Post-war Mennonite refugees from the Soviet Union feared repatriation to the USSR—for some, more than death itself. Soviet officers had full access to refugee camps throughout all of Germany.
Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) was collecting its “lost
sheep” as well. Peter J. Dyck, MCC director, offered this first assessment of
the Mennonite tragedy under Stalin to his Canadian counterparts:
“They are truly like sheep in a wilderness and the women of
36 years look much more like 50 years. They told me that if I thought that I
and my parents had witnessed terrible times in Russia during the revolution and
the subsequent years of famine they could assure me that that was mild in comparison
to what followed since 1927 when we left Russia. They told me one tragedy after
another and it appears, if what they say is to be taken as representing the
whole of the country and our people there and not only a section, that most of
our Mennonites have perished.” (Note 1)
To quickly remove their refugees to safety in South America
or Canada required United Nations refugee resettlement assistance. Soviet
citizens were designated for repatriation, German citizens did not qualify for
the aid.
MCC officials claimed that these Mennonites were a special
case. They are of “Dutch origin” and should qualify as Dutch under the UN’s
International Refugee Organization (IRO) mandate, and thus be eligible for both
“care and maintenance” as well as resettlement support. MCC’s questionable
arguments and techniques have been well documented by Canadian historian Ted D.
Regehr (note 2).
MCC had strong political connections, especially with
American IRO staff to make this argument, but many UN officials were very
skeptical of the claims made by German-speaking Mennonites. All had been deemed
“ethnic Germans” (Volksdeutsche) by the Nazis during the war and were
naturalized as Germans citizens upon entering the German Reich, 1943-44. MCC
argued that this was done only “under duress.”
In 1946 some 420 Mennonite refugees were able to enter
Netherlands (note 3) and for the others MCC established refugee camps at
Backnang near Stuttgart, and Gronau on the German-Dutch border. Most were
refused UN "care and maintenance" as Soviet citizens (i.e., they were
free to return home).
MCC was eventually able to obtain from the IRO a “special
status for the Mennonite refugees from the Soviet Union, comparable to the
special status granted stateless Jews.” The IRO in turn paid support and
transportation costs throughout 1948 (note 4).
For the individual IRO applications, MCC did not collect or
provide information on previous German military service or acceptance of German
citizenship.
Problems developed when the "EWZ" naturalization files on Soviet Germans collected in Litzmannstadt were discovered in 1948-49—primary documents that are used widely today by genealogists (note 5). Many of the files clearly pointed not only to voluntary acceptance of German citizenship but also to German military service and other forms of collaboration with German occupying forces in Ukraine. These documents threatened to disqualify almost all Soviet Mennonites for IRO aid.
These applications by hundreds of Soviet Mennonites for IRO
aid eligibility and possible immigration to Canada have been scanned and are online
(note 6), searchable by name or birthplace, e.g., using the historic Mennonite
village names (“Chortitza,” “Einlage,” “Halbstadt,” “Klippenfeld,” etc.). Each
of these individuals also has an EWZ naturalization file. All too often the
latter points to less than truthful answers in the former.
The applications for IRO approval show uniformity on some
key questions—which strongly suggests that applicants were coached on how to
answer by MCC.
I found a partial exception to this rule: Franz Wiebe of
Hierschau, Molotschna (b. Feb 2, 1919). Wiebe was a former teacher and had been
in the German army as a translator. At the end of the war he was a POW and had
now married “a German girl”—Alice. He self-identified as a “Frisian-speaking”
Mennonite, and said that he received German identification papers and was
naturalized. He also said that as a Mennonite he would not swear an oath. He
could have lied throughout the interview but did not. We know nothing further
about this Franz Wiebe—he did not make it to Canada, though he had relatives in
Alberta. He seems to have disappeared to history.
Sample 1: Nationality: “Mennonite, of Dutch ancestry” (there
is another space for “religion”).
Sample 2: Language: “Low Dutch” or “Dutch Platt” (not Low
German) and usually in first place.
Sample 3: Question: Did you receive any of the following
identification papers when you entered Germany? (Almost all say they never
received any, which the EWZ files show as an untruth).
Sample 4a: Notes on questionable applicant. Here the
individual cannot compellingly prove her claim of Dutch origin.
Sample 4b: Applicant is rejected: “Case without documents” …
According to the “EWZ he was never registered as an Ausländer – foreigner;”
“very strongly suspect that he was in the German Army … with the TODT
Organization … He is not the concern of the IRO”.
Sample 5: Applicant accepted; “… falls within the category
of persons with whom the Preparatory Commission of International Refugee
Organization [PCIRO] is concerned.”
---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast
---Notes---
Note 1: Peter J. Dyck, “Memorandum on Mennonite Refugees in
Germany as on July 25, 1946,” cited in Frank H. Epp, Mennonite Exodus (Altona,
MB: Friesen, 1962) 528.
Note 2: Ted D. Regehr, “Of Dutch or German Ancestry?
Mennonite Refugees, MCC and the International Refugee Organization,” Journal of
Mennonite Studies 13 (1995) 7–25, https://jms.uwinnipeg.ca/index.php/jms/article/view/441/441.
Note 3: Cf. previous post, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/05/in-case-of-extreme-danger-menno-pass.html.
Note 4: Regehr, “Of Dutch or German Ancestry?,” 12, 14.
Note 5: “Index of Mennonites Appearing in the Einwandererzentrallestelle
(EWZ) Files,” compiled by Richard D. Thiessen, http://www.mennonitegenealogy.com/russia/EWZ_Mennonite_Extractions_Alphabetized.pdf.
Note 6: “Arolsen Archives,” https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/search.
See another critical examination of the Mennonites files in the Arolsen
Archives: Ismee Tames and Astrid Willms, “Claimed Nationality Dutch,” https://www.arcgis.com/apps/Cascade/index.html?appid=fe0b87de3cb9418b986aae0120988cca.
---
To cite this page: Arnold Neufeldt-Fast, “Mennonite Displaced Persons, 1948-49,” History of the Russian Mennonites (blog), May 11, 2023, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/05/mennonite-displaced-persons-1948-49.html.
Comments
Post a Comment