Skip to main content

Mennonite Dystopia and Hunger Games Prequel

This weekend my daughter saw the new Hunger Games prequel, “Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.” A few years ago she and I watched two of the Hunger Games movies; when debriefing I thought of the dystopian Stalin years in which millions led dehumanized, fearful lives in a totalitarian, post-apocalyptic world. Because she is in another province and I am shackled by long-haul COVID, I will need to watch and debrief with her at a later date.

My thoughts begin, however, with two recently restored photos of my German-speaking Mennonite grandparents in Ukraine, 1923. They show a proud and ambitious young man hopeful for the possibility of emigration, as well as a young mother who with a sparkling eye and faint smile has dressed her first-born in fun baby clothing for the passport photo.

Ten years later, in 1933, they were still in the same village, but located squarely in a world so distant from 1923 that it defied description for those involved. It requires a movie, perhaps, but here are a few descriptors:

  • Forced collectivization of land, barns, animals with fines designed to break individuals;
  • Impossible production quotas with fines designed to break communities;
  • Targeted famine designed to quell rebellion and break a whole region (Ukraine);
  • Interrogations and torture (that made western, medieval torture look humane) to break the person;
  • Surveillance culture, rewarding denunciations and fabrications to break trust;
  • Disenfranchisement: no vote, loss of home, no opportunity to work, forced to wander; punishment of charity activities;
  • Crushing poverty in the country-side: no shoes, no material for clothing and bedding, no consumer items;
  • Cyclical, random arrests at night in every village to keep fear high (esp. 1937-38);
  • Distant, forced-labour prison camps for former leaders or advocates of pre-revolutionary values, ways or ideas;
  • Relentless propaganda: state-control of paper, radio, school materials, reading rooms; burning of books; news embargo; controlled mail;
  • State-sponsored devotion of authoritarian leader;
  • New liturgies and celebrations (of the Revolution, of the worker), with new holy texts (Marx; Lenin, etc.), and with new parades and feasts, flag, oaths, church (=Party), new paradise (world-wide communist revolution);
  • New Calendars (5-day, 6-day/week experiments) to confuse and break patterns of old secular or church calendars;
  • Isolation of children from parents; limit opportunities to transmit memories, values, teaching in order to shape the new Soviet person;
  • Celebrated mega-projects (Dnipro dam) as symbol of new world with crushing poverty in the country-side;
  • Control of movement internally and no opportunity for emigration;
  • Limit higher education to Party members;
  • Constant reminder of enemies abroad and fear of infiltration within.

Perhaps the world needs a dystopian movie to capture that. But for some 50,000 Mennonites in Ukraine generally—despite outliers, “spots and wrinkles,” and variations in piety—the bizarre and terrifying features of that confusing world came into sharp focus in the 1930s with the repression of church life. Here are a few examples:

  • expropriation of church buildings (Gebetshaus =house of prayer) and conversion to theatres, dance halls (with organ in Gnadenfeld), Red Reading rooms, Komsomol clubhouses with icons of “Goddess of Beauty” in red (Schönsee) and paintings of the disciples of the Bolshevik revolution; many were dismantled for bricks or used for grain storage;
  • imposition of suffocating taxation and ultimately arrest and deportation of preachers and deacons;
  • arrest or disenfranchisement of those who might preach, read scripture or lead a hymn at funeral or bless a wedding;
  • prohibition of faith instruction for children. In school dormitories, praying before meals or at night strictly forbidden. Hard work and prayer to Comrade Stalin was more effective than prayer to a god above the clouds, they were told;
  • interrogation of children at school: "Do you pray, read Bible at home?" (with repercussions):
  • end of all holy-day festivals (Advent, Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, Thanksgiving);
  • requirement to work on Sundays and holy-days like Pentecost; worship made impossible (=class enemy);
  • end of choir festivals and compulsion to celebrate and sing for foreign feasts;
  • prohibition of mutual aid (hallmark of Mennonite community) for those in need;
  • loss of faith-inspired institutions: orphanage in Großweide, school for the deaf in Tiege; Bethania Mental Hospital;
  • undermining of the faith community’s highest values: truthfulness, trustworthiness, sanctity of family, conflict resolution (role of elder; minister); conviction that every person is made in God’s image with intrinsic value;
  • supplanting of sources of faith, hope, joy and love with constant fear and suspicion;
  • punishment for the practice of connecting to faith community abroad;
  • inability to contribute sacrificially to country in alternative, tradition-compatible service activities (e.g., Forestry, Red Cross);
  • silencing of faith-inspired reflection on freedom and justice locally or nationally;
  • accusation that Protestant-type faith innately connected to Hitler’s [!] Germany as early as 1933, “conspiring against Soviet power;”

