"The front is coming!" War Ends for Refugees, April 1945

The Molotschna/Gnadenfeld trek leader Jacob A. Neufeld was distraught at the thought of an imminent German defeat: “Thus far the German leaders have accomplished remarkable things. … Should they fail in the end after so many years of desperate economic and military struggle? Oh no, no, surely that cannot be!” (note 1).

In the early months of 1945, western regions of the Reich were obligated to take in ethnic German refugees; the quota was determined based on the ratio of occupants to the available living space. Many of the Molotschna / Gnadenfeld refugees who had successfully escaped advancing Soviet troops in Warthegau (annexed Poland) were designated for the Municipality of Hermannsburg, District of Celle in Lower Saxony, about 300 kilometres west of Berlin.

Helene Bräul (my grandmother) and her two daughters were sent to a Hilmer family in the village of Bonstorf; population: 280 (1939). This region had been deeply shaped by the 19th century Pietist revivalism and strict moralism of the Lutheran pastor and mission-pioneer Louis Harms (note 2). None of the refugees in the Hilmer home, for example, were to work on Sundays and all shared in family devotions. Helene found it curious that she was not even allowed to darn socks after midnight on Saturday.Bonstorf also sheltered families bombed from their homes in Hamburg in 1943 and Hannover in 1944, as well as 30 Dutch women and children whose men had joined the Nazi effort. However the larger influx of refugees in 1945 stretched all resources. The farmhouses were not designed for multiple family units—each with “only one kitchen and relatively few bedrooms” (note 4).

The numbers of children in the village school more than doubled pre-war enrollments, from 62 in 1939 to 143 in 1945 (note 3). Käthe Bräul (my mother) recalls that each pupil had use of a slate tablet and chalk pencil; but there were not enough desks, and many children had to sit on the floor.

Polish and French POWs were also part of the mix as agricultural labourers (note 5).

During this time everyone listened eagerly to radio reports to learn how the war was going and to get advance warning of “enemy” air squadrons. Sixty-six villagers had been conscripted, and one-third would never return (note 6).

As it became clear that Germany would soon be defeated, the Führer delivered a chilling eleventh-hour appeal over wireless radio calling “for all Germans, including young teenagers, to offer every possible form of guerrilla resistance to the enemy in occupied parts of Germany (note 7).

“Very young” Hungarian axis (child-) soldiers with no battle experience had been evacuated to the Bonstorf and region for military training. “All day long we could hear the explosion of hand-grenades and bazookas, as well the infantry's machine-gun fire from drilling grounds,” locals recalled (note 8).

On Sunday morning, April 15, 1945—two weeks after Easter—the young Hungarian soldiers marched through the village singing confidently yet unaware that allied tanks were fast approaching. In the afternoon Käthe and other children were playing on the street around the Memorial for Fallen Soldiers when one girl heard what sounded like deep thunder—though it was a sunny day. Suddenly sister Sara came running from the house shouting to the children, “The front is approaching!,” and that everyone should run home. Allied tanks shot in the direction of the young Hungarian soldiers ordered to defend the village on its southern edge, and then into the village where they detected resistance as the young Hungarians fled.

American troops soon entered the small village of Bonstorf and went house to house, setting several homes in fire. The Hilmer barn, located on their yard (Hof) across from their house, was being used by the German military as a depot for food supplies and was guarded by two soldiers. American intelligence knew this and set the barn on fire, flushing out the two soldiers. As the soldiers fled the barn, they were shot at from the house across the street and very badly wounded. Hans Hilmer ran out and pulled the two soldiers into his house. Käthe, only seven years old, witnessed everything from the window. Hilmer then instructed everyone into the potato cellar through the trap door in the kitchen for safety. Villagers were required to have enough air raid shelter space for all, and residents had practiced their use, including gas masks and first aid for years (note 9). They were all huddled in close quarters; it was very traumatic for Käthe to see the soldiers groaning and wrenching in pain, and everyone very afraid of what would happen next.The American soldiers entered and upon finding the root cellar door they opened it and ordered everyone out by gunpoint. They took the German soldiers and then proceeded to search the entire house. Everyone was very frightened. The Hilmer and Bräul families were then ordered back into the cellar—but only after they told the Americans where the family’s food supplies were. While huddled in the basement, the soldiers helped themselves to food and cooked a large meal in the kitchen and spent the night.

Bonstorf was now under Allied occupation and would become part of the British occupation zone for years to come.

On this same weekend Allied troops overran and took control of the entire region around Bonstorf. The village was only twenty kilometres from the notorious S.S.-run Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp, where, only one month before the camp’s liberation the well-known fifteen-year-old Jewish diarist Anne Frank died of typhus (note 10). The accounts of what Allied soldiers found when they liberated the camp on April 15, 1945, are horrific.

