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.

Comments

From USSR to Cherrywood Station: Mennonites winter in Markham-Stouffville, 1924

On September 26, 1924, 126 Russian Mennonite passengers disembarked the S. S. Melita at Quebec City ( note 1 ). They were among some 20,000 Mennonites who could immigrate to Canada from the Soviet Union in the 1920s. A number of these families received train cards to Cherrywood (Pickering) and Locust Hill (Markham) stations, where they were received by Markham area Mennonites. The Canadian Mennonite Board of Colonization (CMBC) registration forms record each family's travel dates as well as their "first place of arrival" in Canada. The attached artifacts—a few pages from the financial records booklet kept by Markham-Stouffville treasurer J. L. Grove, plus some correspondence—profile concretely the level of support of this community north-east of Toronto for co-religionists fleeing the Soviet Union. Mennonites in Ontario had been well informed of the relief needs in Russia since 1921 and plans for mass immigration ( note 2 ). In April 1924 the local Stouffville Tribune ...

More Royal News! Mennonites give gifts of “Oxen, Butter, Ducks, Hens & Cheese” to new King (1772)

What do Mennonites offer a new king? The ritual ceremonies of homage to a new European king—as we see on TV these days--are ancient. Exactly 250 years yesterday, Frederick the Great became king over Mennonites in the Vistula River Delta where most of our ancestors lived. Here is how that played out. On May 31, 1772, Heinrich Donner was elected elder of the Orlofferfelde Mennonite Church, 25 km north of Marienburg Castle in Polish-Prussia; thankfully he kept a diary ( note 1 ). Only a few months later the weak Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth collapsed and was partitioned by powerful, land-hungry neighbours: Austria, Prussia and Catherine the Great’s empire. In the preceding decades Mennonites had lived with significant autonomy, felt secure under the Polish crown and could appeal to the king for protection . Now some 2,638 Mennonite families were under Prussian rule. Frederick II took possession of his new lands on September 13, and then invited four persons of nobility plus clergy from ...

“The way is finally open”—Russian Mennonite Immigration, 1922-23

In a highly secretive meeting in Ohrloff, Molotschna on February 7, 1922, leaders took a decision to work to remove the entire Mennonite population of some 100,000 people out of the USSR—if at all possible ( note 1 ). B.B. Janz (Ohrloff) and Bishop David Toews (Rosthern, SK) are remembered as the immigration leaders who made it possible to bring some 20,000 Mennonites from the Soviet Union to Canada in the 1920s ( note 2 ). But behind those final numbers were multiple problems. In August 1922, an appeal was made by leaders to churches in Canada and the USA: “The way is finally open, for at least 3,000 persons who have received permission to leave Russia … Two ships of the Canadian Pacific Railway are ready to sail from England to Odessa as soon as the cholera quarantine is lifted. These Russian [Mennonite] refugees are practically without clothing … .” ( Note 3 ) Notably at this point B. B. Janz was also writing Toews, saying that he was utterly exhausted and was preparing to ...

Fraktur (or Gothic) font and Kurrent- (or Sütterlin) handwriting: Nazi ban, 1941

In the middle of the war on January 1, 1942, the Winnipeg-based Mennonitische Rundschau published a new issue without the familiar Fraktur script masthead ( note 1 ). One might speculate on the reasons, but a year earlier Hitler banned the use of the font in the Reich . The Rundschau did not exactly follow all orders from Berlin—the rest of the paper was in Fraktur (sometimes referred to as "Gothic"); when the war ended in 1945, the Rundschau reintroduced the Fraktur font for its masthead. It wasn’t until the 1960s that an issue might have a page or title here or there with the “normal” or Latin font, even though post-war Germany was no longer using Fraktur . By 1973 only the Rundschau masthead is left in Fraktur , and that is only removed in December 1992. Attached is a copy of Nazi Party Secretary Martin Bormann's official letter dated January 3, 1941, which prohibited the use of Fraktur fonts "by order of the Führer. " Why? It was a Jewish invention, apparent...

What is the Church to Say? Letter 1 (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 accuarte and carefully considered. ~ANF American Mennonite leaders who supported Trump will be responding to the election results in the near future. Sometimes a template or sample conference address helps to formulate one’s own text. To that end I offer the following. When Hitler came to power in 1933, Mennonites in Germany sent official greetings by telegram: “The Conference of the East and West Prussian Mennonites meeting today at Tiegenhagen in the Free City of Danzig are deeply grateful for the tremendous uprising ( Erhebung ) that God has given our people ( Volk ) through the vigor and action of [unclear], and promise our cooperation in the construction of our Fatherland, true to the Gospel motto of [our founder Menno Simons], ‘For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.’” ( Note 1 ) Hitler responded in a letter...

Outrage in Canada: Ukrainian in Waffen-SS honoured in Parliament. Mennonite Connections

As an historic peace church, Russian Mennonite congregations in Canada never celebrated “their veterans” who had volunteered with the Waffen-SS or Wehrmacht in complex times; hundreds did however volunteer to protect and defend their corner of Ukraine from a new era of Moscow-based Bolshevism. Some later self-identified as "The Lost Generation." German Prussian Mennonites in contrast understood that heritage differently and celebrated the “Heroes' Day Memorial” service anually until 1945. After 1945 Germany appropriately renamed their remembrance day as Volkstrauertag —the People’s Day of Mourning ( note 1 ). Many descendents live in Canada. A parallel Ukrainian story made the news in Canada in September 2023. The Speaker of the House of Commons invited a 98-year-old Ukrainian-Canadian war veteran to a joint session of Parliament for the visit and address by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on September 22. Without good vetting by the Speaker, the guest was laud...

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 ...

Mennonite-Designed Mosque on the Molotschna

The “Peter J. Braun Archive" is a mammoth 78 reel microfilm collection of Russian Mennonite materials from 1803 to 1920 -- and largely still untapped by researchers ( note 1 ). In the files of Philipp Wiebe, son-in-law and heir to Johann Cornies, is a blueprint for a mosque ( pic ) as well as another file entitled “Akkerman Mosque Construction Accounts, 1850-1859” ( note 2 ). The Molotschna Mennonites were settlers on traditional Nogai lands; their Nogai neighbours were a nomadic, Muslim Tartar group. In 1825, Cornies wrote a significant anthropological report on the Nogai at the request of the Guardianship Committee, based largely on his engagements with these neighbours on Molotschna’s southern border ( note 3 ). Building upon these experiences and relationships, in 1835 Cornies founded the Nogai agricultural colony “Akkerman” outside the southern border of the Molotschna Colony. Akkerman was a projection of Cornies’ ideal Mennonite village outlined in exacting detail, with un...

“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...

Mennonites, the Queen, the Anthem and Monarchy Generally

For most Canadians, Queen Elizabeth II had been omnipresent their entire lives: on our coins, bills and stamps. In school in the 1960s and early -70s, my generation sang "God Save the Queen" every other day in class, and "O Canada" on the other days. A portrait of the Queen was in every classroom. I vividly remember lining Niagara Street in St. Catharines as a school child in 1973 when the Queen came whizzing through in a black limo in the rain to get to Niagara-on-the-Lake, the first capital of Upper Canada, now full of Mennonite farms. That black limo was owned by a wealthy Mennonite fruit farmer—my relative Isbrand Boese! It is not outside the tradition for Mennonites to sing “God save the Queen/King”. On Sunday, September 20, 1937, 700 people gathered in the Coaldale Mennonite Church (Alberta), and the service concluded with the singing of national anthem ["God save the King”] ( note 1 ). Mennonites organized this celebration to give thanks and to honour ...

History of the Russian Mennonites

Search This Blog