The 1942 village reports prepared for the German Reichsminister for the Occupied Eastern Territories document an almost complete breakdown of community life under Stalin in predominantly Mennonite communities.
To read them is to take a step into a dystopian world (note
1). Here is a small sample of responses to one of many questions; they are
asked by the occupying German army to reflect on "socializing" (Geseligkeit)—having
fun, meeting socially with others—as they experienced it during the recently
ended communist period:
Adelsheim [Chortitza]: "Socializing during the period
of collectivization came to a complete end. Because of the many frictions in
the collective [farm], we became weary/wary (überdrüssig) of each other.”
Blumengart [Chortitza]: "Regarding our social life
after collectivization, neighbour no longer wished to see neighbour.” Also:
"A lack of clothing hinders social life amongst the youth in
particular".
Chortitza [Town]: “Social life was extinguished in the
Bolshevik period. If a few people got together, they became politically
suspect. No one trusted the other anymore. That mutual distrust is now slowly
fading.”
Franzfeld [Chortitza]: “Socializing ended completely during
the Bolshevik period; slowly it is coming back to life, because people are
beginning to trust each other more.”
Hochfeld [Chortitza]: “Social life ended completely under
the Bolsheviks, especially with collectivization. We became weary /wary (überdrüssig) of each other. Earlier it was completely different. Farmers
visited more and stuck together much more.”
Katharinovka [Borosenko]: “Socializing? That was unknown.
From early till late, day in and day out, winter and summer (without a day of
rest!) toiling on the collective farm without rhyme or reason … Life on the
collective farm embittered the person; one hated the other, each lived for
himself alone, in dreary brooding, without hope of a better future.”
Kronstal [Chortitza]: "Socializing disappeared almost
completely with the collective system. Everyone is very happy if on a Sunday he
can finally stay away from the community for a few hours and be alone to
himself."
Neuhorst [Chortitza]: "Socializing was completely
extinguished by the collective system; people had long become weary/wary (überdrüssig) of each other.”
Osterwick [Chortitza]: "Abject poverty and lack of
clothing were also reasons for limited socializing at weddings, funerals and
similar events. Earlier there was also a radio station that could be accessed
from the loudspeakers in the homes.”
Rosenbach [Chortitza]: “With collectivization, socializing
came to a complete stop. In the past years, wedding celebrations and other folk
festivities also ceased.”
Rosengart [Chortitza]: "As is the case everywhere,
socializing virtually stopped with collectivization; but it is also getting
somewhat better in this regard compared to a year ago. Nonetheless, because of
utter poverty, especially the lack of clothing, people hardly come together
even at festive occasions.”
Schönhorst [Chortitza]: “In the past years, the beautiful
German wedding celebrations were fewer and fewer. Earlier the churches too had
organized children’s festivals together with neighbouring villages. Slowly
social gatherings are coming back to life, but it is still in its early stage.”
While these reports were written under the Nazi-occupation
regime, the claims are supported even by the extant literature in the villages
in the 1930s and by the files of those arrested in the purge, 1937-38 (note 2).
With parents largely absent on the collective farm (or
arrested), childrearing and formational instruction in the
1930s was largely out of their hands (note 3). Some German-language reading
materials for the local Young Pioneer groups encouraged children and youth to
turn against parents and neighbours to help with the problem of “German
espionage.” Columns in the Pioneer Pravda (Truth) youth paper and “spy
booklets”—with titles like “Be on alert!,” “Stranger with a Bundle,” etc.—taught
young people that their own “watchful and attentive eyes” made them “good
helpers” of the NKVD secret police. They too may be able “to discover traces of
the enemy,” and perhaps even “detain and expose the vile intentions of spies”
(note 4).
The support
that the women sought to preserve among themselves after the purge (1937-38),
for example, was also infiltrated and shattered by the
planting of Soviet-friendly activists in the community. Each file of the
thousands arrested includes testimonies of local informants. Stalin successfully manufactured and
transmitted paranoia and fear from above, generating terror at the regional and
village levels below tearing the fabric—almost completely—of Mennonite life in
Ukraine. Every Mennonite village was impacted as the village reports suggest. Socializing
ended, and no one had courage left to say, wish, or hope
anything.
Nazi German occupation forces in Ukraine found Mennonites
depleted and broken—physically, mentally, socially and spiritually—from
Stalinist repression. “Every individual initiative in them has been killed or
stifled, because to be an individual is to be suspect, in danger of being
reported. They hesitate to express any private opinions, fearing … spies are
still at work” (note 6).
