History of the Russian Mennonites

My mother’s older, 6-year-old sister Lenchen received a porcelain doll during the first Christmas of German occupation of Ukraine ( note 1 ). Though there were no gifts to be bought in 1941, their older cousin Marga Bräul who was studying in Odessa was able to get this doll. Apparently the Nazis made some "plundered" gifts available to the ethnic Germans in Ukraine ( note 2 ). The horrible reality is that only two months earlier, Germany's Romanian allies slaughtered about 20,000 Jews in Odessa over three days. Did this porcelain doll come from a Jewish home? That's my current theory. On the grueling trek out of Ukraine in Fall 1943, sister Lenchen was ill and died at age 8. The doll then became my mother's. When they reached the refugee camps in German-annexed Poland (Warthegau) in March 1944, the children dealt with their grief through play. My mother remembers how she and her girl-friends buried (temporarily) their dolls in the dirt together to reenact ...

The Molotschna/Gnadenfeld trek leader Jacob A. Neufeld was distraught at the thought of an imminent German defeat: “Thus far the German leaders have accomplished remarkable things. … Should they fail in the end after so many years of desperate economic and military struggle? Oh no, no, surely that cannot be!” ( note 1 ). In the early months of 1945, western regions of the Reich were obligated to take in ethnic German refugees; the quota was determined based on the ratio of occupants to the available living space. Many of the Molotschna / Gnadenfeld refugees who had successfully escaped advancing Soviet troops in Warthegau (annexed Poland) were designated for the Municipality of Hermannsburg, District of Celle in Lower Saxony, about 300 kilometres west of Berlin. Helene Bräul (my grandmother) and her two daughters were sent to a Hilmer family in the village of Bonstorf; population: 280 (1939). This region had been deeply shaped by the 19th century Pietist revivalism and strict moral...

Like so many others, as Susanna Toews recalled in her little book Trek to Freedom that “[o]ur discussions always centred around the question, what the New Year had in store for us” ( note 1 ). The first Christmas after war’s end brought some early glimmers of normal life for those in the Western Military Zone of Germany. My Walter Bräul—a war-weary vet at age 17—attached wheels to the back of an old suitcase and made his “kid-sister” Käthe—my mother—a functional doll carriage. My grandmother found time and material to sew doll clothing. The joy was tempered by the fact that they had no word on the other boys: Franz Jr., Heinrich, or Peter. Though the war had ended seven months earlier, they did not know if and how long they would be able to stay in the village of Bonstorf ( note 2 ), near Celle in the British Zone. In February 1945, Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt met secretly in Yalta and agreed that after the war Germany would be divided into three zones of occupation. Moreover, R...

"In the Case of Extreme Danger 1. We are Russian-Mennonite refugees who are returning to Holland, the place of origin. The language is Low German. 2. The Dutch Mennonites there, Doopsgezinde , will take in all fellow-believing Mennonites from Russia who are in danger of compulsory repatriation. 3. The first stage of the journey is to Gronau in Westphalia. 4. As a precaution, purchase a ticket to an intermediate stop first. The last connecting station is Rheine. 5. Opposite Gronau is the Dutch city of Enschede, where you will cross the border. 6. On the border ask for Peter Dyck (Piter Daik), Mennonite Central Committee, Amsterdam, Singel 452. Peter Dyck (or his people) will distribute the relevant papers—“Menno Passes”--and provide further information. 7. Any other border points may also be crossed, with the necessary explanations (who, where to, Mennonites from Russia, Peter Dyck, M.C.C., etc.). The Dutch border Patrol is informed. 8. Here the whole matter must be h...

