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"No Jewish Doctors Wanted" (I): Prof. Unruh and Fernheim's need, 1933

A deadly epidemic broke out in MCC’s new settlement in Fernheim, Paraguay in 1930. Settlers had been present for less than a year, and had recorded 20 births and 88 deaths by December 31 (note 1).

Health care remained a significant concern in Fernheim even after the epidemic was halted with the emergency medical intervention of Paraguayan military doctors. Mennonites were wholly responsible for their own health care. In 1933 and 1934 there was a malaria outbreak with 31 deaths and 30 deaths respectively, compared to 11 deaths in 1932 (note 2). My father born in 1932 almost did not survive 1933: "He is very thin. It often seems to me that we will not be able to keep him by our side. He was such a happy and lively boy, but the illness has gone so far," my grandmother wrote family in Canada (note 3).

Early in 1934 the Fernheim Colony reported in the Germany Mennonite denominational paper that “the state of health leaves much to be desired. Malaria still hits the villages back and forth. Some are literally languishing with this disease.” The writer asks speculatively and reports a rumour: “Will we have a doctor among us soon? Preacher Isaak who is the head of the hospital told me the other day that a certain Mr. Fast from the Island of Java had agreed to come to Paraguay” (note 4).

By 1936 Fernheim’s mentor and liaison with the German government, Prof. Benjamin Unruh understood their failure. In a letter to his MCC colleagues he wrote that they had “experimented with three doctors. The first two were bad drinkers, the last young and inexperienced. ... In my opinion, it is a great defect of the settlement that there is no proper doctor there” (note 5).

However what Unruh does not mention is that in August 1933 he personally and vigorously rejected the opportunity to bring three distinguished Jewish doctors to the colony from West Prussia—one a friend of Vereinigung denominational chair Emil Händiges, pastor and elder of the Elbing Mennonite Church. The doctors were seeking to flee Hitler’s new Germany in August 1933.


A recently uncovered set of letters between Unruh and Händiges reveals the details of that decision.

August 23, 1933—Elbing Elder Emil Händiges had hardly slept. It seemed like one of those rare but obvious answers to prayer. Three outstanding Elbing Jewish medical doctors (including a couple, husband and wife doctors) were prepared to leave Germany immediately and set up their practices in Fernheim, Paraguay.

Händiges wrote to his colleague Unruh with the news:

“… They turned to me as the Elder of the Mennonites, a denomination that has experienced twists of fate in its history similar to theirs. 'We are not afraid of the wild Chaco … if only we are not rejected because we are Jews and if only we can continue to practice our profession in peace. We do not care about making money, if we can only live our lives and breathe freely again, especially in consideration of our children,"—this is what Dr. Lauter said to me almost verbatim in our conversation yesterday. Therefore, dear Benjamin, ... consider if this is not one of the very rare occasions where God wants to bring together people from different camps in order to help both parts according to His miraculous counsel, which we were allowed to experience so often in the [relief work] matters of “Brothers in need.” (Note 6)

There were some 600 Jews in Elbing prior to the Hitler regime (1933 to 1945). In 1929 the local Jewish synagogue helped raise funds for Mennonite refugees through “Brothers in Need,” which supported those rescued from Moscow in 1929 and temporarily housed in Germany (note 7). Many of these Mennonites went on to Paraguay with the basic tools, household utensils, and implements purchased with in Germany with that aid.


Now the Elbing Jewish community was in need, and Händiges was visited by one of “the most outstanding Jewish physicians in our city.” Mennonites and Jews in Elbing had shared a long, common story as a minority disadvantaged group, historically together on the outside edges of the city (note 8). The synagogue and the church were in short walking distance from each other.


Unruh received the letter but rejected the idea out of hand—the response was immediate and unequivocal (note 9).

Below is a timeline of events leading to August 23, 1933 and the meeting of Jewish doctors with Händiges:

  • April 1: Nazi leadership staged a one-day economic boycott of Jewish-owned businesses and professionals, including Jewish doctors and lawyers, with SA [storm trooper] or SS men blocking the entrances to Jewish businesses with signs such as “Avoid Jewish doctors” and “Jews are our misfortune.” In smaller cities like Elbing, store owners soon hung signs in their windows stating “Jews would not be served”.
  • April 5: the local Elbing newspaper reported “the disbarring of Jewish lawyers in Elbing,” and that city council decided to “‘aryanize’ the names of streets, factories, shops across the city” (note 10).
  • April 7: the Nazi regime passed the “Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service,” which barred “non-Aryans” from civil service positions (teachers, professors, judges, etc.). Later that year restrictions were placed on reimbursements to Jewish doctors from state health insurance funds (note 11).
  • July: Hitler donated RM 1,000 for the aid organization “Brothers in Need”—among his first official acts (note 12). It was chaired by the German Red Cross with Unruh on its board. This was the fund that had supported the Mennonite refugees.
  • August 22: Händiges met with Dr. med. Lauter
  • August 23: Händiges wrote Unruh about sending doctors to Fernheim
  • August 25: Unruh penned his vigorous opposition
  • August 25-26: An extraordinary session of Prussian Mennonite elders [lead ministers] and preachers met, with Händiges as co-chair. Unruh was a participant; proceedings included greetings to the new German government from Mennonites in Paraguay. A closing address was made by Otto Andres, a high ranking Nazi Party member and representative (Landrat) to the
    Danzig Parliament. Notably Andres was a member of the Tiegenhof Mennonite Church in West Prussia. In uniform, Andres told delegates in no uncertain terms that historic Mennonite non-resistance was not only a non-starter for government officials, but the ideal was also hopelessly out of touch with the Mennonite youth and inappropriate to German national revival (note 13).

