Skip to main content

1923 Mennonite immigrants "kept behind": Lechfeld (Bavaria) transit camp

An important part of the larger 1923 immigration story includes the chapter of the hundreds who were held back at Riga and Southampton and taken to the Lechfeld (Bavaria) transit camp for medical care. “Germany generously and magnanimously helped our organizations, on my intercession, to overcome the manifold difficulties connected with such a (Volksbewegung) movement of people in such critical times,” Benjamin H. Unruh wrote some years later (note 1).

Just as the first group of Russländer Mennonites set foot in Canada 100 years ago this month, the North American relief effort in the USSR was also winding down (August 1923).

The famine relief work in 1921 and 1922 had found broad support in the North American Mennonite community. However excitement about a larger immigration of Russian Mennonites to North America was muted, and a new call to action could not forge the same level of cooperation across Mennonite groups. The plan required huge money guarantees.

In USSR B.B. Janz had a list of 3,000 emigrants finalized with exit visas who were prepared to leave. The previous year Janz had persuaded authorities in Kharkiv that a limited group emigration of “starving people” and “undesirables” (i.e., the formerly wealthy) would “substantially benefit” the rural areas and enable economic to begin (note 2).

The door was open but the plan still required capital. In Spring 1923 the Canadian Mennonite Board of Colonization reduced its goal of capitalization to $1 million and made the corporation a non-profit charitable organization (note 3). Still there was little appetite in southern Manitoba and in the USA. In May 1923 H. H. Ewert (conference leader in Gretna, MB; school principal and inspector) recommended letting the 3,000 applicants come that summer on the Canadian Pacific Railway credit, and the rest could come to Mexico later where land and settlement costs would be cheaper (note 4). David Toews and the Canadian Board of Colonization however pushed ahead.

MCC’s executive secretary and treasurer Levi Mumaw could report in 1923 that “43,000 out of the total 95,000 Mennonites in Russia have [already] registered themselves as anxious to leave at the earliest opportunity” (note 5). On the ground the selection process for who could leave in 1923 (and later) and who would need to wait was not transparent. It did however require health exams, and a family had to have the skills to farm in Canada, and references. Some form of community vote was also necessary (note 6).

“Dr. Buettner wants to have a look at all the prospective emigrants. … The Americans [sic] only want people who are able to work. Every emigrating family must therefore not only have two special references, but also the vote of the community. If 75 percent vouch for the family, it goes; if less, it has to stay behind. Five families have been struck from the list in this way.” (Note 7)

On June 22, 1923 the first group left Chortitza for Alexandrovsk, and on July 13 David Toews received a cable from England that the group had left Southampton on the Empress of France for Canada.

But in the midst of that larger good news story, many families were shocked at Riga when another medical examination by Canadian doctors became unavoidable. Hundreds failed and learnt that they could not proceed--and could in fact be turned back.

On August 2, B.B. Janz sent an urgent cable via German diplomatic mail to Benjamin Unruh in Germany informing him of the “catastrophe” at the over-capacity facilities in Riga; Janz feared the whole emigration movement was again at risk.

Unruh had a reputation for moving mountains. In cooperation with the Deutsche Mennoniten-Hilfe (note 8), Unruh convinced the German government to allow 1,500 Mennonite transmigrants to be housed at Lechfeld (Bavaria) to receive medical care until they were ready to proceed to Canada (note 9). German Mennonites had already been actively hosting “refugees” (vs. transmigrants) who had escaped via Crimea and Constantinople and were in Lechfeld since 1921.

The Mennonite Church’s Gospel Herald reported on September 13:

“Of the full quota of 3,000, as per the contract with the CPR Co. about 400 were rejected after they left Russia and could not be admitted into Canada. Therefore arrangements were made to care for them at Lechfeld, Germany, to which place they were sent. There are no available funds there to provide them with necessary food and clothing. An appeal has been sent by Bro. D. M. Hofer, a former worker in Russian Relief who is now in Germany, that we set apart some funds for their care for the present in Germany. Arrangements have been made to forward $1,000 at once and call for further donations for the work.” (Note 10)

A few months later Unruh wrote: “Of the 255 people in Lechfeld, we were able to move 232, and of the refugees (we distinguish them from the transmigrants) about 150. There is a lot of work, you can imagine. ..." (note 11).

In November 1923 Levi Mumaw reported that “there are about 420 Russian refugees on the Lechfeld in Germany who are depending on American Mennonites for support. They are awaiting permission to emigrate to Canada but may be detained there for the winter” (note 12).

Some years later Unruh recalled: In 1923, out of 3,000 emigrants, no less than 657 who had been deferred by Canadian doctors in Riga and Southampton were taken to the Lechfeld camp and treated there for their final emigration to Canada” (note 13).

It was clear that tens of thousands more Mennonites wished to leave. With the first group safely in Canada, B.B. Janz wrote Unruh: “the people have had enough. Now after they have seen a few leave they only want to depart. … The people are not concerned about the precious articles they leave behind, even if they must depart poor and naked” (note 14).