For the two years of German occupation, 1941-43, the Molotschna Settlement area—renamed “Halbstadt” after its largest village—was under S.S. ( Schutzstaffel ) control. During this time, new National Socialist ceremonies and liturgies were introduced to the Mennonites in Ukraine, including Easter. Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler named Halbstadt with its surrounding 144 villages a district commando. SS-Storm Unit Leader ( Sturmbannführer ) Hermann Roßner was appointed the Special Command R[ussia] leader for Halbstadt. Halbstadt had Waffen-SS doctors, a Waffen-SS pharmacist team and pharmacy, hospital equipment from the medical offices of the Waffen-SS and soon a Waffen-SS cavalry self-defense regiment of some 500-plus Mennonite young men ( note 1 ). Two of my uncles became members of the cavalry unit; a later, long-time lay minister in my home congregation was in the regiment as well. SS-celebrations for “Easter” were deliberately non-religious and anti-Christian, though careful ...

My father Peter Fast passed away in January 2010. The years have given me many opportunities to reflect on his life and impact. He was a gentle and good person--and could work like horse. He was born into poverty in 1932 in Paraguay. His parents were pioneers, first in Fernheim and then (1937) in Friesland. He liked to tell me that he ate manioc root for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I was never sure if that was true, and it didn’t help to convince me to eat things I didn’t like. His mother died when he was fourteen; the basic medical aid she needed was out of reach. His new step-mother was a complex person who made life difficult for him and others. Dad only finished the 6th grade in Friesland. He was more than happy to get off the school bench and onto a horse. I don’t think I ever saw him write a complete sentence in my life, whether in English or in German. He had no interest in history, let alone reading—though over time he read the local city paper. Nothing I’ve written on...

This month (April 2023) we celebrated my aunt’s 97th birthday—Adina Neufeld Bräul. Queen Elizabeth II and Aunt Adina were born within hours of each other, April 20-21, 1926. She once told me—in somewhat different words—that this makes her wonder about God’s providence … In 1944 in German-annexed Poland, my 16-year-old uncle Walter Bräul was required to report for military service. His first thought: no good soldier should be without a girlfriend! Before leaving for training, he asked one of the girls from "the trek" on a date to see a movie in Exin. Seven years later they would marry in Paraguay. Adina and her mother and sister were on the same trek or group (Gnadenfeld/ Molotschna) out of Ukraine as Walter and my mother (in the 2023 photo). Adina’s most terrible memory of the trek was when their wagon almost tipped over into a deep ravine. She was 17—a year older than Walter—and it was Walter’s 17-year-old brother Peter who literally jumped from his wagon to physically stop ...

These photos are from German propaganda material filmed in Molotschna (called "Halbstadt") in 1943—just a few months before the evacuation from Ukraine and trek to German-annexed Poland (Warthegau). Not all of the film is of the Mennonite settlement, however, but much of it is. Below are some frames from the film. The edited shorter version is of higher quality and designed as propaganda to be consumed by Germans in the Reich and to secure their approval .  The scenes are marked by cleanliness, orderliness and discipline. There is economic activity, a model Kindergarten, and always happy ethnic German people in the newly occupied territories. A predominantly Mennonite Cavalry Regiment (Waffen-SS) guarding Ukrainian and Russian workers is also highlighted. This hard to see and disturbing. Anything that may have been good here for Mennonites meant enslavement, hunger and death for untold numbers of others. Two versions of the film are available: Shorter (edited for l...

In the 1820s, Jacob Bräul (b. 1803) was a young teacher in Einlage, Chortitza. He had been a pupil here under the well-known teacher Heinrich Heese, his predecessor. Because a teacher’s salary was generally between very low and tolerable—30 rubles a year plus some produce was the average—Bräul spent the summers as clerk and bookkeeper at the municipal ferry that crossed the Dnieper River from Einlage (Kitschkas) to Alexandrovsk / Zaporoschje. The crossing formed part of the mail and stagecoach route to Crimea, and the ferry was large enough to carry horses and wagons. Since the days of Peter the Great, Russia had been a “well-ordered police state” ( note 1 ) with a passport system to collect information and control movement within the empire; at the Einlage ferry-crossing passport numbers were recorded and runaway serfs and occasional scuffles reported. Here Bräul had opportunity to develop his Russian fluency. The crossing was constructed in 1801 by the government and given to the...