Decades later Eduard Reimer summed up the experience and its
life-long impact:
“It is practically impossible to imagine how afraid
everybody was in the villages at that time. Already as children and especially
as teens, we learned to put on a false face and were compelled to hide our true
thoughts and feelings. I believe that this forced two-facedness left many of my
generation with life-long inhibitions. . . . I was compelled—like most in the
village and in school—always to have two faces, one that was shown outwardly,
and one that was turned inward. Nothing in my life has been more repulsive to
me." (Note 7)
Katie Friesen recalled : “We lived in fear of those who
would take what little we had left. … not even neighbours and friends could be
trusted. One never knew when one would become a scapegoat for the purposes of
the state” (note 8). Similarly Victor Janzen: “[Y]ou did not know anymore whom
you could trust. …Many a wound, inflicted in those days, is not quite healed
even today” (note 9).
Helene Dueck’s memories are most direct: “Honesty,
diligence, brotherly love and willingness to help disappeared more and more.
Everyone tried to get by in a selfish way, especially in the famine years when
everything edible was scarce and thousands died of hunger. Many collaborated
with the godless regime. They even betrayed their friends and relatives to save
their lives. ... no one could be trusted. A wife often did not know what her
husband was thinking, and the husband did not trust his own wife. Children
would inform on their parents, and were praised for it at school. One did not
know what was right and what was wrong, what was legal and what was illegal.” (Note 10)
I think of my grandmother's church women's group in the 1970s--all individuals who had endured this era. However I cannot imagine them in this context. In my children memory they were generally happy, sociable, somewhat stoic, and in hindsight clearly resilient.
---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast
---Notes---
Note 1: “Village Reports Commando Dr. Stumpp.” Prepared for
the German Reichsminister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, 1942. In
Bundesarchiv Koblenz, BArch, Special Unit Stumpp, R6 GSK, files 620 to 633; 702
to 709. From State Electronic Archive of Ukraine, https://tsdea.aewrchives.gov.ua/deutsch/.
NB: better copies with no watermarks, https://invenio.bundesarchiv.de (search e.g., by file: “R 6/620”).
Note 2: For a fuller treatment see my essay: “A new
Examination of the ‘Great Terror’ in Molotschna, 1937–38,” Mennonite Quarterly
Review 95, no. 4 (October 2021), 415–458, https://digitalcollections.tyndale.ca/handle/20.500.12730/1031.
Note 3: See previous post, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/01/a-day-in-her-shoes-women-on-collective.html.
Note 4: Vanya Kuznetsova and Anya Kuznetsova, “Stranger with
a Bundle” (Незнакомец со свертком), Pinerskaya Pravda (December 20, 1937), https://www.oldgazette.ru/pionerka/20121937/text3.html;
V. Varmuzh, “Young helpers of glorious NKVD officers” (Юные помощники славных
чекистов), Pionerskaya Pravda (Dec. 20,
1937), https://www.oldgazette.ru/pionerka/20121937/index1.html;
Lev Zilver, Be on alert! (Быть на-чеку!) (Moscow: Molodaya Gvardiya, 1938), https://libking.ru/books/det-/det-espionage/445434-lev-zilver-byt-na-cheku.html.
Note 5: Cf. Andrej Kotljarchuk, “Propaganda of Hatred and
the Great Terror: A Nordic Approach,” in Ethnic and Religious Minorities in
Stalin’s Soviet Union: New Dimensions of Research, edited by Andrej Kotljarchuk
and Olle Sundström (Huddinge: Södertörns, 2017), 95, https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1166306/FULLTEXT01.pdf.
Note 6: Anonymous, “Zwischen Odessa and Perekop in den ersten
Monaten des deutsch-russischen Krieges,” Mennonitisches Jahrbuch 1949, cited in
Anne Konrad, Red Quarter Moon: A Search for Family in the Shadow of Stalin
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012), 151.
Note 7: Eduard (Abram) Reimer, “Memoir.” Unpublished (n.d.), 22, 17, 26. From Mennonite Heritage Archives, Winnipeg, MB., Gerhard Lohrenz Fonds, 60, no. 63, vol. 3333. See partial English translation under pseudonym Eduard Allert (Lost Generation, edited by Gerhard Lohrenz [Steinbach, MB, 1982]).
Note 8: Katie Friesen, Into the Unknown (Steinbach, MB:
Self-published, 1986), 29.
Note 9: Victor Janzen, From the Dniepr to the Paraguay River (Winnipeg, MB: Self-published, 1995), 27.
Note 10: Helene Dueck, Durch Trübsal und Not (Winnipeg, MB: Centre for Mennonite Brethren Studies, 1995), 16f., https://archive.org/details/durch-truebsal-und-not/mode/2up.
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