Within a few weeks Unruh became contributing a patron of the SS (note 14). Perhaps Unruh's negative response should have been obvious to Pastor Händiges. But he and the Jewish doctors were convinced for the moment that God might be leading for the benefit of many in terrible times. Yet with Unruh’s opposition, the plan did not go forward (continued; note 15).

            ---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Note 1: Jacob H. Janzen to Dr. Lincke, Deutsches Auslandinstitut, Stuttgart, July 9, 1938. From National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland, T-81/606, “Nazi Party and the Deutsches Ausland-Institut.” On the epidemic, see previous post, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/03/what-does-it-cost-to-settle-refugee.html.

Note 2: Janzen to Lincke, Deutsches Auslandinstitut, Stuttgart, July 9, 1938.

Note 3: Helena Janzen Fast (1902-1946), Fernheim, Paraguay, to Justina Riediger Fast (b. 1859), Manitoba, May 28, 1933.

Note 4: Peter Klassen, “Bericht aus der Mennoniten-Kolonie Fernheim im Gran Chaco von Paraguay, Südamerika,” Rosenort, January 1934, Mennonitische Blätter 81, no. 3 (March 1934) 28-29; 29, https://dlibra.bibliotekaelblaska.pl/dlibra/publication/25861/edition/24789/content.

Note 5: B. H. Unruh to P.C. Hiebert, O. Miller and H. Bender, August 3, 1936, letter, MCC-Akron, MCC CPS and other Corr. 1931-39, file 1. On Unruh, see my essay: “Benjamin Unruh, MCC and National Socialism,” Mennonite Quarterly Review 96, no. 2 (April 2022), 157-205, https://digitalcollections.tyndale.ca/handle/20.500.12730/1571.

Note 6: Emil Händiges to Benjamin H. Unruh, August 23, 1933, Mennonitische Forschungsstellte, Bolanden-Weierhof, Nachlaß Otto Schowalter, Folder: Korrespondenz 1929-1945.

Note 7: Emil Händiges, Mennonitsche Blätter 76, no. 12 (December 1929), 106, https://dlibra.bibliotekaelblaska.pl/dlibra/publication/25832/edition/24763/.

Note 8: Cf. https://www.xn--jdische-gemeinden-22b.de/index.php/gemeinden/e-g/553-elbing-westpreussen.

Note 9: Benjamin Unruh to Emil Händiges, August 25, letter, Mennonitische Forschungsstellte, Bolanden-Weierhof, Nachlaß Otto Schowalter, Folder: Korrespondenz 1929-1945.

Note 10: Cf. “The demise of the Elbing Synagogue and Jewish Community,” http://www.many-roads.com/2016/06/11/demise-of-the-elbing-synagogue-and-jewish-community/.

Note 11: Cf. European Observatory on Health Care Systems, “Health Care Systems in Transition: Germany,” 2000, http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/80776/E68952.pdf.

Note 12: German Red Cross President to the Reich Chancellor [Hitler], July 15, 1933, “Die deutschstämmigen Kolonisten in Rußland,” R 43-I/141, 192, from Bundesarchiv (387/ 419), https://www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/item/MHAKBMYV6ZD27I6VU7HVWD7PPW2ZCFMM. Cf. e.g., Ewald Ammende, “Eine Pflicht der Nation. Zur Tragödie des Rußlanddeutschtums,” Rigaschen Rundschau, Erste Beilage, no. 54 (March 8, 1934): 5, http://periodika.lv/periodika2-viewer/?lang=fr#panel:pp|issue:241202|page:5. Cf. N-S Presseanweisungen der Vorkriegszeit I, 1933, edited by Gabriele Toepser-Ziegert (New York: Saur, 1984), 45.

Note 13: “Zur Kirchenfrage der Mennoniten. Bericht über die außerordentliche Zusammenkunft der Vorstände der Ost- und Westpreußischen und Freistaat-Danziger Mennonitengemeinden zu Kalthof am 25. August 1933,” Mennonitische Blätter 80, no. 9 (September 1933), 91, https://dlibra.bibliotekaelblaska.pl/dlibra/publication/25854/edition/24783.

Note 14: Benjamin H. Unruh, “Fragebogen zur Bearbeitung des Aufnahmeantrages für die Reichsschriftumskammer.” On this application form for admission to the Reich Chamber of Literature, dated October 7, 1937, he lists his patron SS membership number as no. 168.232 (from Mennonite Library Archive—Bethel College, MS 416. https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/ms_416/unruh_harder_quiring_berlin_docs/SKMBT_C35108031809530_0002.jpg). Unruh also highlights his SS patron membership in a 1940 letter to a government official (Benjamin H. Unruh to SS-Hauptsturmführer Walther Kolrep, January 30, 1940, p. 2, letter, from MLA-B, MS 295, folder 13, https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/ms_295/folder_13/SKMBT_C35107061214280_0003.jpg.

Note 15: For continuation, see post (forthcoming).

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