s

Already in 1671, Mennonite Flemish Elder Georg Hansen in Danzig published his German-language catechism ( Glaubens-Bericht für die Jugend ) as preparation for youth seeking baptism. Though educational competencies varied, Hansen’s Glaubens-Bericht assumed that youth preparing for baptism had a stronger ability to read complex German than Dutch ( note 1 ). Popular Mennonite preacher Jacob Denner (1659–1746), originally from the Hamburg-Altona Mennonite Church, lived in Danzig for four years in the early 1700s. A first volume of his Dutch sermons was published in 1706 in Danzig and Amsterdam, and then in 1730 and 1751 he published two German collections. Untrained preachers would often read Denner’s sermons: “Those who preached German—which all Prussian preachers around 1750 did, with the exception of the Danzig preachers—had no sermons books from their co-religionists other than this one by Jacob Denner” ( note 2 ). In Danzig and the Vistula Delta region there were some differences

Invitation to the Russian Consulate, Danzig, January 19, 1788

B elow is one of the most important original Mennonite artifacts I have seen. It concerns January 19. The two land scouts Jacob Höppner and Johann Bartsch had returned to Danzig from Russia on November 10, 1787 with the Russian Immigration Agent, Georg von Trappe. Soon thereafter, Trappe had copies of the royal decree and agreement (Gnadenbrief) printed for distribution in the Flemish and Frisian Mennonite congregations in Danzig and other locations, dated December 29, 1787 ( see pic ; note 1 ). After the flyer was handed out to congregants in Danzig after worship on January 13, 1788, city councilors made the most bitter accusations against church elders for allowing Trappe and the Russian Consulate to do this; something similar had happened before ( note 2 ). In the flyer Trappe boasted that land scouts Höppner and Bartsch met not only with Gregory Potemkin, Catherine the Great’s vice-regent and administrator of New Russia, but also with “the Most Gracious Russian Monarch” herse

“The way is finally open”—Russian Mennonite Immigration, 1922-23

In a highly secretive meeting in Ohrloff, Molotschna on February 7, 1922, leaders took a decision to work to remove the entire Mennonite population of some 100,000 people out of the USSR—if at all possible ( note 1 ). B.B. Janz (Ohrloff) and Bishop David Toews (Rosthern, SK) are remembered as the immigration leaders who made it possible to bring some 20,000 Mennonites from the Soviet Union to Canada in the 1920s ( note 2 ). But behind those final numbers were multiple problems. In August 1922, an appeal was made by leaders to churches in Canada and the USA: “The way is finally open, for at least 3,000 persons who have received permission to leave Russia … Two ships of the Canadian Pacific Railway are ready to sail from England to Odessa as soon as the cholera quarantine is lifted. These Russian [Mennonite] refugees are practically without clothing … .” ( Note 3 ) Notably at this point B. B. Janz was also writing Toews, saying that he was utterly exhausted and was preparing to

Plague and Pestilence in Danzig, 1709

Russian and Prussian Mennonites trace at least 200 years of their story through Danzig and Royal Prussia, where episodes of plague and pestilence were not unfamiliar ( note 1 ). Mennonites arrived primarily from the Low Countries and in large numbers in the middle of the 16th century—approximately 750 families or 3,000 refugees and settlers between 1527 and 1578 to Danzig and Royal Prussia ( note 2 ). At this time Danzig was undergoing tremendous demographic, cultural and economic transformation, almost tripling in population in less than 100 years. With 80% of Poland’s foreign trade handled through this port city ( note 3 ), Danzig saw the arrival of new people from across Europe, many looking to find work in the crammed and bustling city ( note 4 ). Maria Bogucka’s research on Danzig in this era brings the streets of the maritime city to life: “Sanitation facilities were inadequate … The level of personal hygiene was low. Most people lived close together: five or six to a room, sle

The Tinkelstein Family of Chortitza-Rosenthal (Ukraine)

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 Ha

“First Arrival of German Troops in Halbstadt” (Volksfreund, April 20, 1918)

“ April 19, 1918 will always remain significant in the history of the Molotschna German Colony. That which until recently could hardly be imagined has occurred: the German military has arrived to free us from the despotism, rape and pillaging of barbarous people and to reestablish the order and security of life and property--something desperately necessary for our land. For this we give thanks above all to the One in whose hands the peoples and nations and also individuals rest. ...” ( Note 1 ) Mennonites greeted their “guests and liberators” with festivities that included baked goods (Zwieback), meats and even the German anthem “ Deutschland, Deutschland über alles "—all before the watchful eyes of their Russian /Ukrainian neighbours. The troops arrived by train; and to the shock of most present, three bound prisoners—all well-known bandits and terrorists—“were brought out of one of the railway cars without any prior notice, lined up and shot right in front of us” as an exampl

History of the Russian Mennonites

Search This Blog