Journal of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia
Vol. 10, No. 4 Winter 1987 On the cover: Wilhelm Drews, Jr., pictured here with his wife Emma, nee Reinke, and their daughter Linda, was the oldest son of Wilhelm Drews, Sr., one of the founders of the village Juljanow in Polish Volhynia. This photo was taken in Juljanow about 1895.
Published by American Historical Society of Germans from Russia 631 D Street • Lincoln, Nebraska 68502-1199 • Phone 402-474-3363
Edited by: Ruth M. Amen and Jo Ann Kuhr Copyright ® 1987 by the American Historical Society of Germans From Russia.
All rights reserved. TABLE OF CONTENTS
MAP OF THE SCHOOL DISTRICT JULJANOW-BORATYN ...………………………………...... ii
HOMELAND FOR A TIME Josef Weiss Translated by Leona Janke .....……………………………...... 1
UNSERE EICHE Josef Weiss Translated by Leona Janke ...... ………………………………….………...... 14
MY FATHER, JOSEPH WEISS Ewald Weiss Translated by Leona Janke ...... …………………………………………...... 15
TWO APOSTLES TO THE RUSSIAN GERMANS Father Christopher L. Zugger ...... …………………….…………………...... 17
MAP OF EUROPE IN THE MID-1700s Irmgard Hein Ellingson ...... …………………………………………...... 20
GERMAN IMMIGRATION TO THE AUSTRIAN EMPIRE IN THE 1770s AND 1780s Irmgard Hein Ellingson ...... …………………………………………...... 21
THE GIFT OF HEALING Audre Emma Ganske Patel ...... ………………………………………...... 23
HISTORY OF THE EBENFELD PUBLIC SCHOOL IN MARION COUNTY, KANSAS Solomon L. Loewen ...... …………………………………………...... 27
DAS GROSSE EIN-MAL-EINS ...... ……………………………………………………...... 34
VETTER HANNES Johann George ...... ……………………………………………...... 35
ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE ADVENTISTS IN RUSSIA: A HISTORICAL SURVEY Daniel Heim Translated by Leona Pfeifer ...... ………………………………………...... 39
SONG OF THE MEADOWLARK Dallas D. Zimmerman ...... …………………………………………...... 44
BOOKS AND ARTICLES RECENTLY ADDED TO THE AHSGR ARCHIVES Frances Amen and Mary Lynn Tuck .....…………………………………...... 45 0^ ^0 0) a ' < N y Q) i/i a-ie ^ 1—1 ^ CL g to 5>^ ^ IS k "" "'• ^ ^s-p* ^ .S2 o
HOMELAND FOR A TIME1 Josef Weiss Translated by Leona Janke2 I. 1875-1913: Founding, Buying Freedom, was soon replaced in the colloquial speech of the colonists Flourishing by "Hassein" (short for hazelnut bushes) so that they did not have difficulty in pronouncing this tongue twister. The following pages are to report on a small piece of Thus, these place names were in part reminders of the earth in Eastern Europe which was a homeland of Germans primeval forests and bogs that in earlier times had covered for a short time, scarcely more than one human lifetime. It broad areas of Volhynia. The names of the surrounding is a difficult undertaking to write of a homeland today, in a Ukrainian villages remind one of the same things, but some century which has seen the merciless expulsion of millions. are reminders also of the bloody battles which had raged In this report I am not announcing any claim upon a "lost here between the Ukrainians and the Poles. Examples of homeland." Instead, by focusing my attention upon the Ukrainian place names: establishment, growth, flourishing, and decline of a school Boratyn = bor (coniferous forest); Ozdeniz = the knife district as occurred in Volhynia during the course of (probably as a threat); Bujan = ruffian; settlement by German colonists, I shall, at the same time, be Ulaniki = ulej (beehive). depicting the fate of a small ethnic group, the Volhynian For practical reasons I have elected to use the Polish Germans, about which very little is known—even to other form of the place names and the Latin alphabet, although at Germans. Only very little information is available on this the time of the founding of the German colonies, Volhynia most recent group of German settlers in Eastern Europe, belonged to Russia and formed a governmental administra- which numbered 200,000 souls before World War I. The tive district. The seat of the governor and the Evangelical time was too short for them to develop their own accounts. Lutheran Church headquarters were in the city of The study presented here attempts to close a gap. The Zytomierz [Zhitomir]. The Germans pronounced it author does not make the claim that he is presenting a "Schitomir" with the accent on the first syllable. scholarly work. He is only relating that which he has Key to pronunciation: learned from his own experiences. Polish German [English] In the years from 1865 to 1875, eight small settlements, sz sch [sh] also called colonies, came into being in the forests east of cz tsch [tch] the small town of Torczyn on the lands of Polish estates: z/ra voiced sch [zhe] Mieczyslawow, Juljanow, Pawlow, Czarnelozy, Zablotce, c z [tz or ts] Kurhany, Markmillerszczyzna and Seliszcze. Julianow was (Luck = Luzk) [Lutsk] situated about in the middle of these communities, to the ie je [ye] right of the Torczyn-Rozyszcze road. The distance to Tor- Mieczyslawdw = Mjetschyslawow = czyn amounted to about 7 kilometers [4.2 miles]; [Myetchyslavov] the distance to Rozyszcze, where the rectory of the The Polish estate owners, upon whose lands these Evangelical Lutheran Church was located, was about settlements arose, had gotten into financial difficulties. twenty kilometers [12 miles]. The names of the first three These difficulties were partly the result of those Polish colonies are derived from the Polish first names, uprisings after the third partition of Poland that flared up Mieczyslaw, Juljian and Pawel, who were probably the time and again in the Russian-occupied part and which sons of noble estate owners. Czarnelozy could be translated were supported by the Polish nobility, but they were also as "black bushes," Zablotce as "behind the marsh," partly the result of the costly lifestyles to which the Polish Seliszcze as "(old) settlement," and Kurhany as "burial nobles were accustomed. After the forests had been cleared mounds" or simply as "hills." The origin of the German- and the entire area was covered only by small trees and sounding name "Markmillerszczyzna" is still unknown. To bushes and after the Ukrainian population had been be sure, the consonant cluster in the Slavic ending to which released from serfdom by orders of the czar, thereby German [-speaking] tongues were unaccustomed, eliminating a cheap source of labor, the Polish nobles had to find new sources of income.
