Mennonite Displaced Persons, 1948-49

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.

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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.

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