Käthe remembers overhearing shocking descriptions given by the Hilmer girls, who were forced by the British to clean some of the buses in which enslaved and horribly abused Jews and other eastern Europeans had been transferred.

In this way—exactly two weeks after Easter—the war ended for this group of Gnadenfeld refugees.

---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Note 1: Jacob A. Neufeld, Tiefenwege: Erfahrungen und Erlebnisse von Russland-Mennoniten in zwei Jahrzehnten bis 1949 (Virgil, ON: Niagara, 1958), 212f.

Note 2: Cf. Theodore Harms, Life Work of Pastor Louis Harms, translated by Mary E. Ireland (Philadelphia: Lutheran Publication Society, 1900), 51, https://archive.org/details/lifeworkpastorl00harmgoog. On Harms’ impact on the village, cf. Giesela Meyer, “Bonstorf: Unser Dorf im Krieg und in der Nachkriegszeit,” December 15, 1952, 1b. In Folder 295, no. 1, Archiv Landkreis Celle, Germany.

Note 3: Meyer, “Bonstorf: Unser Dorf im Krieg,” 4b.

Note 4: Meyer, “Bonstorf: Unser Dorf im Krieg,” 4.

Note 5: Meyer, “Bonstorf: Unser Dorf im Krieg,” 1b.

Note 6: Meyer, “Bonstorf: Unser Dorf im Krieg,” 2a, 2b.

Note 7: Waldemar Janzen, Growing up in Turbulent Times (Winnipeg, MB: CMU Press, 2007), 84.

Note 8: Meyer, “Bonstorf: Unser Dorf im Krieg,” 4b.

Note 9: Cf. Meyer, “Bonstorf: Unser Dorf im Krieg,” 3, 5.

Note 10: Anne Frank was taken from her attic hideout in Amsterdam by the Nazis in August 1944, and became known around the world when her diaries were published after the war.

To cite this page: Arnold Neufeldt-Fast, “‘The front is coming!' War ends for refugees, April 1945,” History of the Russian Mennonites (blog), May 10, 2023, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-front-is-coming-war-ends-for.html.

Comments

Russian and Prussian Mennonite Participants in “Racial-Science,” 1930

I n December 1929, some 3,885 Soviet Mennonites plus 1,260 Lutherans, 468 Catholics, 51 Baptists and seven Adventists were assisted by Germany to flee the Soviet Union. They entered German transit camps before resettlement in Canada, Brazil and Paraguay ( note 1 ) In the camps Russian Mennonites participated in a racial-biological study to measure their hereditary characteristics and “racial” composition and “blood purity” in comparison to Danzig-West Prussian, genetic cousins. In Germany in the last century, anthropological and medical research was horribly misused for the pseudo-scientific work referred to as “racial studies” (Rassenkunde). The discipline pre-dated Nazi Germany to describe apparent human differences and ultimately “to justify political, social and cultural inequality” ( note 2 ). But by 1935 a program of “racial hygiene” and eugenics was implemented with an “understanding that purity of the German Blood is the essential condition for the continued existence of the

“Operation Chortitza” – Resettler Camps in Danzig-West Prussia, 1943-44 (Part I)

In October 1943, some 3,900 Mennonite resettlers from “Operation Chortitza” entered the Gau of Danzig-West Prussia. They were transported by train via Litzmannstadt and brought to temporary camps in Neustadt (Danzig), Preußisch Stargard (Konradstein), Konitz, Kulm on the Vistula, Thorn and some smaller localities ( note 1 ). The Gau received over 11,000 resettlers from the German-occupied east zones in 1943. Before October some 3,000 were transferred from these temporary camps for permanent resettlement in order to make room for "Operation Chortitza" ( note 2 ). By January 1, 1944 there were 5,473 resettlers in the Danzig-West Prussian camps (majority Mennonite); one month later that number had almost doubled ( note 3 ). "Operation Chortitza" as it was dubbed was part of a much larger movement “welcoming” hundreds of thousands of ethnic Germans “back home” after generations in the east. Hitler’s larger plan was to reorganize peoples in Europe by race, to separate

Sesquicentennial: Proclamation of Universal Military Service Manifesto, January 1, 1874

One-hundred-and-fifty years ago Tsar Alexander II proclaimed a new universal military service requirement into law, which—despite the promises of his predecesors—included Russia’s Mennonites. This act fundamentally changed the course of the Russian Mennonite story, and resulted in the emigration of some 17,000 Mennonites. The Russian government’s intentions in this regard were first reported in newspapers in November 1870 ( note 1 ) and later confirmed by Senator Evgenii von Hahn, former President of the Guardianship Committee ( note 2 ). Some Russian Mennonite leaders were soon corresponding with American counterparts on the possibility of mass migration ( note 3 ). Despite painful internal differences in the Mennonite community, between 1871 and Fall 1873 they put up a united front with five joint delegations to St. Petersburg and Yalta to petition for a Mennonite exemption. While the delegations were well received and some options could be discussed with ministers of the Crown,

