Mennonites in Danzig's Suburbs: Maps and Illustrations

Mennonites first settled in the Danzig suburb of Schottland (lit: "Scotland"; “Stare-Szkoty”; also “Alt-Schottland”) in the mid-1500s. “Danzig” is the oldest and most important Mennonite congregation in Prussia. Menno Simons visited Schottland and Dirk Phillips was its first elder and lived here for a time.

Two centuries later the number of families from the suburbs of Danzig that immigrated to Russia was not large: Stolzenberg 5, Schidlitz 3, Alt-Schottland 2, Ohra 1, Langfuhr 1, Emaus 1, Nobel 1, and Krampetz 2 (map 1). However most Russian Mennonites had at least some connection to the Danzig church—whether Frisian or Flemish—if not in the 1700s, then in 1600s.

Map 2 is from 1615; a larger number of Mennonites had been in Schottland at this point for more than four decades. Its buildings are not rural but look very Dutch urban/suburban in style. These were weavers, merchants and craftsmen, and since the 17th century they lived side-by-side with a larger number of Jews also barred from living within the safety of the city gates. Both were under the jurisdiction of the Catholic bishop, who also profited from e.g., Mennonite competition with the guilds of Danzig. A small monastery was also constructed around this time between Schottland and the city walls. In the neighbouring hamlet of Nobis the local pub is noted (Der Nobis Krug).

Illustration 3, with the Bischofs-Berg (Bishop's Mount) in the background right, is from the early 1600s. The first literary product of the Danzig Mennonite congregation was from this period—a handsome reprint of a Dutch Bible, known as the "Scottish" (Schottländische) Bible of 1598.

Illustration 3b, 1617, shows a world of activity in and around Schottland and neighbouring Petershagen, and also the quarrying of the Bishop's Mount.

Illustration 4 offers a beautiful view of Schottland looking out from the Danzig city walls, mid-1600s. It appears to be a prosperous community. We know that wealthier members of the Danzig congregation (mostly living in Schottland) sent their young adult children to Amsterdam to complete their education, learn a business, and receive catechetical instruction and baptism.

In 1648 the Flemish Mennonites were given permission by the city to build a church building—its front likely indistinguishable from a house—and hospice. To that point most of its members lived in Schottland. The Frisians were able to purchase land for their meeting place in 1638.

In 1656 Schottland was razed by the city as a precaution in the war with Sweden (Curicken, 368), but by 1681 some 180 Mennonite families were living in suburbs of Danzig again (Mannhardt, 105; H. Penner II, 41).

The 1709 plague took some 24,533 lives in and around Danzig. The small Flemish Mennonite congregation centred in Schottland lost 154 members and 141 younger adherents. The "Lehn Diary" notes that 146 Mennonites were buried in the Schottland fields; 223 individuals were buried in Hoppenbrug, immediatelybehind Schottland; Jews in Schottland buried 94 of their own; 185 Catholics were buried in the Jesuit cemetery behind Schottland; 364 plague deaths were recorded in neighbouring Petershagen, and 2,063 in Ohra.

Map 5 jumps ahead 80 years to 1734, just prior to the siege of the city by the Russians. Again, it shows the prosperity and urban density of Schottland, Ohra, Langfuhr, and Stolzenberg where Mennonites were living.

Map 6: 1740; depicts in deep red the destroyed buildings of Schottland after the Russian siege in 1734. By the 1760s Schottland is completely rebuilt; illustration 6b offers another beautiful view of the village from the "Lege" or "New" Gate into the city.

After 1800 Mennonites were permitted to become citizens and moved increasingly into the city.

Map 7 and Map 8, 1807, show the nicely rebuilt and vibrant Mennonite communities just prior to the siege of Danzig by the French.

Illustration 8b depicts the intensity of the French bombardment of the city and generally how the suburbs were razed in advance. Danzig soldiers dismantled and destroyed all buildings within 800 paces of the city walls, which included the Frisian Mennonite church building in Neugarten and their hospice. The larger Flemish Mennonite church and its new organ and hospice were not destroyed, but were set aflame in 1815 in an attack on the city by Russian forces. In 1808 after two centuries of division, the congregations had merged (the division however continued in Russia).

Map 9: by 1822, Mennonite life in Alt-Schottland had come to an end. Alt Schottland, Ohra, Stolzenberg are labelled as burnt out and "lying in ruins“ after the French siege in 1807.

Illustration 10, ca. 1890s, is a photograph of the Danzig Mennonite Church and parsonage under the Bishop's Mount.

There are other maps and other depictions of life in Danzig, especially from the mid-1600s (see source for illustration 4). Danzig was a large, wealthy, beautiful and strategically important city. Proud citizens, friends and foes alike had reasons to map it out! Fortunately these artefacts also help us to piece together a little bit of Mennonite life "in the suburbs."

---Text by Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Sources and Links---

Map 1: From Karl Stumpp, “Karte der Siedlungen in Danzig-Westpreußen, aus denen Mennoniten in den Jahren 1789–1807 nach Rußland ausgewandert sind,” in idem, The emigration from Germany to Russia in the years 1763 to 1862 (Lincoln, NB: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1973), appendix, https://archive.org/details/emigrationfromge00stum/page/1039/mode/1up.

