Skip to main content

Life in Exin, 1944: German-Occupied Poland

After the 1943-44 portion of the Great Trek ended with settlement of some 35,000 Mennonites in German-annexed Poland, the Gnadenfeld area trek members were scattered in resettler camps (Umsiedler-Lager) around Exin (Kcynia) and the Altburgund District administrative centre of Dietfurt (Żnin), including the hamlets of Kiefernrode (Słupowiec), Schwarzerde (Malice), Schmiedebach, etc. (note 1). Until World War I, the area was part of the German-Prussian Province of Posen, about 170 kilometres south-west of Danzig (Gdańsk) and about 400 kilometres east of Berlin.

Almost all ethnic German resettlers from Ukraine arrived through Litzmannstadt (Łódź), one of two entrance points from the east into new German province of “Warthegau” (note 2). Here thousands were cleansed, deloused and processed daily.

Some Gnadenfeld group members were brought to Janowitz (Janowiec), near Hermannsbad in the District of Hohensalza for quarantine. Here fresh straw was laid out on the floor for approximately 70 refugees to sleep on; one classroom was used to lock up the luggage, and another served as a dining hall.

“It felt so good to stretch out and rest our weary bodies, even if it was on a bed of straw on the floor. Our sleeping quarters were quite cramped, but we thanked God that we were safe, warm and well fed. … For the first while we were under quarantine and could not leave the premises except to go to the common bath-house for our weekly bath. So we spent a lot of time on our straw beds relaxing.” (Note 3)

On Himmler’s direct orders, the resettler camps were given the status of “convalescent camps,” which entitled residents to receive twenty percent more rations than average Germans (note 4). Besides lice, rickets and scabies were common, as well as tuberculosis and trachoma; Black Sea Germans received immediate and superior care (note 5).

As ethnic Germans from the east arrived, Poles were systematically removed from their homes in a scheme of racialized colonization. It evacuation orders it is referred to as the "Black Sea German Special Operation." This was the experience of our family (and it makes my mother feel terrible to this day; note 6). My grandmother with four children under 17 was first in a resettler camp in the hamlet of Schwarzerde (“Black Earth), 2.8 km. east of Exin (population of 372 in 1941; note 7), and then given a small farm in Waldtal (Laskownica), 12 km. north-west of Exin (sometime between early May and early July).

If not deported, many Polish families were required to vacate their homes and live with relatives or other Polish families. In the District of Hohensalza the chief medical officer reported that in April 1944 “2,817 Russian-Germans were settled in the district ... and were accommodated on the estates or in apartments that were partly vacated by Poles. Evacuation from Poland did not take place” (note 8).

My mother was six years-old at this time. Her single aunt Tante Tina was put in the nearby town of Exin, where she was a cook for enslaved Polish workers. When she became a naturalized citizen in Dietfurt, she was given a lower biological-cultural value ranking (“A-Case” vs. “O-Case”) than her extended family members (note 9).

I have written a number of posts previously about this period (note 10). Recently Polish archives have posted some photos and documents from around Exin during this period. It helps to “ground” the Mennonite stories and to give them context.

In Exin--when my 16-year-old uncle Walter Bräul was required to report for military service in 1944--he felt that no good soldier should be without a girlfriend. Before leaving for training, he asked one of the girls from "the trek" (in the Schmiedebach Camp) on a date to see a movie in Exin (note 11). Katie Friesen, another teenager at the time, recalled an excursion from their temporary shelter in search for relatives near Exin.

“It was already getting dark and we still had not reached our destination so we started to get a bit apprehensive. We knew that the Polish people disliked the Germans. ... It took quite a bit of courage to go to the first house and inquire whether or not people lived in the village.” (Note 12)

The “dislike” was not for nothing. Repeatedly Russian Mennonite memoirs from this period record shock at the treatment of non-Germans.

