Immigration to Canada, 1923: Background

In April 1921 Mennonites in the Caucasus and Don Region officially petitioned Moscow for permissions to emigrate—which Lenin had “flatly refused.” Their rationale was more than economic.

“The disruption of economic conditions leads to impoverishment, which again goes hand in hand with the degradation of morals and has an alarming impact on our youth, who are also constantly exposed to the pressure of brutal and ruthless agitation on the part of those in power. … This decay of our spiritual and economic goods will only become greater and more ruinous.” (Note 1)

Later that year and some months before the large-scale feeding operations could begin in the Soviet Union, American Mennonite Relief (AMR) commissioner A.J. Miller petitioned the Soviet Embassy in London for exit permissions for 20,000 Mennonites (note 1b). He was unsuccessful.

Nonetheless in a highly secretive meeting in Ohrloff, Molotschna on February 7, 1922, key Mennonite leaders took a decision to work toward the removal of the entire Mennonite population of some 100,000 people from the Soviet Union (note 2).

AMR Director for Relief in Constantinople B. F. Stoltzfus reported on March 15, 1922 that “the one idea of all Mennonites in Russia is to get out of the country.” However Stoltzfus added that “they seem unable to comprehend what we tell them here that this idea is an impossible one to carry out just now” (note 3).

However shortly thereafter, B. B. Janz successfully negotiated for up to 20,000 exit visas for 1922. Janz persuaded authorities in Kharkiv that a limited group emigration—especially the “starving people whose absence might substantially benefit the colonies and enable economic reconstruction to begin”—would be advantageous to the state (note 4).

In the Gnadenfeld District, for example, 27 villages were housing 1,800 refugees in sheds, barns, cellars, and extra spaces in homes, while another 362 people were completely homeless and living in earthen huts. The norm was two to three, but often five families per house, and most of the refugees were without bedding, soap, or change of clothes (note 5). These were amongst the first who would be chosen for emigration.

The vision became more plausible in June 1922 when Canada lifted its 1919 ban on Mennonite immigration (note 6). In anticipation of the announcement, the Canadian Mennonite Board of Colonization (CMBC) was established a month earlier with David Toews as chair. CMBC negotiated a $300,000 transportation credit with the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) which made a large-scale immigration from Russia possible. For the larger plan to work however, CMBC calculated that $10 million in capital was needed; Toews and Gerhard Ens—a member of the Saskatchewan legislature—thought this could be raised through a “colonization corporation” with shares purchased by co-religionists repayable with interest.

Not surprisingly, larger segments of the church in Canada and especially the United States found this vision to be unrealistic and were unwilling to cooperate. Toews seemed to be “hypnotized” by some of the “evil spirits” around him (Ens!), in the view of a rival leader in Manitoba (note 7)! While the feeding operations in the USSR were the central focus in 1922, the immigration plan saw minimal cooperation or progress.

At least two AMR representatives in the USSR also advised against any large-scale emigration, which in turn had a significant impact on decisions of the Kansas-based Mennonite Executive Committee for Colonization (MECC). In June 1922 D.R. Hoeppner, AMR representative assigned to the Mennonite colony at Orenburg, advised:

“There are many here [Russia] who must be advised against such an undertaking at this time. It could mean for them economic ruin and, very possibly, an unhappy future. Only individual cases, namely younger people … should be considered. I can only advise you to proceed very carefully with strict controls on the ground.” (Note 8)

Hoeppner surmised that “most of the good and capable characters from this area are ready to help with the rebuilding of Russia.” And for the others it would likely “be difficult to find something what would make them happy” in another place too. He noted the “best” Russian Mennonites were willing to work at reconstruction.

“In short, with the same amount it would cost to transport them over, we can help them a lot more here, even if it were only half the amount. If they only had more horses, a few tractors and clothing—which we would have to provide them in a new settlement anyways—I think most of those desiring to emigrate would then feel completely at peace. This is especially true of farmers who have no trade or corresponding schooling, which is so necessary abroad.” (Note 9)

Hoeppner’s advice was hard: “We should use our limited funds for the many [feeding; rebuilding] and not spend a lot of money to help fewer [emigration].” Whereas in the USA or Canada or Mexico land would have to be found and purchased, “here there is land enough.”

