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 distributed basics for each new family / village to be equipped with the following upon settlement (see pic):

It was a huge undertaking. MCC estimated the costs to settle each family exclusive of transportation and land, would be a little more than $600. The biggest organizational failure was lack of medical care, and the first families suffered immediate losses. And the quality of oxen (for ploughing) and cows—upon which so much hinged—looked much better on paper than the animals that were in fact rounded up.

1,572 Mennonites from Russia were settled by MCC in the Paraguayan Chaco, and another 2,529 settled in Brazil in 1930 (note 3). Each family settled in Paraguay was indebted $1500 (average) for travel expenses, 40 hectares of land, and the cost of equipment (note 4).

There were already Conservative Mennonites from Canada (Sommerfelder) in the Chaco, who had suffered a very high mortality rate upon settlement. Nevertheless MCC chose not to place a medical doctor in the colony; they were satisfied with a settler who had homeopathic training. An epidemic broke out in the first few months after arrival in Paraguay, and tragically took more than 94 lives (note 5).

Homeopathic doctor Johann Ediger was a close friend of immigration leader Prof. Benjamin Unruh, and wrote a year earlier about the Canadian Mennonites: “An important reason that frightens the Mennonites away from Chaco, is the high mortality amongst the settlers, and it will be one of my first problems to investigate the reasons, and satisfactorily enlighten the settlers through lectures on prevention and homeopathic self-treatment” (note 6).

Ediger had only taken one course in medicine; he did not complete it or graduate with a degree, and was “not in any way a qualified as a doctor,” according to a reference check with a Mennonite medical doctor from Russia in 1929 (note 7 and 8).

In the first months of the Fernheim settlement Ediger reported giving “remedies” to those from Moscow via Germany who “had brought cases of diarrhea with them from the big ship” (note 9). By the end of November 1930 the epidemic was in full-swing and Ediger was overwhelmed (note 10). Unruh in Germany however was both unconvinced and frustrated by the “rumours about a large-scale epidemic in Paraguay,” and trusted Ediger’s reassuring reports despite the “mention of frequent deaths” (note 11).

The cost for MCC to bring in emergency military doctors was $58,466 (note 12). The lack of proper medical care and the judgement of Unruh in Germany would remain a significant problem for colony for the next years (note 13).

---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Note 1: See previous posts, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/03/canadian-mennonites-and-paraguay-1922.html; https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/03/lengua-indigenous-people-of-gran-chaco.html. On financial support from the German government negotiated by Benjamin H. 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 2/ pic: Village 2, MCC-Akron IX-03-03, Box 4 File 34-Village 2 Contract (Partial) consolidated.

Note 3: Frank Epp, Mennonite Exodus (Altona, MB: Friesen, 1962), 239. For the work of MCC in this effort, cf. John D. Unruh, In the Name of Christ: A History of the Mennonite Central Committee and its Service 1920–1951 (Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1952), 24–31.

Note 4: Cf. Peter P. Klassen, The Mennonites in Paraguay, vol. 1, trans. by Gunther H. Schmidt, 2nd ed. (Hillsboro, KS: Self-published, 2004), 75.

Note 5: Telegram, Harold S. Bender to Benjamin Unruh, 1930. Cf. B. Unruh, Report VI to MCC, January 14, 1930, 3. From MCC-Archives Akron, IX-03-02, box 1, file 1, 0005; Nicolai Siemens [report] to MCC, November 23, 1930. From MCC-Akron, IX 3-5 Box 1 File 1-0001.

Note 6: Johann Ediger to General S. McRoberts, letter, February 27, 1929, p. 2, MCC-Akron, IX3-3, Box 1, File 30.

Note 7: M. S. Fisher to H. G. Norman, letter, April 5, 1929, MCC-Akron, IX3-3, Box 1, File 30.

Note 8: M. S. Fisher to H. G. Norman, letter, June 4, 1929, MCC-Akron, IX3-3, Box 1, File 30.

Note 9: Johann Ediger to Benjamin Unruh, June 28, 1930, Report 8, MCC-Akron, 1X3-1, Box 1, Folder 3.

Note 10: [Intercontinental/Corporation] to MCC (M. Kratz), cable, November 28, 1930, MCC-Akron, IX2, Box 4, File 11-0003.

Note 11: Benjamin Unruh to MCC Executive, Report 20, November 30, 1930, p. 10, MCC-Akron, IX01-01, Box 11, File 6.

Note 12: MCC-Akron, IX 3-3, Box 11, File 26.

Note 13: See next posts (forthcoming)

Photograph: Death of Sarah Fast, October 27, 1930, age 4 (my aunt). Her mother Margareta, my grandfather Jacob Fast's first wife, died from the typhoid fever six weeks later.

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History of the Russian Mennonites

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