History of the Russian Mennonites

In the last century, tens of thousands of Mennonites were homeless, stateless refugees at the mercy and generosity of others. In Fall 1929, as many as 10 to 13,000 Soviet Mennonites left all behind to flee to Moscow in a desperate, last-ditch attempt to escape the USSR. The German government played the crucial role in a high stakes, international confrontation with Stalin in those months. They successfully extracted 3,885 Mennonite, 1,260 Lutheran, 468 Catholic, 51 Baptist and 7 Adventist "German farmers" in November and December 1929, and served as a transit nation and assisted refugees not accepted by Canada to settle in South America. The experience of Christmas 1929 was a stark contrast to Christmas (1928), which had been a nightmare for Mennonites: “The conditions which existed in Russia at that time had the effect of practically destroying all the traditional joys of Christmas for our children,” for whom “all public participation in the celebration of Christmas wa...

In Fall 1929 some 10,000 Mennonites attempted to flea the Soviet countryside for Moscow in a last ditch attempt to leave. Ultimately Germany's intervention was salvation for 3,885 of that group, and Mennonite leader Benjamin Unruh—stationed in Germany--was their shepherd, with American aid through Mennonite Central Committee. Ultimately it was because of Unruh that the German government had put economic and diplomatic pressure on Stalin to open the gates out of Moscow to the west, if only for a short period. Germany in turn could only be a transit country, and Canada refused to take more than 1,000 (in the end it was 1,344). The remainder were assisted to migrate to Paraguay (1,572) or Brazil. Not surprisingly family clans were split. Some of the young people who had arrived in the Paraguayan Chaco “had attended communist schools in Russia,” leading to “undesirable” dynamics and “unpleasant occurrences” in some of the villages, in the estimation of the younger and charismatic teach...

Professor Benjamin H. Unruh (1881-1959) was a relief and immigration leader, educator, leading churchman, and official representative of Russian Mennonites outside of the Soviet Union throughout the National Socialism era in Germany. Unruh’s biography is connected to the very beginnings of Mennonite Central Committee in 1920-1922 when he served as a key spokesperson in Germany for the famine-stricken Mennonites in South Russia. Some years later he again played the central role in the rescue of thousands of Mennonites from Moscow in 1929 and, along with MCC, their resettlement in Paraguay, Brazil, and Canada. Because of Unruh’s influence and deep connections with key German government agencies in Berlin, his home office in Karlsruhe, Germany, became a relief hub for Mennonites internationally. Unruh facilitated large-scale debt forgiveness for Mennonites in Paraguay and Brazil, and negotiated preferential consideration for Mennonite relief work to the Soviet Union during the Great Famin...