1 Consequently, the German colonists were warmly greeted as helpers in distress. The estate owners leased land to the Germans and thereby had a secure ter soon sold his farm to a man called Fehr. income, for the Germans were honest tenants who Together they leased about 100 Russian morgen. The paid the rent punctually year after year. Some estate landlord was a Polish nobleman, Roman Rakowski of owners also were glad to sell land to the Germans, Boratyn. especially if small leftover pieces of estates were Pawlow also belonged to this estate owner. Here involved. Some of the nobles probably built new lives are the names of the first settlers in Pawlow: Rachui, for themselves in the city with the money; however, Passut, and Weber. (I was, unfortunately, unable to others squandered their new wealth in a short time. determine any additional names.) Here, too, we are The story of one such estate owner who had sold the dealing with leased land with a total area of about 100 remainder of his property to German settlers has often Russian morgen. been told. Shortly after the sale he hanged himself, In contrast, the first settlers in Czarnelozy and after his death a note was found on which the immediately purchased land, about 144 Russian dead man had written, " prefer rotting to living in morgen. The first settlers were two brothers named poverty." Doberstein, Gatzke, Abram, and Gellert. The German settlers were of a different opinion in The first settlers in Markmillerszczyzne were this respect. They were almost all poor people who Abram and two Weike brothers. Here, too, leased were seeking for themselves a new home in Volhynia. land was involved, totaling about 50 morgen. They were also industrious and thrifty, as were the Seliszcze developed somewhat later. It was also settlers in the colonies that are the subject of our [on] leased land with about 100 Russian morgen. report. Mieczyslawow was probably the oldest of the Before World War I the Friedrich brothers, a man settlements. The first settlers were named Priess, called Passuth, a man called Both, and Emil Fehr Schmidtke, Gatzke, Strohschein, and Lucht. Together lived here. I was unable to determine if they were the they bought about 165 morgen of land. (A Russian original settlers. morgen is somewhat more than a Prussian morgen.)3 All of these settlers were from the region of Nieszawa on the Vistula River. They spoke low German or Kaschubisch,4 as the dialect was called in Volhynia. The settlers of the colony of Zablotce were Tonn, Nickel, Hanke, Pohl, Brachmann, Hansch, Glasel, and Reschke. The entire area amounted to about 300 Russian morgen. The land belonged to an estate owner in the Ukrainian village of Zablotce. At first, this colony was also [on] leased land, but when the entire estate was to be sold, the colonists bought their parcels. Although these colonists also came from Congress Poland, they spoke High German. Kurhany belonged to the estate owner in Szepel. Before World War I the families living there were: Weiss, Malasch, Wegner, the Klisch brothers, Schuiz, Kupke, Stephan, Fiedler, Nehrling, and Kleindienst. Kurhany was also [on] leased land. The entire area This picture of the family of the widow Strohschein amounted to about 150 Russian morgen. The settlers was taken in 1913. In the back row from left to right spoke High German and likewise came from are Gotthelf, Albert, Edmund, Daniel, and Julius Congress Poland. Strohschein. Seated in the front, left to right, are As I have already stated, these people were poor. Gotthelf s wife Lydia, the widow Pauline Strohschein Just one example of how great the poverty was: In the and her second husband Faruin, and Julius's wife beginning the neighbors Gellert and Doberstein had Lydia. See the map on page ii for the location of their only one cow between them, whose milk they had to farms. Photo courtesy of Karen Davis Cox. share. As is everywhere the case, the beginnings were difficult. Fortunately, the drinking water was not too The Juljanow settlers were named Drews, Gellert, deep; i.e., wells had to be dug at most 60 feet deep. Doberstein, Uttich, and Fenzel. The lat The clearing of the bushes and young trees was also
2 not too difficult. Young, healthy trees, especially oaks, school hall was hardly able to hold all the students. This were left standing. Although at first one could bend them problem developed, however, only if all the students came with one's hands, nevertheless, in the course of decades, to school—which was very seldom the case. they grew into mighty oaks which enlivened the scenery. The second teacher was named Reschke. Julius Gellert, Even from afar one could recognize the German settlements who attended school at this time, tells of how he [Reschke] by these trees; as one knows, the Ukrainian farmland was liked to crochet or knit gloves during class time. He always without any stands of trees. had a riding whip lying on his table, ready to grasp. It was After the first clearing years, the economic situation made of tow. If any pupil was naughty ("useless" it was improved slowly but steadily. The arable land, light sandy called) or could not do his lessons, the teacher grabbed the loam, was fertile and suitable for growing grains of all whip and said, "I'll show you, you good for nothing!" and sorts. Soon the neighbors Gellert and Doberstein, as well as the whip made the noise "whack, whack." Sometimes then-neighbors, had several cows apiece. Some of the pieces flew from the whip, but it really didn't hurt. colonists were even able to put away a small sum, i.e., save it. The people of Juljanow liked to tell a story about one of their neighbors, who was considered to be especially thrifty. According to this story, he had been seen one night on his land, by a steep hill, digging for buried treasure. There were, of course, people who believed such tall tales. The people of Juljanow had two morgen of school land; those of Mieczyslawow had one morgen. Together both pieces made a rectangle. Therefore, both colonies decided to merge and become one school district, or choir director's district [Kantoratsgemeinde}5, as it was also called. On the Juljanow piece of property, a mutual cemetery was fenced off, and at the crossroads to Zablotce, the school building was erected. The first of a number of school teachers, who also had to hold worship services, was called Friedrich. In later years it was said that he interrupted the sermon in the middle in order to go outside to smoke his pipe. In the meantime, Fenzel, Chairman of the School Council, con- tinued the sermon. At first, the people of Zablotce had their own cemetery and also their own school. Their first teacher was named Reschke. Kurhany was also independent at first. However, soon both colonies joined Juljanow, and thus a large school district of over 1100 morgen of land was established. Now financially very strong, this community built jointly with Juljanow a splendid prayer hall, whose interior was decorated with planed planks and painted with white oil paint. The residents put a beautiful fence around the cemetery and planted trees. In the middle of the cemetery Ernestine Drews Mundt was one of the daughters of stood a high cross. Alongside the prayer hall a bell tower Wilhelm Drews, Sr., one of the founders of Juljanow. was erected. The bell announced the Sunday worship She is shown here with her twin daughters and son services and deaths. A brass band was formed to Alfred Mundt. Photo courtesy of Leona Janke. accompany the singing. The Juljanow school building now After Reschke came Klingspon. He immigrated to served as the school for all eight colonies. The America. After him followed a certain man named Hendler who transferred to the neighboring school district of Helenow. Then came Wuschke who worked as a cooper on the side. Johann Fenzel said of him that "He could sit in a Viertel," no doubt because he was so small and supple. (A Viertel is a vessel used to measure grain.)