Map 2: “1615 inset” of an 1815 map of Danzig, http://maps.mapywig.org/m/City_plans/Central_Europe/Situations_Plan_von_der_Stadt_und_Festung_Danzig_1815_Rolle_30L.jpg?fbclid=IwAR2ao8i3XlZ3vMsDRW93EVfQTvYdh_AA0dwIwXFHHwiLz5kHjlqzLOwEug4.

Illustration 3: ca. 1600, https://gdansk.fotopolska.eu/1716151,foto.html?s=0.72&cx=3642&cy=1805.

Illustration 3b, 1617, https://www.loc.gov/item/2021670734.

Illustration 4: mid-1600s, from Reinhold Curicken, Der Stadt Dantzig: Historische Beschreibung (Amsterdam/ Dantzigk: Janssons, 1687), 32 [63], https://pbc.gda.pl/dlibra/publication/61987/edition/55645/content.

Map 5: 1734, https://gdansk.fotopolska.eu/Gdansk/b25605,Mapy_i_plany,72,48.html?f=780245-foto.

Map 6a: 1740, https://gdansk.fotopolska.eu/367411,foto.html.

Map 6b: 1760-1764, https://download.cloudgdansk.pl/gdansk-pl/t/202206191744.jpg.

Map 7: 1807, https://gdansk.fotopolska.eu/717711,foto.html?s=1&cx=4291&cy=1904.

Map 8: 1807, https://gdansk.fotopolska.eu/Gdansk/b25605,Mapy_i_plany,72,48.html?f=780245-foto.

Illustration 8b: 1807, https://gdansk.fotopolska.eu/Gdansk/b33823,Panoramy_Gdanska,24,48.html.

Map 9: 1822, https://gdansk.fotopolska.eu/Gdansk/b25605,Mapy_i_plany,120,48.html?f=672473-foto.

Illustration 10: 1890s, https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Danzig_Mennonite_Church_(Gdansk,_Poland)#/media/File:Gdansk_mennonici_02_137.jpg.

---References for Further Reading---

“Jesuiten in Danzig,” https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesuiten_in_Danzig.

Klassen, Peter J. A Homeland for Strangers. An Introduction to Mennonites in Poland and Prussia. Rev’d ed. Fresno, CA: Centre for Mennonite Brethren Studies, 1989. https://archive.org/details/ahomeland-for-strangers-an-introduction-to-mennonites-in-poland-and-prussia-revised-ocr.

———. Mennonites in Early Modern Poland and Prussia. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009.

Lehn, Waldemar Henry, ed. “Lehn Diary.” Transliteration from the gothic script and translation, 2010. From Mennonite Heritage Archives, Winnipeg, MB.

Mannhardt, Hermann G. Die Danziger Mennonitengemeinde. Ihre Entstehung und ihre Geschichte von 1569–1919. Danzig, 1919. https://archive.org/details/diedanzigermenno00mannuoft.

———. "Danzig Mennonite Church (Gdansk, Poland)." https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Danzig_Mennonite_Church_(Gdansk,_Poland).

Penner, Horst. Die ost- und westpreußischen Mennoniten in ihrem religiösen und sozialen Leben in ihren kulturellen und wirtschaftlichen Leistungen. Teil 2, 1772–bis zur Gegenwart. Kirchheimbolanden: Self-published, 1987.

“Stare-Szkoty (Alt-Schottland),” https://www.gdansk.pl/turystyka-w-gdansku/wielokulturowa-tozsamosc-miasta-gdanska/stare-szkoty,a,223126.

Comments

What is the Church to Say? Letter 4 (of 4) to American Mennonite Friends

Irony is used in this post to provoke and invite critical thought; the historical research on the Mennonite experience is accurate and carefully considered. ~ANF Preparing for your next AGM: Mennonite Congregations and Deportations Many U.S. Mennonite pastors voted for Donald Trump, whose signature promise was an immediate start to “the largest deportation operation in American history.” Confirmed this week, President Trump will declare a national emergency and deploy military assets to carry this out. The timing is ideal; in January many Mennonite congregations have their Annual General Meeting (AGM) with opportunity to review and update the bylaws of their constitution. Need help? We have related examples from our tradition, which I offer as a template, together with a few red flags. First, your congregational by-laws. It is unlikely you have undocumented immigrants in your congregation, but you should flag this. Model: Gustav Reimer, a deacon and notary public from the ...

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 reje...

1923 Mennonite immigrants "kept behind": Lechfeld (Bavaria) transit camp

An important part of the larger 1923 immigration story includes the chapter of the hundreds who were held back at Riga and Southampton and taken to the Lechfeld (Bavaria) transit camp for medical care. “Germany generously and magnanimously helped our organizations, on my intercession, to overcome the manifold difficulties connected with such a ( Volksbewegung ) movement of people in such critical times,” Benjamin H. Unruh wrote some years later ( note 1 ). Just as the first group of Russländer Mennonites set foot in Canada 100 years ago this month, the North American relief effort in the USSR was also winding down (August 1923). The famine relief work in 1921 and 1922 had found broad support in the North American Mennonite community. However excitement about a larger immigration of Russian Mennonites to North America was muted, and a new call to action could not forge the same level of cooperation across Mennonite groups. The plan required huge money guarantees. In USSR B.B. Janz h...