Janz in Ukraine, and Toews in Canada advanced their plans and sought to move the first group of 3,000 Mennonites via Odessa in August 1922. These plans however, were scuttled because of a cholera outbreak in Odessa (note 10). As an alternative, Janz was certain that they could finance a train to bring the group to the Russian-Latvian border in October. In turn, the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) was prepared to move them from Riga to Canada on credit. However that plan too was scuttled because North American Mennonites were unable to cooperate enough to raise the needed capital, and also to pay the considerable expense for transport within Latvia, including the cost of quarantine and maintenance (note 11).

Hoeppner’s negative assessment of the emigration plan was mild compared to his AMR colleague G. G. Hiebert, whose confidential letter from Moscow to MECC dated December 9, 1922 is worth quoting at length.

“Regarding my view of emigration: When the political situation begins to look good, then most who still have property do not want to emigrate. … But there are always those who want to get out at any price, and even if it should get better.

I advise those who have 16 dessiatini (45 acres) not to emigrate. Politically, I tell them, it is much better now than a year ago, and with respect to the economy it also has to get better. I tell them that the hardest is behind them and that when the economic crisis is over, it will be easier here than in a new settlement [in North America]. …

I also tell them that in Canada they won’t even have a single acre of land, the simplest house or the most basic necessities without first saving up or becoming indebted. And … a large transportation debt will hang over their heads. … It will not be long before they hear that it is pretty good in Russia again with opportunities to get ahead. They will wish they would have stayed in Russia …

It is most practical generally that the landless and refugees emigrate first. … But the landless suffer from a disease called envy, and they are … shipwrecked in moral and religious waters. … The farmers and other leading Mennonites would be happy if they could resettle this element of people elsewhere. … Wherever they will settle [in North America] there will be Mennonites who will say that if we had known this, we would have left them there and instead try to feed them there. For there will be those among them who, now and then, take something that does not belong to them. Some of the farmers are also Russified in this way. Most say they are forced to lie in order to be able to live, and they tell lies every step of the way.” (Note 12)

Hiebert’s assessment was favourably received by the US-based MECC, which chose to share only a summary with Canadian leader David Toews (CMBC) and without source (note 13). MECC would continue to raise funds for relief aid and to facilitate individual sponsorships, but did not support mass immigration (note 14). “Brother [G. G.] Hiebert has been very frank with us in this matter and it is the kind of information we should have, but if any part of this information should leak out and get to Russia while he is over there it might make things very unpleasant for him,” one MECC member opined (note 15).

Despite arguments advanced by AMR representatives, the urgency to leave only increased throughout the year. By December 1922, B. B. Janz repeated the message to “Study Commissioners” abroad, namely that the Mennonite community in Soviet Russia and Ukraine would not survive the current pressures morally and religiously and that emigration was the only alternative (note 16). People “have made up their minds and are ready to struggle with death and life,” he told Benjamin Unruh (note 17).

With minimal financial security, CMBC assisted only 100 individuals for resettlement to Canada through personal sponsorships in its first year of operation to May 1923 (note 18).

Toews and CMBC reduced their goal of capitalization to $1 million and made the corporation a non-profit charitable organization (note 19). Still there was little appetite in the southern Manitoba to put up monies for Toews’ paired down vision, according to H. H. Ewert, who recommended letting 3,000 applicants come with the CPR credit, and the rest could come to Mexico later where everything was much cheaper (note 20).

By July 1923 Janz had his first list of 2,700 “fugitives” signed up, awaiting for the many other pieces to align. The internal selection process set up by Menno-Union (Union of Citizens of Dutch Lineage in Ukraine) leadership for group emigration permits was not entirely transparent, though it did require health exams, the skills to farm in Canada, references, and some form of community vote “to remove undesirables” (note 21).