3 Little buildings for that most human of needs [i.e., Also in the colony itself, the oldest houses, which outhouses] had not yet come into fashion in Volhynia. dated from the time of founding, were gradually Even the school had none. Therefore, Teacher replaced by new ones, Samuel Gellert and Jakob Wuschke dug shallow trenches in his garden for these Sauder had even built masonry houses with metal purposes and let the students use them. In the spring roofs. These were proud evidence of that affluence he then planted pumpkins there. In the fall the which they had attained. Samuel Lucht from pumpkins were so large that a strong man could carry Mieczyslawow had purchased the remaining property one pumpkin alone only with great effort. in Zabtotce. The years of the first lease contracts Wuschke also immigrated to America. After him which had been for twelve years had expired and came Ziemer. At first he was still a bachelor and were replaced with new lease contracts, which had enjoyed much popularity in the district. But when he thirty-six-year terms. In these contracts both parties married, he was soon blessed with a swarm of were obligated to renew them again and again. That children. Therefore, his salary soon no longer sufficed was called an "eternal contract." The lease money for the support of his family. But the district did not amounted to 30 kopecks per morgen. But a bank had increase it, so he leased a farm in order to have granted a mortgage to the estate owner of Pawlow, enough food for his children. Because of that he, and since he had not paid it back, the bank offered unfortunately, had to neglect the school. As a result, this land at auction. The bank announced the date the district became dissatisfied with him, and he had months in advance—also to the colonists, but they did to leave. not pay any attention. They thought, "We have an In August 1911 the author of these reminiscences eternal contract; nobody can touch us." A rich came to Juljanow from the district of Otyka on the Ukrainian farmer from Boratyn bought the colony. A other side of Torczyn. He found the school in a dumb "muzhik" in the opinion of the colonists. But neglected state. Half the students, who in some cases now they had to pay this dumb "muzhik" the lease had been attending the school for three or four money. winters, could barely read or write. To be sure, this The owner also offered to sell the people of was not the teacher's fault alone but also the fault of Juljanow their leased land. The sale price was twenty- the parents who sent their children to school very five rubles, about fifty marks, for a morgen of land. irregularly. You see, in Volhynia the whole family Again the Juljan6wer refused and fell back on their worked from early to late. Even the six- and seven- "eternal contracts." The estate owner sold the land to year olds had to take care of the cattle in summer, and a Ukrainian lawyer who speculated in land. His name the younger children had to rock and play with the was Krutj, a word that is related to krutitj, meaning very smallest children. The eleven- and twelve-year swindler. The new owner again offered to sell the olds had to contribute their share to the work of the land to the people of Juljanow, but asked for 75 adults. They kept the children home in winter for rubles per morgen. Now the settlers were more every conceivable reason; e.g., if the mother had a opposed to the deal than they had been before. Then wash day or had to go to town. In Russia at that time, one day Krutj appeared with the Russian police chief there was no compulsory school attendance. One and the police and placed all the oak trees in the fields really sent the children to school only if they were not under seizure. The colonists had looked after and needed at home. But then, when the children did not spared the trees for years, and now the police chief keep up with their school work or had lost all desire to told them that they were not even to touch the trees. It learn, it was the teacher's fault. was clear that the lawyer was merely looking for One ought not to conclude that the Volhynians some excuse to bring suit. He would be the winner. were indifferent to their school. About 1909 the He had already bribed the police chief. As everybody people of Juljanow had—without hesitation—torn knew, the Russian judges could also be bribed. At down the old, dilapidated Kantoratsgebdude and that point the people of Juljanow did not stop to think erected a splendid combined dwelling and school the matter over any further; they bought the land—at building. At that same time they also built a new 75 rubles per morgen. It was no doubt not easy for stable and barn. Then shortly before the war, the bell them to do so; almost all of them had to go into debt. tower received a new foundation, and beautiful wood And yet they had taken the proper action, as turned paneling was added. The whole property was then en- out later. closed by a fence. The people of Juljanow could now At first the people of Pawlow were better off. "All rightfully claim that their school was one of the most they still needed was bird's milk!" one said in such beautiful around. cases. They acted correspondingly. One of them traveled to worship service on Sunday
4 with bells on the harness of his horses. That was the way woods today?" Thereupon, Samuel replied, "Well, Father the Polish estate owners traveled. The other colonists Glasel, today is, after all, Sunday." Father Glasel had mixed laughed, and one wise guy said, "It's ringing: 'Leased land! up the day. Embarrassed, he picked up his tools and left Leased land!' " Later, after World War I, the people of without saying a word. Pawlow would learn just how very much things could There were several Gellerts in the school district. One of change. them was known as "Brother Slowpoke." His wife, on the Before 1914 most farms were still 20 to 45 morgen in other hand, was known as "Fire." She operated the whole size, so there was enough work for a pair of good horses. farm, but she had to be confined every year because of The colonists still worked the soil as their fathers had. They pregnancy. For that reason, a maid had to be hired. Once, cut the rye with a scythe and threshed it with a flail, just after Gellert's wheat field had been cut, Mrs. Gellert had because they needed the straw to cover the roofs of their to be confined again to give birth. On the next day, when the houses. Wheat was also cut with a sickle, but threshed by wheat had to be bound, only the maid went with Gellert to machine. The straw served as food for the animals. Summer the field. The maid gathered the wheat; the farmer tied the grains were cut with a scythe and also threshed by machine. bundle. Normally, one binder could keep up when working Colonists bought mowing and threshing machines, but only behind two gatherers. But that wasn't the case here. Soon the the larger farm owners could afford them, because they maid was far ahead. She came to a shady oak and looked were expensive. The smaller farmers were able to use the around. She thought, "Oh, the farmer is still so far behind, it machines in return for payment, i.e., they rented them. will be quite awhile before he catches up. I'll lie down for a In Juljan6w and the surrounding area, Johann Fehr while and rest my arms and legs.. . ." Did she really sleep served those farmers who had no machines. In general, soundly for a long time until the farmer caught up? At least, people were very conservative in using machines. For that is the way the people liked to tell it. example, old Uttich was very exact and did not want to lose Many similar anecdotes might be told, but since this is one kernel of his grain harvest. Nevertheless, one time one not supposed to be a collection of stories, we must go on of his relatives talked him into letting neighbor Fehr cut the with the main report. wheat field with a machine. Fehr started up the first round of the field. Old Uttich mistrustingly lifted up a layer of (JORt-H wheat straw and saw several kernels of grain scattered underneath. "Stop!" he called, "Get your machine out of here! I only harvest once [i.e, he didn't want to redo the whole job]." And his people had to sickle the grain. It is not easy to cut wheat well with a sickle; nevertheless, as long as Old Uttich lived, a threshing machine never again entered his field. There were many characters among the colonists. Diligence and thrift were expected as a matter of course. Keeping of the Sabbath was strictly observed. If somebody stood out in any unusual way, he knew that people would not fail to make sport of him. Thus, the colonists like to tell the following stories: The people of Zablotce had bought a parcel in the Wiczyna Woods and were clearing it. They took turns driving to work. It was Samuel Gellert's turn. It was a dark, wintery, Sunday morning, and Samuel Gellert was sitting with his family at breakfast. The door opened, and Old PXISrf VOL^YNIA ^fUf Glasel entered, loaded down with the tools of the forest "uwp •-„.,„„ work. He put down the heaviest tools and inquired, "Well, "woLHyy/fiW- OWAAV Samuel, are you working in the 'SourK This map showing the boundaries of Polish Volhynia as of 1921 was drawn by Leona Janke.
