History of the Russian Mennonites

In 2022 I asked Katharine Bräul Fast (b.1937), if she had any memories of Christmas 1944 in Warthegau--Nazi German annexed Poland. She turned 7 just before the Advent season began. The “1 millionth ethnic German” resettler in Warthegau had arrived earlier that year from the east, and to accommodate them hundreds of thousands of Warthegau’s Poles had been disenfranchised or removed, while 385,000 Jews from the region were placed in ghettos and eventually sent to concentration camps.  Katharine's family had been evacuated from German-occupied Ukraine together with some other 35,000 ethnic Mennonites. In March 1944 they were resettled in Waldtal/Schwarzerde in Warthegau, and here she had her first experience of school. Her teacher was a Mennonite, Aron Becker--now officially "Arnold," a non-Jewish sounding name--but by the Fall he too was conscripted. School continued, but she does not recall the details. They had a Christmas celebration in the school; she remembers walkin...