“Dr. Buettner wants to have a look at all the prospective emigrants. … The Americans [sic] only want people who are able to work. Every emigrating family must therefore not only have two special references, but also the vote of the community. If 75 percent vouch for the family, it goes; if less, it has to stay behind. Five families have been struck from the list in this way." (Note 22)

But it was not only the “undesirables” who sought to leave. On July 30, 1923, Janz emphasized to Unruh in Germany that “the people have had enough. Now after they have seen a few leave they only want to depart. … The people are not concerned about the precious articles they leave behind, even if they must depart poor and naked” (note 23).

As in 1922, in 1923 Janz had approvals for 20,000 Mennonites to leave
the Soviet Union. Yet only 2,759 Mennonites immigrated to Canada in 1923—far short of what the Soviet regime was willing to allow (note 24).

            ---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Note 1: Mennonite Council for Caucasus und Don Region to Study Commissioners, April (?) 1921, in Benjamin H. Unruh, Die Auswanderung der niederdeutschen mennonitischen Bauern aus der Sowjetunion, 1923–1933, doc. 507f., 508bb. Unpublished draft, ca. 1944. Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace. From Mennonite Library and Archives-Bethel College, B. H. Unruh Collection, MS 295, folder 9, https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/ms_295/folder_9/SKMBT_C35107053108500_0057.jpg.

Note 1b: See report by B. Unruh, Die Auswanderung der niederdeutschen mennonitischen Bauern, folder 9, doc. 524a, 1, https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/ms_295/folder_9/SKMBT_C35107053108500_0156.jpg.  

Note 2: Harold S. Bender, trans., “A Russian Mennonite Document of 1922,” Mennonite Quarterly Review 28, no. 2 (April 1954), 143–147.

Note 3: Cited in Abraham Friesen, “Heinrich J. Braun: Preacher, Entrepreneur, Servant of His People, 1873–1946,” in Shepherds, Servants and Prophets: Leadership Among the Russian Mennonites (ca. 1880–1960), edited by Harry Loewen (Kitchener, ON: Pandora, 2003), 42.

Note 4: John B. Toews, The Lost Fatherland: The Story of the Mennonite Emigration from Soviet Russia, 1921–1927 (Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1967), 132f.; 140, https://archive.org/details/lostfatherlandst0000toew. Cf. “Minutes of the Union Board Meeting, May 7–8, 1924” in John B. Toews and Paul Toews, 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), 215f.; also 220f (Resolution of the Verband on Emigration, Feb. 26–28, 1925), https://archive.org/details/unionofcitizenso0000unse. Cf. “Protokoll der Kommissionssitzung, betreffs der Erforschung der Situation in den deutschen Kolonien ... im Gouvernement Jekaterinoslaw” (June 30, 1924), and “Protokoll der Sitzung des Präsidiums des Allukrainischen Zentralvollzugskomitees” (July 16, 1924), in Gerhard Hildebrandt, ed., Die Mennoniten in der Ukraine und im Gebiet Orenburg: Dokumente aus Archiven in Kiev und Orenburg (Göttingen: Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2006), no. 14, p. 22; no. 17, p. 26.

Note 5: N. Rempel and A. Brauer, “Report Regarding the Situation of the Refugees in the Gnadenfeld District (Kharkov, July 22, 1924),” in Mennonites in Russia from 1917 to 1930: Selected Documents, ed. John B. Toews (Winnipeg, MB: Christian, 1975), 55f.; J. Toews, Lost Fatherland, 170.

Note 6: Cf. David Toews in Christian Neff, ed., Bericht über die Mennonitische Welt-Hilfs-Konferenz vom 31. August bis 3. September 1930 in Danzig (Karlsruhe: Schneider, 1930), 74, https://chortitza.org/Buch/Konfer.pdf. Peter H. Rempel, “Inter-Mennonite Cooperation and Promises to Government in the Repeal on Mennonite Immigration to Canada 1919–1922,” Mennonite Historian 19, no. 1 (March 1993), 7, https://www.mennonitehistorian.ca/19.1.MHMar93.pdf.

Note 7: Cf. Heinrich H. Ewert to Wilhelm J. Ewert, August 2, 1922, letter. From Mennonite Library and Archives-Bethel College, MS 6, folder “General Correspondence 1922, May to September,” https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/ms_6/024%20General%20correspondence%201922%20May-September/169.jpg.