The Mennonite faith lens, vision and memory, kept many from thinking they had “taken leave of your senses” in those completely bizarre, disorienting, and terrifying times.

One justification for state measures against the church and its ministers was published and distributed in 1931 by a researcher of the Central Council member of the League of Militant Atheists. His booklet, Enslaving Brotherhood of the Sectarians (note 1), was designed to turn Mennonite readers against their church leaders who “scream of persecution” to a “rabid” Mennonite press in North America and Germany. The author reminded readers that Mennonites are free to pray at designated times, but that the preachers want uncontrolled counter-revolutionary agitation “anywhere, anytime, to anyone.” The preachers demand religious neutrality in schools, which they interpret however as anti-evolution, anti-Leninist instruction. With their “Mennonite fabrications,” preachers “bloat and twist things around,” incite fanaticism and with their “frenzied campaigning for Canada” stir up “ordinary” sectarians. But most importantly they “thwart collectivization” in the name of religion to save kulak property [the formerly wealthy] he argued. The force of his argument is that Soviet measures are in fact liberating for Mennonites, and that preachers must be treated as kulaks (note 2). Faith leaders are no longer simply ideological hindrances to progress; but there is now “a direct threat to Bolshevik rule from enemies within and abroad” (note 3).

If the early anti-religious propaganda sought to show the pagan or anti-scientific origins of religion, into the 1930s the League emphasized “the military threat represented by Christmas” in particular the “hypocrisy of Christmas’s ‘peace on earth’ message while the West armed for an attack on the Soviet Union” (note 4). This would not bode well for German-speaking Christians.

The chairman of the powerful League of the Militant Godless declared that the role of the schools was to “cultivate in the children a hatred for those ties which religion imposes. ... We demand of the child to be a fighter against religion anywhere, at the school and in the family” (note 5).

The League’s highest profile campaigns were around Christmas and Easter, with events arranged to disrupt their observance. One Molotschna woman recalled the “anti-Christmas” evenings with “anti-religious” songs, poems, and speeches offered by the students—each marked by scorn and contempt for all religion. “All students and parents were required to attend these evenings. Whoever was absent was viewed as an enemy of the people, ridiculed and bullied. Absent students would be strapped with a metal ruler until their hands would swell. The whole school would mock them and their piety” (note 6).

“The parents were not permitted to be an example to their children. At school these children were instructed in atheism, and the values of their parents ridiculed. Parents were forbidden to teach religion to their children and the children were encouraged to report their parents to the Communist authorities if they did.” (Note 7)

The lens of dystopian movies with all of their night-mare qualities often functions as a radical political commentary in toxic and confusing times.

The lens of Mennonite faith and memory did the same in the 1930s. It is no wonder that many survivors of that era were simply left speechless about those years. But they spoke of the repression of church which gave them some ability to bring everything else into focus in those toxic and confusing times. Maybe there is a lesson here; maybe even a movie waiting to be made!

(Like thousands of other Mennonite men in Ukraine, my grandfather was arrested and executed in 1937; note 8).

            ---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

First image from The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (2023) Official Trailer, https://youtu.be/RDE6Uz73A7g?si=DvDaafsgVNJxiG2D.