5 II. 1914-1940: Nonetheless, no one at that time had any real idea Deportation, New Beginning, Dissolution to what degree the insanity of chauvinism had taken hold of the world, especially Europe. When World Gradually, more than half of the land of the school War I broke out in 1914, twelve men from Juljan6w- district became the property of the colonists. They Boratyn were immediately conscripted. They were were loyal citizens. They paid their taxes honestly. Julius Strohschein and Emil Gellert, who both had They lived according to the words of the Bible: already served in the Russo-Japanese War, August "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and to God Gellert, Reinhard Drews, August Glasel, August that which is God's." By at least the second generation Nickel, Reinhard Eisbrenner, a man called Friedrich, all had become Russian citizens, "subjects" was the a man called Fiedler, a man called Winkler, another word used at that time. The sons performed their man called Friedrich, and the author of this report. military service in the Russian Army and at the same This district paid the high war taxes, provided teams time learned reasonably good Russian. They were of horses, supplied animals for slaughter, and donated scarcely interested in politics. They lived in peace food to the hospitals; in short, they did just as much with the other peoples who spoke different languages. as their Ukrainian neighbors. Soon the report came Nevertheless, the Germans in Volhynia, and thus that Reinhard Drews and Reinhard Eisbrenner had those in Juljanow-Boratyn, became aware of the been killed in action. By 1919 about five or six men increasing tensions between Germany and Russia. The from our school district alone, an incredibly high toll, head of the District Council in Torczyn had the habit had died in the European theater of war or in Asia, of yelling at the Germans, "Go back to [your Kaiser] where later the ethnic Germans were sent into action. Wilhelm!" They took it silently, for they knew the Nevertheless, the Russian authorities considered proverb: "God is great, and the czar is far." That is, the German colonists to be a politically unreliable they knew that they had no real legal rights in the element. The Russian newspapers outdid one another situation. with their inflammatory articles. When then in the summer of 1915 the war front came nearer and nearer in the West, the German population of Volhynia was forced to abandon their colonies.6 The expulsion of the Juljanow school district occurred on a Sunday. Wilhelm Drews, who during the conscription of the teacher [Kantor] read the sermon, was still holding the service in front of a small group of frightened women and children, when suddenly police and Cossacks appeared in the colony. They threatened to hang anybody who did not leave within the hour. Amidst tears, horses were hitched in front of the wagons, which had been packed for days by order of the police. Slowly the trek set off in the direction of Rozyszcze, where they were to cross the bridge over the river Styr. Protected by the tall grain—it was just before harvest time—several women secretly ran back to release the cattle, pigs, and small animals, which they in the haste of leaving had forgotten in the stalls. They also freed the dogs from their chains. Later, amidst tears, they told of the shady characters whom they had run into on the farms and who had, apparently, just been waiting there to plunder the full houses and storage sheds. On the first day of the trek, about 65 wagons sluggishly reached the village of Ulaniki. Here the Albertina Drews Schmidt, another daughter of Wilhelm supply problems associated with such a wagon train Drews, Sr., immigrated to America with her family in became clear: the small, shallow wells of the 1911. She is pictured here in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in Ukrainians scarcely sufficed for sup- 1941 with two of her sons, Bill and Sam. Photo courtesy of Leona Janke.
6 A/.
A map showing some of the area through which Germans were deported from Polish Volhynia to Russia. Map drawn by Leona Janke. plying their own cattle, let alone for nearly 150 additional the Germans come so that we won't have to leave!" horses and some 60-70 cows. In addition, there was the In this way the people of the Juljanow [District] finally problem of preparing warm meals. In short, the catastrophe came to Kozyszcze. On the right side of the Styr, the sandy began to become apparent. and marshy paths of the approaching Polesye now began. On the second day the trek came through the German Slowly the miserable trek reached the Pripyet near David- colony of Bryszcze I, where, to be sure, the people were Gorodok. Here [the authorities] let the large number of heartily welcomed; however, not too much could be done people camp for many weeks under the open sky until an for them, for here, too, the population was preparing to epidemic broke out, and many people died. Finally, in late leave. autumn these poor people were loaded onto boats and On the third day the trek reached the KowelLuck transported into the interior of Russia, some even beyond [Lutsk] gravel road. Here the people heard the thunder of the Urals. To be sure, those families whose men were the artillery from the nearby front so loudly that they took serving in the army were not supposed to come under the new courage. They were hoping that the front would resettlement orders; overtake them, and then they would be able to return to however, the police chief in Torczyn gave his own order their farms. Near Kopacz6wka the trek stopped and held a and had such families also expelled. But his colleague in prayer service under the open sky. But the police, who were Wladimirec [Vladimir] sent such families back. Several escorting the trek and who had been persuaded by money to other families slipped through with them. On their way make this pause, soon urged them to move on again. It was back the steamroller of war overtook them. They found a good thing that the police did not understand German and their homeland occupied by Austrian troops. They did not suspect what the men and women were praying for collected and organized those possessions in their despair: "Dear God, let
7 that they could still find on their plundered farms; attached herself to a family in Rozyszcze with whom they harvested what could still be harvested on their we were befriended. On an adventuresome journey of own fields and on the fields of their neighbors. They several weeks these two families then traveled to tilled the fields, too, as best they could, as far as the Prishib, a large German settlement on the Black Sea. military authorities allowed time in addition to the A pastor, who had previously been in Luck and whom many other duties their teams of horses had to my wife knew from our time in 0-fyka, was working perform. It cannot have been an especially peaceful in Prishib. He generously assisted my family. He autumn and winter. Later, it could no longer be found them an apartment and basic furnishings. My determined precisely which of the people of Juljandw wife found work with prosperous Swabians—and had returned at that time. much friendly support. My children were able to attend the excellent private school in Prishib, and there they laid the foundation for their later professional careers. But now back to events in Volhynia. In the spring a Prussian Emigrant Resettlement Commission came and recruited workers for Germany. Even before the war Volhynian German emigrants had been recruited for Posen and West Prussia. However, only a few Volhynians had heeded the calling at that time. No one from Jul-jan6w had gone. Now they were promised farms after the war. But at first they were supposed