If Poles were not deported, it was only to keep them as farm labourers or in critical manufacturing (munitions) roles. Below are 1944 plans for the construction of 24 worker homes (Behelfsheimen) or “Polish barracks” (Polenbaracken) on the edge Exin (note 13). One March 1944 memo notes explicitly that these barracks would free up living space in Exin for Black Sea German and other German families impacted by recent air raids (see pic). In an April 29, 1944 memo, Exin was to build 159 such worker barracks for its Polish workers.




The larger archival file available online also contains multiple photos from a nearby prisoner of war camp (Szubin, Stalag-Oflag 21B), where French soldiers had recently been housed.

Mennonites were prepared to settle into this racially colonized world of Warthegau for the long-haul (Canada had been the preferred destination since the 1920s). The SS-directed Ethnic German Liaison Office (Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle) appointed Prof. Benjamin Unruh with a stipend (note 14) to order and regulate Mennonite church life in Warthegau. In these same months, Unruh completed draft articles of incorporation for the new “Conference of Mennonite Congregations of German Nationality in the Province of Wartheland” and part of the Vereinigung (Union) of German Mennonite Congregations of the German Reich"—to be approved by authorities (note 15). 

Unruh’s vision for a new united Mennonite community sought to be Anabaptist and forward looking, but one in which equal dignity or shared Christian responsibility, charity and service with Poles or Jews in German-annexed Poland was wholly absent. Unruh’s vision for Mennonites in Warthegau was consistent with Volk- and state outcomes for strengthening “German blood” and expanding and rooting German life to the “soil.” 

Mennonites from Ukraine arrived in Warthegau without church records of births, deaths, baptisms and marriages. A high priority for Unruh and his team of Prussian congregational historians was to do verify their German blood purity as a requirement for naturalization (note 16). And with the encouragement of the highest levels of government, Unruh could report to co-religionists with confidence that the dream was now finally being realized, and that Paraguayan, Brazilian, and maybe even Canadian Mennonites would soon be able to return to the German Reich (note 17).

            ---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Note 1: See map of Altburgund District, https://kpbc.umk.pl/dlibra/publication/167966/edition/170631/content. For more general maps of Wartheland and Hohensalza Rolf Jehke, Territoriale Veränderungen in Deutschland und deutsch verwalteten Gebieten 1874–1945, http://territorial.de/wart/karten.htm. For aerial photos of Kcynia (Exin), see https://kcynia.pl/galeria/gmina-kcynia-z-lotu-ptaka.html. Detailed 1940 maps: Exin, map no. 3070, https://kpbc.umk.pl/dlibra/publication/23216/edition/31954/content?ref=struct&fbclid=IwAR3aXxCOdDKN89CqNAzf0aLs4o0_Vj1luXivcT6znFa0j4Mi7QvdebIZtI8; Malitz (Schwarzerde), map no. 2971, https://kpbc.umk.pl/dlibra/publication/22709/edition/31392/content?ref=struct&fbclid=IwAR1CKCXUE_mX4xl0eRhzSEK4c2T_Na__zgQ82kGKCUXh_sWm9Xe3BRmZj7Q; Waldtal and Kiefernrode (Slupowo Abbau), map no. 2970, https://kpbc.umk.pl/dlibra/publication/22685/edition/31388/content?fbclid=IwAR1920Ik8leZ5BNsOnhgRvPCyYAsGLl73LmA2RHt4-D6hoI3Jvwn7CJxSRU. 

Note 2: See previous post, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/03/litzmanstadt-odz-entering-reich-1943-44.html.

Note 3: Katie Friesen, Into the Unknown (Steinbach, MB: Self-published, 1986), 74f.

Note 4: Cf. Valdis O. Lumans, Hitler’s Auxiliaries: The Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle and the German National Minorities of Europe, 1933–1945 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1993), 193. See also See the "Dienstanweisung über Aufnahme in den Lagern und Organisation der Lager, Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle Einsatzstab Litzmannstandt," Bundes Archiv R 59-99, https://invenio.bundesarchiv.de/invenio/direktlink/487b22f5-592e-4949-a9c7-3c125e539400/.