Note 8: D.R. Hoeppner to Wilhelm J. Ewert, June 24, 1922, letter. From MLA-B, MS 6, folder “General Correspondence 1922, May–September,” https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/ms_6/024%20General%20correspondence%201922%20May-September/084.jpg.

Note 9: Hoeppner to W. J. Ewert, June 24, 1922, 

Note 10: A. A. Friesen (CMBC) to W. J. Ewert (MECC), August 8, 1922, letter, MLA-B MS 6, General Correspondence 1922 May to September, slide 200, https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/ms_6/024%20General%20correspondence%201922%20May-September/200.jpg. Also David Toews (CMBC) to MECC, September 16 1922, letter, slides 236f., https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/ms_6/024%20General%20correspondence%201922%20May-September/236.jpg.

Note 11: J. S. Dennis to David Toews, October 1922, letter. From MLA-B, MS 6, folder “General Correspondence 1922, October to December,” https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/ms_6/025%20General%20correspondence%201922%20October-December/22.jpg; Wilhelm J. Ewert to David Toews, October 12, 1923, letter. MLA-B, MS 6, folder “Copies of Correspondence 1921 to 1923,” https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/ms_6/035%20Copies%20of%20correspondence%201921-1923/311.jpg.

Note 12: G. G. Hiebert to Mennonite Executive Committee for Colonization, December 9, 1922, letter. From MLA-B, MS 6, folder “General correspondence 1922, October to December,” https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/ms_6/025%20General%20correspondence%201922%20October-December/34.jpg. On G. G. Hiebert, see Peter C. Hiebert and Orie O Miller, eds., Feeding the Hungry: Russia Famine, 1919–1925 (Scottdale, PA: Mennonite Central Committee, 1929), 356-358, https://chortitza.org/Buch/AMRO.pdf.

Note 13: Cf. H. E. Suderman to D. H. Bender, January 31, 1923, letter. From MLA-B, MS 6, folder “General correspondence 1923, January to June,” https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/ms_6/026%20General%20correspondence%201923%20January-June/033.jpg.

Note 14: Cf. Frank H. Epp, Mennonite Exodus (Altona, MB: Friesen, 1962), 282.

Note 15: Cf. H. E. Suderman to D. H. Bender, letter, January 31, 1923.

Note 16: B.B. Janz to Mennonite Conferences and Organizations in America, December 21, 1922, and January 1, 1923, summarized in John B. Toews, With Courage to Spare: The Life of B. B. Janz (1877–1964) (Winnipeg, MB: Christian, 1978), 32, https://archive.org/details/WithCourageToSpareOCRopt.

Note 17: B. B. Janz to the Study Commission, December 16, 1922, in J. Toews, With Courage to Spare, 33; C. E. Krehbiel’s Journal, February 19, 1922 to March 23, 1923, August 8, 1922. Transcribed by Ruth Unrau, from MLA-B, MS 11, https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/ms_11/. On negotiations in Canada in 1922, cf. F. Epp, Mennonite Exodus, ch. 9.

Note 18: David Toews to W. H. Ewert, May 1, 1923, letter. From MLA-B, MS 6, folder “General Correspondence 1922, May to September,” https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/ms_6/024%20General%20correspondence%201922%20May-September/183.jpg.

Note 19: Cf. David Toews to W. H. Ewert, letter, May 1, 1923.

Note 20: H. H. Ewert to Wilhelm J. Ewert, May 18, 1923, letter. From MLA-B, MS 6, folder “General Correspondence 1923, January to June,” https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/ms_6/026%20General%20correspondence%201923%20January-June/140.jpg.

Note 21: 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), 45, n.9, https://jms.uwinnipeg.ca/index.php/jms/article/view/442.

Note 22: Diary of Anna Baerg, 1916–1924, translated and edited by Gerald Peters (Winnipeg, MB: CMBC, 1985), 112. Buettner was the district physician for seven villages; cf. C. E. Krehbiel Journal, June 26, 1922.

Note 23: Cited in J. Toews, Lost Fatherland, 138.

Note 24: Cf. F. Epp, Mennonite Exodus, 282.