A year later in 1924 the Gospel Herald reported that the CMBofC signed a new contract April 14, 1924 with the CPR for another 5,000 immigrants and “after considerable difficulty two physicians entered Russia in order to make the necessary physical examinations before the prospective immigrants embarked. On their way to Russia these doctors stopped at Lechfeld to examine those who are detained there. 27 of these were given a clean bill of health. 68 are still remaining in Lechfeld” (note 15).

Between July 1923 and summer of 1926 when the Lecheld transit camp closed, Peter Letkemann estimates that “thousands” of Mennonite transmigrants from the USSR to Canada were temporarily housed at the camp (note 16).

As Mennonites celebrate 100 years since the release and settlements of thousands, it is important to recall not only that thousands more had wished to leave but could not, but that hundred who made it as far as Riga were almost turned back if not for the supportive role of the Germany and the support at the Lechfeld transit camp.

        ---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Note 1: Cf. Benjamin H. Unruh to District Advisor (Gebietsreferent) for Latin America, [Ernst G.] Kienitz, Volksbund für das Deutschtum im Ausland, December 3, 1938 (B. H. Unruh Nachlaß, Box 3, File 18; undated fragment, pp. 3-5, Mennonitische Forschungsstelle Weierhof (hereafter MFStW). Note: Missing 2 pages are in File 13, December 3, 1938, Unruh to Volksbund f. d. Deutschtum im Ausland.

Note 2: John B. Toews, The Lost Fatherland: The Story of the Mennonite Emigration from Soviet Russia, 1921–1927 (Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1967), 132f.; 140; https://archive.org/details/lostfatherlandst0000toew. Cf. “Minutes of the Union Board Meeting, May 7–8, 1924” in John B. Toews and Paul Toews, Union of Citizens of Dutch Lineage in Ukraine (1922–1927): Mennonite and Soviet Documents, translated by J. B. Toews, O. Shmakina, and W. Regehr (Fresno, CA: Center for Mennonite Brethren Studies, 2011), 215f.; also “Resolution of the Verband on emigration, Feb. 26–28, 1925,” ibid., 220f., https://archive.org/details/unionofcitizenso0000unse.

Note 3: Cf. David Toews to W. H. Ewert, May 1, 1923, letter, from Mennonite Library and Archives, Bethel College (MLA-B), MS 6, folder “General Correspondence 1922, May to September,” https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/ms_6/024%20General%20correspondence%201922%20May-September/183.jpg.

Note 4: H. H. Ewert to Wilhelm J. Ewert, May 18, 1923, letter, from MLA-B, MS 6, folder “General Correspondence 1923, January to June,” https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/ms_6/026%20General%20correspondence%201923%20January-June/140.jpg.

Note 5: Gospel Herald 16, no. 33 (November 15, 1923), 680, https://archive.org/details/gospelherald192316kauf/page/680/mode/2up.

Note 6: James Urry, “After the rooster crowed: Some issues concerning the interpretation of Mennonite/ Bolshevik relations during the early Soviet period,” Journal of Mennonite Studies 13 (1995), 45 n.9, https://jms.uwinnipeg.ca/index.php/jms/article/view/442.

Note 7: Diary of Anna Baerg, 1916–1924, translated and edited by Gerald Peters (Winnipeg, MB: CMBC Publications, 1985), 112.

Note 8: On Lechfeld, see: Harold Bender’s article on “Lechfeld” in GAMEO, https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Lechfeld_(Freistaat_Bayern,_Germany); Peter Letkemann, “Mennonite Refugee Camps in Germany, 1921-1951: Part I – Lager Lechfeld,” Mennonite Historian 38, no. 3, 2012, https://www.mennonitehistorian.ca/38.3.MHSep12.pdf; Peter Letkemann, “The Mennonite Refugee Effort in Lager Lechfeld, 1921-1926: Beating Swords into Plowshares?,” Mennonite Quarterly Review, 90, no. 3 (July 2016), 277-306; also Deutsche Mennoniten-Hilfe, ihre Entstehung und Arbeitsgebiete (Oberursel, 1924), 24-28, https://mla.bethelks.edu/gmsources/books/1924,%20Deutsche%20Mennonitenhilfe/. For articles in the Mennonitische Rundschau that reference Lechfeld, see: https://archive.org/details/pub_die-mennonitische-rundschau?tab=collection&query=lechfeld&sin=TXT&sort=date.

Note 9: Cf. also Benjamin H. Unruh, Memorandum to Military Government at Buchen/Baden, July 20, 1945, https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/ms_295/folder_14/SKMBT_C35107061313230_0005.jpg; also Mennonitische Rundschau 46, no. 49 (December 5, 1923), 10, https://archive.org/details/sim_die-mennonitische-rundschau_1923-12-05_46_49/page/10/mode/2up?q=lechfeld.

Note 10: Gospel Herald 16, no. 24 (September 13, 1923), 504, https://archive.org/details/gospelherald192316kauf/page/504/mode/2up.