to work on the estates. In 1916 all the families from Juljanow who had escaped the deportation to Russia heeded the call, except for the Ziemer family and the old Hiller couple who had found refuge in the Uttich house. They did not possess their own team of horses with which they could travel to the West. In June 1916 the Russians in the so-called Brussilow Offensive pushed back the Austrian- German front to the upper reaches of the Styr and Stokhod Rivers. Any German families that the Russians still found in this area were deported to the interior of Russia and interned there. This time the families of soldiers were also included. The writer of these lines, who at that time was serving with an engineering unit in the woods of Sokol north of Rozyszcze, received a three-day pass from his commander to visit his home colony. He still remembers all the details of this visit. Therefore, This photo of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in please permit him from this point on to continue in Rozyszcze was taken in June 1918. Photo courtesy of the first person. Albert Weiman. Dead tired after a foot march of almost 50 km [30 miles], I arrived in Juljanow. The school building was Please allow the reporter to report briefly at this empty and completely cleaned out. The old Hillers, point on the fate of his own family. My family had parents of a school teacher with whom I was made the miserable trek of the Juljanower only to befriended, were living in Uttich's house. Otherwise, Rozyszcze. At Rozyszcze, when my wife noticed that there was not another person in the entire school the catastrophic situation of the train kept getting colony. I stayed overnight at Hillers', and they told worse and worse, she together with the four small me that those Juljanower who had returned in the children whom we had at that time and my mother, summer of 1915 had gone to Germany in the spring took our team of horses and left the trek. She sold the of 1916—out of fear of the Russians. In their loneliness the old people were completely horses, wagon, and cow at ridiculously low prices and disheartened. I at-
8 tempted to cheer them up and told them they had done the were left standing in the whole school district. right thing in staying. The Hillers also told me that Teacher All were damaged. Here a door was missing, there the Beck was in neighboring Helenow and many Helenower windows or panes of glass. The planking had been torn out were still there. Therefore, I decided to go to Helenow. of the wells. The well on the school ground had, therefore, Teacher Beck had served as a Russian soldier, lost an already fallen in. Not a trace was to be seen of the school arm in the first weeks of the war, and had been released. As building, the prayer hall, or bell tower. Samuel Gellert I arrived, a military policeman was bringing him the order found only a small pile of rubble left from his splendid, to evacuate to Russia immediately the next day. Teacher masonry house. The soldiers had used the bricks for their Beck had seven small children, had fought and given his shelters. No fence or fence posts remained in the entire blood for Russia, and now received banishment orders. I community. The horses had gnawed on the beautiful fruit simply did not understand the world anymore. In the winter trees, and many were withered. Shortly before the war a I received a letter from Beck with a postmark from the beautiful fruit orchard had been planted on the school Omsk, Siberia, District. But the envelope was empty. At ground. Of that, not one single, little tree remained. that time the old Hillers also had to go into the interior of The few houses still standing were, however, not empty; Russia. rather they were crammed full of Ukrainians and Polish At that time the Russian newspaper Kievan Thought refugees returning home from Russia. Because of that, the [Kievskaya Mysl'} wrote about the expulsion of the German settlers who returned had to be content if one pro- remaining Volhynian Germans: vided just a little room for them. Nobody ought to be "After driving out the enemy, one found many German astonished that many of them took their bundles and colonists in Volhynia. The supreme commander has continued on to Prussia. Volhynia was at that time still an ordered that those among them who were German citizens Austrian occupation territory, and the Emigrant were to be interned in the interior of Russia." Well, I knew Resettlement Commission was still looking for workers for that neither Beck nor the Hillers were German citizens the estates in the eastern part of the empire. Farms were [they were Russian citizens]. promised to these returning emigrants after the war. They In February 1917 the Russian Revolution broke out, were told, however, that the Germans had already won the and the czar had to abdicate. The individual parts of the war, but now it was merely a matter of ending it, and then gigantic empire tried to become politically independent. there would be enough room in Kurland [part of Latvia as The Ukraine, to which Volhynia belonged, allowed the of 1918] and elsewhere for them to settle. expelled Germans to return to their homeland. Those who But the god of war was not true to the Germans. They heard it did not need to hear it twice. But sometimes they lost the war, and a revolution likewise broke out in their only heard the news very late, since they were scattered far land. The same thing happened to Kaiser Wilhelm that had and wide. Usually the families arrived in their hometown happened to the czar. [He had to abdicate.] Germany had one at a time. divided up the kill before it had killed the bear. The But what a picture of terrible destruction they unfortunate Volhynians now had nothing more to hope for. discovered! How did it look in Juljanow" Boratyn? Almost They did not want to remain on the estates as tenants. They all the homes were destroyed. In Juljanow itself only two of were not used to the sound of the bell with which the work eight homes were still standing; in Zablotce only three of time was announced on the estates. Because of that many twelve; tried their luck once again and returned to Volhynia— in Czarnelozy only one of six. Only in Mieczy-slawow together with those first settlers who had left even before were all the houses still standing. Here a Cossack unit had the Brussilow Offensive in 1916. Meanwhile, in 1912 had its quarters for a rather long time. The two Germans Volhynia had been divided between Poland and Russia. whom the landlord from Kurhany had taken in again also Juljanow-Boratyn now belonged to Poland. The returnees found their houses in good shape, as did Emil Fehr in from Germany as well as the other settlers who had waited Seliszcze. The landlord also allowed him to reacquire the out the Russian civil war for more than three years were not land that he had leased before the war. Only now he had to exactly welcomed by the new political leaders. Yet the right pay a third of the harvest ([every] third sheaf) as his lease of domicile could not be denied the former Volhynian payment. Under the same terms Klisch and Kleindienst German owners. However, those who had were again able to reacquire their land in Kurhany. Of the barns and stables, only thirteen buildings