Note 1: For this paragraph, cf. Fedor M. Putintsev, Enslaving Brotherhood of the Sectarians [Кабальное братство сектантов]. Central Council of the Union of the Militant Atheists of the USSR (Moscow: OGIZ, 1931), https://media.chortitza.org/pdf/pdf/vpetk265.pdf. See also Boris P. Kandidov, Religious Counter-Revolution of 1918–20 and Intervention [Религиозная контрреволюция 1918–20 гг. и интервенция] (Moscow: “Atheist,” 1930), https://rusneb.ru/catalog/000199_000009_008685391/.

Note 2: M. Kryvokhatsky, M. “Mennonites and Counterrevolution [Меноніти и контр-революція],” Bezvirnyk, no. 1 (1930), 5–11, https://media.chortitza.org/pdf/vpetk386.pdf; idem, Churches and Sects: Agents of World Imperialism [Церковники та сектанти - агентура світового імперіялізму”] (Kharkov: Ukrainian Worker, 1931), https://media.chortitza.org/pdf/vpetk385.pdf.

Note 3: Daniel Peris, Storming the Heavens: The Soviet League of the Militant Godless (Ithica, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998), 75.

Note 4: Peris, Storming the Heavens, 87.

Note 5: Cited in Vladimir Gsovski, “Legal Status of the Church in Soviet Russia,” Fordham Law Review 8, no. 1 (1939), 21.

Note 6: Cited in A. A. Töws, ed., Mennonitische Märtyrer der jüngsten Vergangenheit und der Gegenwart, vol. 2: Der große Leidensweg (North Clearbrook, BC: Self-published, 1954), 426.

Note 7: Eduard Allert (pseud., Abram Reimer), “The Lost Generation,” in The Lost Generation and other Stories, edited by Gerhard Lohrenz (Steinbach, MB: Self-published, 1982), 6.

Note 8: See previous posts, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-executioner-of-dnepropetrovsk-1937.html; and https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/06/stalins-purge-1937-38-and-mennonite.html; and https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/03/mennonite-dystopia-socializing-in-era.html, etc.

---

To cite this page: Arnold Neufeldt-Fast, "Mennonite Dystopia and Hunger Games Prequel," History of the Russian Mennonites (blog), November 21, 2023, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/11/mennonite-dystopia-and-hunger-games.html.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Vaccinations in Chortitza and Molotschna, beginning in 1804

Vaccination lists for Chortitza Mennonite children in 1809 and 1814 were published prior to the COVID-19 pandemic with little curiosity ( note 1 ). However during the 2020-22 pandemic and in a context in which some refused to vaccinate for religious belief, the historic data took on new significance. Ancestors of some of the more conservative Russian Mennonite groups—like the Reinländer or the Bergthalers or the adult children of land delegate Jacob Höppner—were in fact vaccinating their infants and toddlers against small pox over two hundred years ago ( note 2 ). Also before the current pandemic Ukrainian historian Dmytro Myeshkov brought to light other archival materials on Mennonites and vaccination. The material below is my summary and translation of the relevant pages of Myeshkov’s massive 2008 volume on Black Sea German and their Worlds, 1781 to 1871 (German only; note 3 ). Myeshkov confirms that Chortitza was already immunizing its children in 1804 when their District Offic...

"A Small Town near Auschwitz” – Chortitza Mennonite Refugee/ Resettlement Camps

Simple proximity to a place of horrors does not equal knowledge or complicity. Many Gnadenfeld-area Mennonite refugees were, for example, temporarily housed 20 km. away from the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp where 15-year-old Anne Frank died ultimately of typhus ( note 1 ). The day after liberation by British troops on April 15, 1945, camp survivors began to flow through neighbouring villages. “What a sight they were! They had been tortured and starved, and were swollen from lack of food. … We could hardly believe that the glorious country of Germany could commit such crimes against people,” Susanna Toews wrote ( note 2 ). My mother was only seven, but she remembers overhearing shocking descriptions given by their host family’s teenaged girls forced by the British to clean some of the camp buses. What about the much larger death camp at Auschwitz? There is a book entitled: A Small Town near Auschwitz: Ordinary Nazis and the Holocaust. It is about an administrator living near the ...

