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Showing posts from July 13, 2023

"Day of Commemoration for Heroes": Rosenort Mennonite Congregation, West Prussia, 1941

I have yet to visit the former Mennonite congregations in Poland; it is on my bucket list. And when I do it will done with great humility. Poles suffered greatly because of Nazi Germany. Prussian Mennonites sided firmly and enthusiastically with the racial politics of the Reich and its goals for a reorganized Europe under German leadership. Here is the Sunday program for the 1941 Rosenort Mennonite Heldengedenktag : Day of Commemoration for Heroes , March 1941 (Third Sunday of Lent). In addition, the file has other write-ups and photos of fallen congregational members for the denominational paper (below). The congregation's lead pastor (Elder) Ernst Regehr had been a Nazi Party member since 1931. This was not unusual for Prussian Mennonite congregations, and there was nothing in a decade to temper their enthusiasm. In 1941 the Rosenort cemetery had a large memorial stone for twenty-one fallen congregational soldiers in World War 1 (see pic ); likely that was destroyed in Worl