"Anti-Menno" Communist: David J. Penner (1904-1993)

The most outspoken early “Mennonite communist”—or better, “Anti-Menno” communist—was David Johann Penner, b. 1904. Penner was the son of a Chortitza teacher and had grown up Mennonite Brethren in Millerovo, with five religious services per week ( note 1 )! In 1930 with Stalin firmly in power, Penner pseudonymously penned the booklet entitled Anti-Menno ( note 2 ). While his attack was bitter, his criticisms offer a well-informed, plausible window on Mennonite life—albeit biased and with no intention for reform. He is a ethnic Mennonite writing to other Mennonites. Penner offers multiple examples of how the Mennonite clergy in particular—but also deacons, choir conductors, Sunday School teachers, leaders of youth or women’s circles—aligned themselves with the exploitative interests of industry and wealth. Extreme prosperity for Mennonite industrialists and large landowners was achieved with low wages and the poverty of their Russian /Ukrainian workers, according to Penner. Though t

High Crimes and Misdemeanors: Mennonite Murders, Infanticide, Rapes and more

To outsiders, the Mennonite reality in South Russia appeared almost utopian—with their “mild and peaceful ethos.” While it is easy to find examples of all the "holy virtues" of the Mennonite community, only when we are honest about both good deeds and misdemeanors does the Russian Mennonite tradition have something authentic to offer—or not. Rudnerweide was one of a few Molotschna villages with a Mennonite brewery and tavern , which in turn brought with it life-style lapses that would burden the local elder. For example, on January 21, 1835, the Rudnerweide Village Office reported that Johann Cornies’s sheep farm manager Heinrich Reimer, as well as Peter Friesen and an employed Russian shepherd, came into the village “under the influence of brandy,” and: "…at the tavern kept by Aron Wiens, they ordered half a quart of brandy and shouted loudly as they drank, banged their glasses on the table. The tavern keeper objected asking them to settle down, but they refused and

Mennonite Heritage Week in Canada and the Russländer Centenary (2023)

In 2019, the Canadian Parliament declared the second week in September as “Mennonite Heritage Week.” The bill and statements of support recognized the contributions of Mennonites to Canadian society ( note 1 ). 2019 also marked the centenary of a Canadian Order in Council which, at their time of greatest need, classified Mennonites as an “undesirable” immigrant group: “… because, owing to their peculiar customs, habits, modes of living and methods of holding property, they are not likely to become readily assimilated or to assume the duties and responsibilities of Canadian citizenship within a reasonable time.” ( Pic ) With a change of government, this order was rescinded in 1922 and the doors opened for some 23,000 Mennonites to immigrate from the Soviet Union to Canada. The attached archival image of the Order in Council hangs on the office wall of Canadian Senator Peter Harder—a Russländer descendant. 2023 marks the centennial of the arrival of the first Russländer immigrant groups

Turning Weapons into Waffle Irons!

Turning Weapons into Waffle Irons: Heart-Shaped Waffles and a smooth talking General In 1874 with Mennonite immigration to North America in full swing, the Tsar sent General Eduard von Totleben to the colonies to talk the remaining Mennonites out of leaving ( note 1 ). He came with the now legendary offer of alternative service. Totleben made presentations in Mennonite churches and had many conversations in Mennonite homes. Decades later the women still recalled how fond Totleben was of Mennonite heart-shaped waffles. He complemented the women saying, “How beautiful are the hearts of Mennonites!,” and he joked about how “much Mennonites love waffles ( Waffeln ), but not weapons ( Waffen )” ( note 2 )! His visit resulted in an extensive reversal of opinion and the offer was welcomed officially by the Molotschna and Chortitza Colony ministerials. And upon leaving, the general was gifted with a poem by Bernhard Harder ( note 3 ) and a waffle iron ( note 4 ). Harder was an influen

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

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

Blessed are the Shoe-Makers: Brief History of Lost Soles

A collection of simple artefacts like shoes can open windows onto the life and story of a people. Below are a few observations about shoes and boots, or the lack thereof, and their connection to the social and cultural history of Russian Mennonites. Curiously Mennonites arrived in New Russia shoe poor in 1789, and were evacuated as shoe poor in 1943 as when their ancestors arrived--and there are many stories in between. The poverty of the first Flemish elder in Chortitza Bernhard Penner was so great that he had only his home-made Bastelschuhe in which to serve the Lord’s Supper. “[Consequently] four of the participating brethren banded together to buy him a pair of boots which one of the [Land] delegates, Bartsch, made for him. The poor community desired with all its heart to partake of the holy sacrament, but when they remembered the solemnity of these occasions in their former homeland, where they dressed in their Sunday best, there was loud sobbing.” ( Note 1 ) In the 1802 C

History of the Russian Mennonites

Search This Blog