History of the Russian Mennonites

Recently Benjamin Goossen posted an important piece on the “well-known” Halbstadt midwife Helene Berg. Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler had taken a special interest in “old Mrs. Berg” and had publicly recognized her for helping birth some 8,000 Volksdeutsche (ethnic German) babies ( note 1 ). Goossen and I have shared archival materials in the past years. Below I would like to continue the exploration of Taunte Bojsche (or "Aunt Berg") and the surprisingly broad interest in her by Nazi officials as icon. I begin with a family story as a window onto the times. Some 35,000 Mennonites were evacuated out of German-occupied Ukraine in Fall 1943. After a grueling trek west the survivors landed in German-annexed Wartheland (previously Poland) where they were naturalized as German citizens. My grandmother Helene Bräul had eight children, and Helene Berg may very well have been her midwife for one or more of them. Like many Mennonite mothers in Wartheland, my grandmother was ...

A deadly epidemic broke out in MCC’s new settlement in Fernheim, Paraguay in 1930. Settlers had been present for less than a year, and had recorded 20 births and 88 deaths by December 31 ( note 1 ). Health care remained a significant concern in Fernheim even after the epidemic was halted with the emergency medical intervention of Paraguayan military doctors. Mennonites were wholly responsible for their own health care. In 1933 and 1934 there was a malaria outbreak with 31 deaths and 30 deaths respectively, compared to 11 deaths in 1932 ( note 2 ). My father born in 1932 almost did not survive 1933: "He is very thin. It often seems to me that we will not be able to keep him by our side. He was such a happy and lively boy, but the illness has gone so far," my grandmother wrote family in Canada ( note 3 ). Early in 1934 the Fernheim Colony reported in the Germany Mennonite denominational paper that “the state of health leaves much to be desired. Malaria still hits the villages b...

In April 1921 Mennonites in the Caucasus and Don Region officially petitioned Moscow for permissions to emigrate—which Lenin had “flatly refused.” Their rationale was more than economic. “The disruption of economic conditions leads to impoverishment, which again goes hand in hand with the degradation of morals and has an alarming impact on our youth, who are also constantly exposed to the pressure of brutal and ruthless agitation on the part of those in power. … This decay of our spiritual and economic goods will only become greater and more ruinous.” ( Note 1 ) Later that year and some months before the large-scale feeding operations could begin in the Soviet Union, American Mennonite Relief (AMR) commissioner A.J. Miller petitioned the Soviet Embassy in London for exit permissions for 20,000 Mennonites ( note 1b) . He was unsuccessful. Nonetheless in a highly secretive meeting in Ohrloff, Molotschna on February 7, 1922, key Mennonite leaders took a decision to work toward the re...

Jesus' parable of the Good Samaritan is prefaced by a discussion eternal life and the question, "Who is my neighbour?" (cf. Luke 10:25–29). In the 1920s and 30s, the Mennonite denominational papers in Germany always, always highlighted the plight and need of their Russian Mennonite co-religionists languishing under Stalin. These were “their” neighbours, “their” refugees or “their” hungry and imprisoned. And that is good. But our life stories are always complex—aspects later generations will praise, aspects they will reject, and some things they will abhor deeply. So it is with this story—of the Mennonites in Germany who embraced Russian Mennonites. In 1934 Dirk Cattepoel (b. 1912; note 1 ) was a young German Mennonite doctoral student and soon-to-be pastor of the Krefeld Mennonite Church in Germany. He answered that biblical question in the Mennonitische Blätter with a longer article that denominational leaders would point to and cite favourably over the next years...

In 2008 the Canadian Parliament passed an act declaring the fourth Saturday in November as “Ukrainian Famine and Genocide (‘Holodomor’) Memorial Day” ( note 1 ). Southern Ukraine was arguably the worst affected region of the famine of 1932–33, where 30,000 to 40,000 Mennonites lived ( note 2 ). The number of famine-related deaths in Ukraine during this period are conservatively estimated at 3.5 million ( note 3 ). In the early 1930s Stalin feared growing “Ukrainian nationalism” and the possibility of “losing Ukraine” ( note 4 ). He was also suspicious of ethnic Poles and Germans—like Mennonites—in Ukraine, convinced of the “existence of an organized counter-revolutionary insurgent underground” in support of Ukrainian national independence ( note 5 ). Ukraine was targeted with a “lengthy schooling” designed to ruthlessly break the threat of Ukrainian nationalism and resistance, and this included Ukraine’s Mennonites (viewed simply as “Germans”). Various causes combined to bring on w...

In the Mennonite tradition, there is no communion without first making peace with your brother or sister. The diary of Jacob P. Janzen of Rudnerweide, Molotschna—a single adult, brother to a lay minister—gives regular examples: “Easter Sunday, April 10, 1911: We were also admonished to take part in communion; not many had attended [it] on Good Friday. With some it is because of small quarrels within the family or with neighbours, but others have felt deep hate for a long time and have stayed away for more than 20 years!” ( Note 1 ) Frequently Janzen also wrote down brief evaluations of the worship service, like on Good Friday 1911: “Today we had communion in the morning and also church services in the afternoon. Rev. [S.] preached the sermon. He had written everything down and looked now and then at his papers, but in between he often got stuck and then he would keep coughing until he found his place in his papers. It was very disturbing and I became quite annoyed.” These Good ...