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

Waldemar Janzen, my former German professor and advisee, turned eleven years old in 1943. He and his mother and 3,900 others from Chortitza and Rosenthal (Ukraine) were evacuated west to the ethnic German resettler camps in Gau Danzig-West Prussia in October that year (see Part I; note 1 ). Years later Janzen could still recall much from this childhood experience—including the impact of the visit by Professor Benjamin H. Unruh a few weeks after their arrival. “He was a man who had extended much help to his fellow Mennonites ever since they began to emigrate from Russia during the 1920s” ( note 2 ). Unruh was a father-figure to his people, and his arrival at their camp in West Prussia signaled to the evacuees that they were in good hands ( note 3 ). Unruh’s impact on 7,000 other Chortitza District villagers in Upper Silesia would be the same some weeks later ( note 4 ). Surprisingly Unruh’s West Prussian camps visit left an equally indelible impression on the Gau’s Operations Commande...

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...

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 ...

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...

1929 Flight of Mennonites to Moscow and Reception in Germany

At the core of the attached video are some thirty photos of Mennonite refugees arriving from Moscow in 1929 which are new archival finds. While some 13,000 had gathered in outskirts of Moscow, with many more attempting the same journey, the Soviet Union only released 3,885 Mennonite "German farmers," together with 1,260 Lutherans, 468 Catholics, 51 Baptists, and 7 Adventists. Some of new photographs are from the first group of 323 refugees who left Moscow on October 29, arriving in Kiel on November 3, 1929. A second group of photos are from the so-called “Swinemünde group,” which left Moscow only a day later. This group however could not be accommodated in the first transport and departed from a different station on October 31. They were however held up in Leningrad for one month as intense diplomatic negotiations between the Soviet Union, Germany and also Canada took place. This second group arrived at the Prussian sea port of Swinemünde on December 2. In the next ten ...

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, ...

1920s: Those who left and those who stayed behind

The picture below is my grandmother's family in 1928. Some could leave but most stayed behind. In 1928 a small group of some 511 Soviet Mennonites were unexpectedly approved for emigration ( note 1 ). None of the circa 21,000 Mennonites who emigrated from Russia in the 1920s “simply” left. And for everyone who left, at least three more hoped to leave but couldn’t. It is a complex story. Canada only wanted a certain type—young healthy farmers—and not all were transparent about their skills and intentions The Soviet Union wanted to rid itself of a specifically-defined “excess,” and Mennonite leadership knew how to leverage that Estate owners, and Selbstschutz /White Army militia were the first to be helped to leave, because they were deemed as most threatened community members; What role did money play? Thousands paid cash for their tickets; Who made the final decision on group lists, and for which regions? This was not transparent. Exit visa applications were also regularly reje...

Warthegau, Nazism and two 15-year-old Mennonites, 1944

Katharina Esau offered me a home away from home when I was a student in Germany in the 1980s. The Soviet Union released her and her family in 1972. Käthe Heinrichs—her maiden name (b. Aug. 18, 1928)—and my Uncle Walter Bräul were classmates in Gnadenfeld during Nazi occupation of Ukraine, and experienced the Gnadenfeld group “trek” as 15-year-olds together. Before she passed, she wrote her story ( note 1 )—and I had opportunity to interview my uncle. Käthe and Walter both arrived in Warthegau—German annexed Poland—in March 1944 ( note 2 ), and the Reich had a plan for their lives. In February 1944, the Governor of Warthegau ordered the Hitler Youth (HJ) organization to “care for Black Sea German youth” ( note 3 ). Youth were examined for the Hitler Youth, but also for suitability for elite tracks like the one-year Landjahr (farm year and service) program. The highly politicized training of the Landjahr was available for young people in Hitler Youth and its counterpart the League of G...