Note 11: Mennonitische Rundschau 46, no. 49 (December 5, 1923), 10, https://archive.org/details/sim_die-mennonitische-rundschau_1923-12-05_46_49/page/10/mode/2up?q=lechfeld.

Note 12: Gospel Herald 16, no. 33 (November 15, 1923), 680, https://archive.org/details/gospelherald192316kauf/page/680/mode/2up.

Note 13: Cf. Unruh to Kienitz, Volksbund für das Deutschtum im Ausland.

Note 14: Cited in J. Toews, Lost Fatherland, 138.

Note 15: The Mennonite 39, no. 34, August 28, 1924, 8, https://archive.org/details/mennonite39unse_0/page/n142/mode/1up?q=lechfeld.

Note 16: Cf. Letkemann, “The Mennonite Refugee Effort in Lager Lechfeld,” 305.

---

To cite this post: Arnold Neufeldt-Fast, “1923 Mennonite immigrants 'kept behind': Lechtfeld (Bavaria) transit camp,” History of the Russian Mennonites (blog), July 26, 2023, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/07/1923-mennonite-immigrants-kept-behind.html.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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 inf...
Post a Comment
Read more

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

"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...
Post a Comment
Read more

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, ...
Post a Comment
Read more

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

Anti-Jewish Pogroms and Mennonite responses in Einlage (1905) and Sagradovka (1899)

Below are stories of two pogroms and of the responses in two Mennonite communities in Ukraine/Russia. The first location is Einlage (Chortitza) in 1905, with two episodes. The rage of peasants and the working class exploded with strikes, bloody revolts, chaos and plundering across the land, especially on the estates early in 1905. The Greater Zaporozhzhia-Alexandrovsk economic zone, with larger Mennonite manufacturers of agricultural machinery in Einlage as well, was a centre for some of that labour unrest ( note 1 ). In the shadows of the larger March 1905 Russian Revolution, there were so-called provocateurs named the "Black Hundred" ( note 2 ) who organized pogroms across Russia, but especially in ethnic Ukrainian and Polish areas. “Jewish stores, shops, and homes were broken into, robbed, and plundered; Jewish women and girls were raped and brutally murdered. Many Jews lost not only their belongings in Russia, but also their lives. And all with impunity. The police ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Catherine the Great’s 1763 Manifesto

“We must swarm our vast wastelands with people. I do not think that in order to achieve this it would be useful to compel our non-Christians to accept our faith--polygamy for example, is even more useful for the multiplication of the population. … "Russia does not have enough inhabitants, …but still possesses a large expanse of land, which is neither inhabited nor cultivated. … The fields that could nourish the whole nation, barely feeds one family..." – Catherine II (Note 1 ) “We perceive, among other things, that a considerable number of regions are still uncultivated which could easily and advantageously be made available for productive use of population and settlement. Most of the lands hold hidden in their depth an inexhaustible wealth of all kinds of precious ores and metals, and because they are well provided with forests, rivers and lakes, and located close to the sea for purpose of trade, they are also most convenient for the development and growth of many kinds ...
Post a Comment
Read more

1873: First Russian Mennonites leave for North America

On February 4, 1873, ministers and elders held a special meeting in Elder Isaak Peters’ Pordenau Molotschna church ( note 1 ). It was a larger building with balcony, constructed in 1860 after the original 1828 stone church building had been torn down. They had put down deep roots in Russia; nonetheless Peters spoke strongly in favour of emigration and supported a decision to send land scouts to America. The team was given a mandate to negotiate for the possibility of some 50 to 60,000 Mennonite immigrants ( note 2 ). Eager to compete with the United States for settlers, the Canadian government passed an Order-in-Council on March 3, 1873 to create a Mennonite reservation of nine-and-one-third townships ( note 3 ). The twelve-member deputation—including two Molotschna elders—which had been sent to North America returned in September with a favourable report ( note 4 ). Despite divergent opinions on the ground, the first hundred Russian Mennonite agriculturalists arrived in the United...
Post a Comment
Read more

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 ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Why Danzig and Poland?

In the late 16th century, Poland became a haven for a variety of non-conformists which included Jews, Anti-Trinitarians from Italy and Bohemia, Quakers and Calvinists from Great Britain, south German Schwenkfelders, Eastern Orthodox, Armenian, and Greek Catholic Christians, some Muslim Tatars, as well as other peaceful sectarians like the Dutch and Flemish Anabaptists. Unlike the Low Countries and most of western Europe, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was a “state without stakes,” and as such fittingly described as “God’s playground” ( note 1 ). In the view of 17th-century Dutch dramatist Joost van den Vondel, it was “the ‘Promised Land,’ where the refugee could forget all his sorrow and enjoy the richness of the land” ( note 2 ). Over the next two centuries an important strand of Mennonite life and spirituality evolved into a mature tradition in this relatively hospitable context ( note 3 ). Anabaptists from the Low Countries began to arrive in Danzig and region as early as 15...
Post a Comment
Read more