Skip to main content

"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).

Print Friendly and PDF
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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
Post a Comment
Read more

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
Post a Comment
Read more

"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
Post a Comment
Read more

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
Post a Comment
Read more

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
Post a Comment
Read more

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
1 comment
Read more

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
Post a Comment
Read more

“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
Post a Comment
Read more

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
Post a Comment
Read more

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
Post a Comment
Read more