Note 5: See previous post, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/05/typhus-reports-and-gratitude-to-fuhrer.html.

Note 6: See previous posts, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/07/wartheland-mennonite-resettlers-and.html; AND https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/01/first-christmas-for-black-sea-germans.html.

Note 7: Cf. Einwandererzentralstelle (EWZ) files A3342-EWZ50-A073 1946 (Helene Bräul) and A3342-EWZ50-A073 2044 (Katharina Bräul). For 1941 populations of Schwarzerde (Malice /Malitz) or Waldtal (300), see Warthegau telephone book https://archive.org/details/Verschiedene-Adressbuecher/Deutsches%20Reichs%20Ostgebiete%20Adressbuch-%201941/page/n313/mode/2up.

Note 8: May 5, 1944, State Health Office Hohensalza Report, 15, no. 19, from Transport Niemców znad Morza Czarnego na teren Kraju Warty [Transport of Germans from the Black Sea to the Wartheland], from Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe (National Digital Archives Poland), 53/299/0, series 2.2, file 1979, https://www.szukajwarchiwach.gov.pl/de/jednostka/-/jednostka/1049368. For other archival materials documenting the forced evacuation of Poles in the Posen area to make housing available to Black Sea Germans, see: https://www.szukajwarchiwach.gov.pl/en/jednostka/-/jednostka/1261490.

Note 9: See previous post, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/05/a-cases-and-o-cases-after-trek-1944.html.

Note 10: See links in notes above, as well as the following: https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/05/removal-of-old-testament-names-after.html; AND https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/05/warthegau-nazism-and-two-15-year-old.html.

Note 11: See previous post, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/05/queen-elizabeth-ii-and-aunt-adina.html.

Note 12: K. Friesen, Into the Unknown, 74.

Note 13: “Bau von Behelfsheimen in Altburgund (Szubin). Polenbaracken,” 1944, Archiwum Państwowe w Poznaniu, Fonds Namiestnik Rzeszy w Okręgu Kraju Warty – Poznań, reference code, 53/299/0/9/3273, https://www.szukajwarchiwach.gov.pl/en/jednostka/-/jednostka/1050707.

Note 14: Cf. Dr. Gerhard Wolfrum to Benjamin H. Unruh, letter, September 29, 1943. From Benjamin H. Unruh Personalakte, S499, Schrank 2a, Fach 24, Technische Hochschule Karlsruhe, Universitätsarchiv Karlsruhe (copy at Mennonite Library and Archives – Bethel College).

Note 15: Benjamin H. Unruh to Vereinigung Executive, “Zur Einigungsfrage,” January 26, 1944; and “Zur Tauffrage: Ergänzung I zur Einigungsfrage,” January 31, 1944. From Mennonitische Forschungsstelle Weierhof (MFSt), Benjamin Unruh Collection, folder “Correspondence with Abraham Braun, 1930, 1940, 1944–45.”

Note 16: See previous post (forthcoming).

Note 17: Benjamin H. Unruh to Emil Händiges, Jan. 22, 1943, 1b, letter, file folder 1943, Vereinigung Collection, MFSt. See Karl Götz, Das Schwarzmeerdeutschtum: Die Mennoniten (Posen: NS-Druck Wartheland, 1944), Bundesarchiv BA R 187/267a, https://chortitza.org/pdf/0v772.pdf.

---

To cite this post: Arnold Neufeldt-Fast, “Life in Exin, 1944: German-Occupied Poland,” History of the Russian Mennonites (blog), July 27, 2023, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/07/life-in-exin-1944-german-occupied-poland.html. 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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 ...
Post a Comment
Read more

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 ...
Post a Comment
Read more

“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 ...
Post a Comment
Read more

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...
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

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...
1 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

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

“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...
Post a Comment
Read more

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 ...
Post a Comment
Read more