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...

School Reports, 1890s

Mennonite memoirs typically paint a golden picture of schools in the so-called “golden era” of Mennonite life in Russia. The official “Reports on Molotschna Schools: 1895/96 and 1897/98,” however, give us a more lackluster and realistic picture ( note 1 ). What do we learn from these reports? Many schools had minor infractions—the furniture did not correspond to requirements, there were insufficient book cabinets, or the desks and benches were too old and in need of repair. The Mennonite schoolhouses in Halbstadt and Rudnerweide—once recognized as leading and exceptional—together with schools in Friedensruh, Fürstenwerder, Franzthal, and Blumstein were deemed to be “in an unsatisfactory state.” In other cases a new roof and new steps were needed, or the rooms too were too small, too dark, too cramped, or with moist walls. More seriously in some villages—Waldheim, Schönsee, Fabrikerwiese, and even Gnadenfeld, well-known for its educational past—inspectors recorded that pupils “do not ...

Queen Elizabeth II and Aunt Adina Neufeld Bräul

This month (April 2023) we celebrated my aunt’s 97th birthday—Adina Neufeld Bräul. Queen Elizabeth II and Aunt Adina were born within hours of each other, April 20-21, 1926. She once told me—in somewhat different words—that this makes her wonder about God’s providence … In 1944 in German-annexed Poland, my 16-year-old uncle Walter Bräul was required to report for military service. His first thought: no good soldier should be without a girlfriend! Before leaving for training, he asked one of the girls from "the trek" on a date to see a movie in Exin. Seven years later they would marry in Paraguay. Adina and her mother and sister were on the same trek or group (Gnadenfeld/ Molotschna) out of Ukraine as Walter and my mother (in the 2023 photo). Adina’s most terrible memory of the trek was when their wagon almost tipped over into a deep ravine. She was 17—a year older than Walter—and it was Walter’s 17-year-old brother Peter who literally jumped from his wagon to physically stop ...

A Traveler's Impressions of the Molotschna, 1927

In November 1927, Susanna Toews of Ohrloff, Molotschna wrote to her brother Gerhard in Canada, "Father is sleeping and the sisters are reading, even though they have read the stuff ten times. . .. Twice a week we get Das Neue Dorf . We read the most important material the first evening and then father reads the rest of it the next day" ( note 1 ). A youth in Friedensruh, Molotschna reported to the communist youth paper Die Saat in 1928, that their village receives 13 copies of Das Neue Dorf , 6 copies of Die Saat , one of the Moscow-based Deutsche Zentral-Zeitung , 16 copies of Die Trompete, 2 copies of Neuland , and some Russian papers as well. On average, 2 papers per household--all communist papers. A Mennonite-based monthly agricultural journal, “The Practical Agriculturalist” ( Der praktische Landwirt ) had been approved for publication in Ukraine in 1924 but was shut down in December 1926. Government authorities in Ukraine were exasperated to see a “significant a...

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...

What does it cost to settle a Refugee? Basic without Medical Care (1930)

In January 1930, the Mennonite Central Committee was scrambling to get 3,885 Mennonites out of Germany and settled somewhere fast. These refugees had fled via Moscow in December 1929, and Germany was willing only to serve as first transit stop ( note 1 ). Canada was very reluctant to take any German-speaking Mennonites—the Great Depression had begun and a negative memory of war resistance still lingered. In the end Canada took 1,344 Mennonites and the USA took none born in Russia. Paraguay was the next best option ( note 2 ). The German government preferred Brazil, but Brazil would not guarantee freedom from military service, which was a problem for American Mennonite financiers. There were already some conservative "cousins" from Manitoba in Paraguay who had negotiated with the government and learned through trial and error how to survive in the "Green Hell" of the Paraguayan Chaco. MCC with the assistance of a German aid organization purchased and distribute...

Mennonites and the Crimean War (1853-56)

Martin Klaassen was traveling through the Molotschna Mennonite Colony when the Crimean War broke out in 1853 ( note 1 ). His diary notes that the following hymn was sung before the sermon: December 1853 . With regards to the war which broke out between Russia and Turkey, the song, No: 723 “O Lord, the clouds of war are threatening now, above our heads we see them roll” was sung before the sermon” ( note 2 ). As the war effort grew, thousands of troops came through Molotschna: January 14, 1854 . Today our colony has received billets: in Halbstadt about 1,000 soldiers. It is said that Joh. Neufelds have offered liquor ( Branntwein ), naturally without charge. The soldiers are supposed to have marched in with jubilant singing and much hilarity. They had been very happy for the wonderful reception they got, and promised to accomplish great things. In March, England and France also declared war on Russia. March 26, 1854 . At noon today there was suddenly a military transport at ...

History of the Russian Mennonites

Search This Blog