History of the Russian Mennonites

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...

The Volendam arrived at the port in Buenos Aires, Argentina on February 22, 1947, at 5 PM, exactly three weeks after leaving from Bremerhaven. They would be followed by three more refugee ships in 1948. The harassing experiences of refugee life were now truly far behind them. Curiously a few months later the American Embassy in Moscow received a formal note of protest claiming that Mennonites, who were Soviet citizens, had been cleared by the American military in Germany for emigration to Paraguay even though the Soviet occupation forces “did not (repeat not) give any sanction whatever for the dispatch of Soviet citizens to Paraguay” ( note 1 ). But the refugees knew that they were beyond even Stalin’s reach and, despite many misgivings about the Chaco, believed they were the hands of good people and a sovereign God. In Buenos Aires the Volendam was anticipated by North American Mennonite Central Committee workers responsible for the next leg of the resettlement journey. Elisabeth ...

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then these maps speak volumes. In February 1657, the Swedish King Carolus Gustavus ordered an intentional breach of the embankments along the Vistula River to completely flood the villages of the Danzig Werder. See the vivid punctures and water flow in 1657 map below; compare with the 1730 maps with rebuilt villages and farms ( note 1 ). In Polish memory this war is appropriately remembered as "The Deluge". Villages in the Danzig Werder (delta) from which Mennonites immigrated to Russia include: Quadendorf, Reichenberg, Krampitz, Neunhuben, Hochzeit, Scharfenberg, Wotzlaff, Landau, Schönau, Nassenhuben, Mönchengrebin, and Nobel ( note 2 ). In the war the suburbs outside the gates of Danzig suffered most; Mennonites lived here in large numbers, e.g., in Alt Schottland and Stoltzenberg. First, these villages were completely razed by the City of Danzig to keep the invading Swedes from using the villages to their advantage in battle. ...

By March 1944, some 35,000 Mennonites in Ukraine had been evacuated by Nazi Germany and resettled mostly in German-annexed Poland. Here they came under the spiritual oversight of the Mennonite churches in the German Reich, and granted its same racial and religious privileges. This vignette gives a glimpse of the pro-Nazi orientation and commitments of Mennonites in Germany ( note 1 ).   Praise for Germany’s territorial expansion and the unity of German people—with the triumphant entry of the Führer Adolf Hitler into Austria—topped even the Easter message in the April 1938 issue of the denominational paper, Mennonitische Blätter ( note 2 ). “To the throne of the Most High we raise our hearts and hands for our Führer and for our whole people (Volk) with the petition: ‘May the Lord our God be with us as he was with our ancestors; may he never leave us nor forsake us. May he turn our hearts to him, to walk in obedience to him and keep the commands, decrees and laws he gave our ance...

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...

What did a typical day look like for a Mennonite woman on a collective farm in Ukraine ( note 1 )? She had to get up while it was still dark to milk the one cow the family was allotted—something Stalin specifically guaranteed kolkhoz “women” in 1933 ( note 2) —together with one pig and a pair of chickens. Then she would wake the children and quickly get them ready for school, prepare breakfast, bring the youngest children to kindergarten, and finally leave for the field. Kindergarten was mandated as a form of childcare to mobilize more women for the workforce. Women would arrive together with hoes over their shoulders, usually barefoot—though some had wooden shoes—each in a dress covered in patches. A collective farm might have five working groups of women, with about 20 to 25 women per group. Many root crops were planted, and day after day, week after week, these women would hoe and weed the planted fields. Each woman was given a certain number of rows; whoever finished firs...