9 leased land were not allowed to return to their land, But the Ukrainians said in recognition: "Set a even if they had an "eternal contract." To be sure, the German on a rock, and he will live even there." Yes, people of Pawlow brought suit to gain their rights, but they were living, but they were hungry and starving, the "dumb muzhik," who had purchased the land and even strong, young people died of typhoid before the war, refused to renew the leases and won at (probably caused by malnutrition). That was the case all levels of judicial authority. In Kurhany only the when Emil Nickel and Albert Fehr, two young men two aforementioned families succeeded in resettling. from JuIjanow-Boratyn, died. The tenants in the hazel [area] were able to stay only Let me add here the casualties the Volhynian because they had acquired their own land in the fields Germans had suffered in the war years and because of of Ulaniki before the war. In Seliszcze Emil Fehr the expulsion. Unfortunately, no exact numbers are eked out an existence for a few years but did not available. As I have mentioned earlier, almost half of prosper. the military conscripts from Juljandw-Boratyn I have already previously described the living remained "on the field of honor." However, among conditions. Three or four families were crammed the civilian population the casualties were together in every house. Samuel Lucht lived for years disproportionately higher. The Julius Gellert family in a bunker, and Eduard Glasel never got out of his returned with only one of their seven children, a son. temporary earthen hut. He died there. The Poles, who Of the Uttich family who had lived right next to the now governed the land, gave the Germans no war school, only the old grandmother and three reparations whatsoever or any support. For the grandchildren returned. Her son Friedrich, his young Germans the rule was the old proverb: "If you are a wife, and the two youngest grandchildren had died son of God, help yourself!" But how was the urgent already in Polesye on the way. Unfortunately, this list task of rebuilding to be solved? can no longer be supplemented today. Therefore, let these two families stand for the countless other victims of those wretched years. In the winter of 1921-22, this reporter returned with his family from southern Russia. I have previously reported on how my wife and children had fled there on their own. They had been allowed to live there in safety until the end of the war. After my discharge from the military, I found a position there as a bookkeeper in a cooperative. However, after the civil war and a complete crop failure, famine prevailed in this rich area. Therefore, I was glad to return to the old homeland, which now belonged to Poland. After an eight-weeks' journey by train and after quarantine in Rowno, the Juljan6wer picked us up in ^uck. In spite of the housing shortage, which I An earthen hut north ofRozyszcze. Photo taken from have previously attempted to describe, a dwelling was Das Deutschtum in Polen. allocated to us. It was one room witout a stove and entirely empty—only four walls and a door. We Now the oaks which their fathers had once cared carried our bundles inside, laid them on the floor, and for were a gift. Their wood now provided thresholds were moved in. Then we made straw mattresses, my and boards for new buildings and firewood. At first wife put the bedding on them, and we were "at they built as their fathers and grandfathers had done, home." constructing earthen huts for themselves and stalls for To be sure, the school district immediately rehired the animals. Not until years later were real houses their old teacher, but at first they only supported him built. The lumber often had to be hauled from 20,30, with food. No mention was made of a salary. When [12-18 miles] and more kilometers away. The hauling Pastor Kersten in Rozyszcze learned of my bad was done with teams of little horses, often only as big situation, he wanted to transfer me immediately to a "as cats," or with old nags. This new beginning was district which was financially stronger. But I refused. probably more difficult than the original settling of Juljanow was now down and out. The school district more than forty years earlier had been. again needed a leader in order to rebuild, and I thought that I might be of use.
10
Teacher's home, school building, and prayer hall of Juljanow-Boratyn. It was built in 1922 after the return of the German Volhynians from their forced exile during WWI. It was already the third such building for the school district. It was razed in 1934 when a new, larger school building was erected. Note the oak trees. Photo courtesy of the Historischer Verein Wolhynien e.V. In the fall of 1922, the school district bought a rather lost 300 morgen of land which Polish settlers now large farm house and remodeled it into a home for the occupied. teacher, a classroom, and a prayer hall. The estate owner Soon new economic problems prevailed. Above all, it had not renewed the lease for the owner of this house. was a question of overpopulation. Before the war grown-up Therefore, he returned to East Prussia. Admittedly, all the sons had emigrated, primarily [going] to the U.S.A., rooms were very small. At first, the living quarters of the Canada, and South America. The U.S.A., which was teacher, a small room, and a tiny kitchen were furnished, so suffering itself in the 1920s from an economic recession, we were able to move in. Then came the classroom. The had set a quite small quota for immigrants from Poland, benches we nailed together from rough boards, likewise the and it was being filled by the Poles themselves. Only South table. A cabinet maker made only the blackboard. When America remained as an immigrant land. In the years 1922- we were finished, instruction began. The district also set a 1939, fifty-five people emigrated from Juljanow-Boratyn fixed salary for me. It consisted primarily of goods and alone. Thirty-four went to Argentina, eleven to Canada, amounted to only a little more than half of that which had and ten to East Prussia. Many reasons accounted for these been paid to me before the war. However, I was satisfied, high numbers. Here are only a few: Since the cities in for most of the members of the district were poor and all Volhynia possessed scarcely any industry, there was no had to rebuild. room to absorb the excess rural population. To learn a new Of course, the district had become financially weaker trade was hopeless. The few blacksmiths and carpenters through the loss of leased land. It had who were still in the colonies could
11 scarcely keep their heads above water and were often Juljanow-Boratyn. An ambitious, intelligent man without work. The Jews controlled trade. There collected six families around him. They called remained only the two-edged possibility of dividing themselves the "Congregation of God." But the farms. The sons and daughters as they grew up people called them the "Footwashers." They did not divided the land. Three families were now settled on participate in building the school, which, of course, the farm of Jakob Drews; meant a further weakening [of the finances]. two families on Nickel's farm; three families on The situation of the parochial schools became Gottlieb Hansch's farm, etc. Where earlier one had increasingly more uncertain. At first they were kept one pair of good horses, one now had two or tolerated; however, as the Polish state itself became more teams of inferior quality which, nevertheless, stronger, it made things increasingly difficult for the required more food [than one good team had]. To be private schools. The old teachers, including this sure, it appeared that things were improving writer, were not college-trained teachers. They also everywhere in the community, but in reality the did not master the Polish language. For these reasons, economic situation was deteriorating. the parochial school in Juljanow and all other schools taught by choir directors [Kantoren} were supposed to be closed. In order to get the district to accept willingly a state-run Polish school, the people were threatened with the following plan: The children of Juljanow, Mieczyslawow, and Czarnelozy would be sent to the state school of Boratyn; those from Markmillerszczyzna to Ulaniki, and those from Zabtotce would be sent to school in Szepel. The authorities had already deviously obtained permission for this from several families. But the overwhelming majority of the colonists protested against these plans. The situation was similar in other parochial school districts. Therefore, the Polish school authorities, acting under the School Law of 1932, withdrew the instructional permission of all Kantoren just before Gustav Gellert, who directed the brass choir, was the the 1932-1933 school year, thereby closing over son of Julius Gellert, also mentioned in this article. He eighty school districts. Many school districts now is shown here with his wife, Alvine Drews Gellert accepted the plans of the authorities. But the (daughter of Wilhelm Drews, Jr.) and their children: Juljanower hired a graduate of the teachers' college in Arnold, Aliza, Lina, Edith, Hugo, and Willy. Photo Lodz and thus kept their German school for a while. courgesy of Helmut Drews. Previously at my own request, I had left my beloved With respect to things that affected the church, things Juljanow-Boratyn, which had been my home since were in good shape. Gustav Gellert, a highly musical man, 1911. The school district of Romanow II, in which a directed a choir and soon established a brass choir. Both state-run school already existed, hired me as its choirs were very good. The Mission Celebration {Missions Kantor and teacher of religion. It was here that the fest), which had existed from pre-war days and was held on outbreak of World War II in 1939 overtook me, Trinity Sunday in the yard of Wilhelm Drews, had become However, our report is supposed to describe the a public festival. Now not only the "Brothers" preached further developments in Juljanow-Boratyn. Here the here, as had been the case from the beginning, but the school issue still had a long way to go. To be sure, the evangelists and pastors as well. Finally the yard could no Juljan6wer had a qualified German teacher, but the longer hold all the visitors, and the festival had to be moved school authorities now objected to the school to the cemetery. Juljanow-Boratyn now belonged to the building. Admittedly, it did not comply with all the newly formed parish district of Torczyn. The first Torczyn sanitary and educational requirements of a modern pastor, Robert Liersch, a very devout and modest man, was school building. Then in 1934 the school district built very beloved everywhere in the parish. a new school building—the fourth since the founding Unfortunately, sectarians also settled in of the district—and thought that their school was now safe. The Polish constitution entitled them to it. In 1936 another small church was erected.
12 In Juljanow as in all the other German areas, a new tled in Germany. We were overwhelmed with joy when political wind was blowing. The Germans had become we heard that. Of course, at that time we did not see that aware of their ethnic background. Radio had also found we, ultimately politically naive Volhynian Germans, were enthusiasts here. Admittedly, the colonists preferred to hear supposed to be taken to the so-called Warthegau {Warta German broadcasts, because they understood them better. River District] and thereby would be misused as helpers in When the Nazis came to power in Germany, the colonists robbing Polish property. also heard their inflammatory tirades without being able to When the Resettlement Commission came at the end of see the whole picture. In Juljanow-Boratyn a small local October, without exception all the Germans in Juljanow- group of the Young German Party was formed under the Boratyn, as in all Volhynia, had themselves registered for leadership of Rudolf Nickel, a very intelligent young man. resettlement. In 1939 a total of sixty-one families lived in Of course, this local group was registered with the police Juljanow-Boratyn; of those, seven families were not and their actions were absolutely legal. They only wanted landowners. The district had remained entirely German to cultivate their own German culture, language, and until the very end. Only in the former lease colonies were customs. The Poles were doing the same thing [with the there some Polish settlers, but they did not belong to the Polish culture, language, and customs] in Germany. Yet the school district. They had associated themselves politically police had noted all the men who were politically active in with the surrounding Ukrainian areas. any way whatsoever. Even before the war had begun, At the beginning of January 1940, the wives, elderly Teacher Marschner, Fritz Grieger, and Rudolf Nickel were people, and children departed from £uck by train. An already sitting in prison. Adolf Nickel and Emanuel Krenz official worship service was not held in Juljanow. One were in the concentration camp in Bereza Kartuska. In the person or another may still have visited the graves in the first weeks of the war, Adolf Kruschel and Rudolf and cemetery. "Everything was too chaotic," the Juljanower Reinhold Uttich were taken away to the labor camp in reported later. Even at Christmas many had done without Sarny. From all of Volhynia, a large number of men, in- the traditional Christmas tree. The men left some days later cluding all pastors, evangelists, Kantoren, and teachers— by wagon train. It contained fifty-six teams from Juljanow. anybody the authorities could get their hands on— As they came through Torczyn, the Ukrainians stood in the including me, were arrested. Not one of us was aware of streets and wept. The good—yes, often even friendly- anything of which he was guilty, but the government relationship, which had formerly existed between the needed scapegoats. The authorities assembled us—more colonists and the Jews, had become troubled because of the than 1000 men—in an old Jewish cemetery in-Luck. On the events of the last few months in Germany. The Jews knew third day the interrogation finally began. From all the men that they had nothing good to expect for themselves from they took military papers, identity cards, and cash, and then Hitler's Germany. Yet, they did not suspect what a great they made them run the gauntlet (Spiessruten. laufen). Then catastrophe would later befall them. It was beyond their— they were moved off to an unknown destination. Only a and our—powers of imagination. few old men—1 was among them, being 60 years old at the In Juljanow-Boratyn there were no longer any Germans. time—were spared. We did not have to run the gauntlet and A German school district had ceased to exist after were released. approximately 75 years. Those who stayed at home lived in great fear. The Poles informed on us. We scarcely dared to leave our four walls. Nobody ought to be astonished that we Germans were Editor's Notes happy when Poland collapsed after a few weeks and the men came home from prisons and concentration camps. 1. This article is a translation of "Heimat auf Zeit" in They had been so mistreated and starved there that after Wolhynische Hefte (Schwabach, West Germany: even these few weeks many a healthy man could scarcely Historischer Verein Wolhynien e.V., 1982), vol. 2, pp. still walk. That is also what happened to my son-in-law, 34-65. It is used here with the permission of the Reinhold Uttich. Historischer Verein Wolhynien e.V, People of German- When one morning the first Soviet tanks appeared, we Volhynian ancestry may be interested in obtaining all had the feeling that a terrible thunderstorm had ended. Soon four volumes of the Wolhynische Hefte (in German) now the news leaked out that the Volhynian Germans would be available. They may be ordered from Walter reset Hildebrandt, 85 Pioneer Lane, Woodbridge, Ontario, Canada L4L 2J2.
13 2. Mrs, Janke translated this article as partial fulfillment of term Kantor is "choir director." However, this the requirements for an Independent Study class, translation does not begin to give the full meaning of German 580, at Western Michigan University. She is the term. Because there were so few pastors in indebted to her instructor, Dr. J. Gardiner, Assistant Volhynia to serve a vast area, they could visit the Professor of German at Western Michigan University, majority of the villages within their gigantic bishopric for his assistance and advice. The Wilhelm Drews only seldom. Thus the representatives of religious mentioned in this article as one of the founders of the authority in the villages were the Kantoren. A Kantor village Juljanow was Mrs. Janke's great-grandfather. directed the church services on Sunday (at which time 3. A morgen of land was originally the amount of land that he read the sermon from an approved book of could be plowed in a morning (Morgen). As an old sermons), conducted baptisms and funerals, instructed Dutch unit now used in southern Africa, it is equal to the youth in the doctrines of religion—and was the about 2.116 acres. In Prussia, the amount of land village school teacher. A Kantor usually had no higher varied from 0.6 to 0.9 acres. In Russia, a morgen was education and came from a farming family. The Kantor equivalent to a dessiatine, which is equivalent to 2.7 was also partially the economical and cultural leader of U.S. acres. his community. 4. Kashubian was a West Slavic language closely related to 6. For additional information about the deportation of Polish and spoken in the region of Danzig. The Germans from Volhynia to Siberia see "Die German term Kaschubisch gradually came to mean a Verschleppung und Verbannung der Wolhynien- Low-German dialect also spoken in West Prussia. deutschen wahrend des ersten Weltkrieges" in 5. One could call a. Kantoratsgemeinde a "parochial Heimatbuck der Deutschen aus Russland, Karl Stumpp, school system." The translation for the German ed. (Stuttgart: Landsmannschaft der Deutschen aus Russland, 1962), pp. 34-37. U n s e r e E i c h e OUR OAK TREE
Vor unserm Haus, der Schul im Ort, stand In front of our house, the local school, cine alte Eiche. Die Spatzen suchten Zuflucht stood an old oak tree. dort, wenn Habicht wild sie scheuchte. Auch The sparrows sought refuge there, manches bunte Vogelein flog gern zu unsrer Eiche ein. Darunter war ein Rasenplatz, when a hawk wildly frightened them. bedeckt von ihrem Schatten, den Hans und Also many a colorful little bird Gret und Hosenmatz als Spielplatz gerne liked to fly into our oak. hatten. Zu Huckepack und Hingelreihn fand Underneath was a grassy spot, covered by Jung-Juljanow gern sich ein. Oft nach des its shade, Tages Miih und Last, oft auch bei which Hans and Gret and little children liked as a Mittagsschwule hielt ich ein Stiindchen stille place to play. Rast in ihrer dunklen Kiihie. Vergessen war The young of Juljanow liked to come there to play manch Sorgenstein, kehrt ich bei unsrer "Piggy-back" and "Ring-around-the-Rosy." Eiche ein. Nun bin ich fern von jenem Ort, seh Often after the trials and tribulations of the day, ihn wohl niemals wieder. Dock weilt mem often also in the sultriness of midday Geist so gerne dort, oft hor ich alte Lieder, oft I rested quietly for an hour kehr ich dort im Traume ein. Dort mocht ich in its shady coolness, gern zu House sein. Many a heavy care was forgotten when I stopped at our oak tree. — Josef Weiss Now I am far from that place I'll probably never see it again. Yet my spirit likes so to tarry there, often I hear the old songs, often I return there in my dreams. There I would like to be at home.
Translated by Leona Janke
14 MY FATHER, JOSEPH WEISS Ewald Weiss Translated by Leona Janke In 1931 my father, who at that time was the teacher go in 1933 and thereby make his position available for a and Kantor in Juljanow-Boratyn, published the history of college-trained teacher. his school district in the Wolhynischen Boten ["Volhynian May I still be allowed to say a few words on the Messenger"}. About thirty-five years later, in his old age, question as to why the Volhynians so unanimously and he reworked this topic a second time. At that time he was willingly gave up their farms in 1939-1940 and allowed living with my sister in East Germany. After my father's themselves to be resettled. That they were strongly attached death in 1973, the manuscript of this second study was to Volhynia and continued to regard it as their homeland entrusted to me. It is very interesting and informative to had clearly been proven after their expulsion in World War compare the two studies. In the 1931 version one notes the I. We remind the reader that several families secretly strong feeling of pride in the rebuilding since 1921 and the returned in 1915 even during the war activities, and others hope for further tranquil development in peacetime. In the immediately departed from the Russian and German second version—published here—we hear of the tragic provinces as soon as the political conditions allowed. Then events which led to the dissolution of Juljanow-Boratyn there were also the lawsuits about the leased lands, which and ultimately to the destruction of the Volhynian Germans often lasted for years. If then, these same people without as an ethnic group. opposition abandoned their land in 1939-1940, that can It is my duty as a son to add to the report at this point only be called flight. They knew that the situation had that my father, who in 1922 had refused to leave Juljanow- become hopeless under the Soviet regime and left—this Boratyn because the school district needed "a leader for the time voluntarily and forever, rebuilding," really had to call upon all his powers of We should also not forget the elderly people who, when persuasion to get the school district to let him they left, were already past their best years. Realistically speaking, they could no longer figure on a new beginning. Volhynia had become their land of fate. With the resettlement they lost their homeland in the true meaning of the word. My father tried to express his thoughts and feelings in verse. Not that he wanted to be a real poet; he merely found great pleasure when he succeeded strictly as a craftsman in mastering the difficulties of measure and rhyme. May the verses which we have placed at the end of his report be taken this way. Especially in the last verse—or at least I think so—we find something of that tone which we have mentioned above in regard to the elderly: "There I would like to be at home." At that time the elderly lost this "at home." Finally, we shall attempt to answer the question as to how the Volhynians thought they should be resettled. After all, they were not exactly coming with empty hands. Dr. Jorg Wiesner presents a very accurate account of this subject in his study "The Social and Economic Position of the German Farmers in Volhynia, 1919-1939." He determines "That the total value of the agricultural assets of the Germans from Volhynia and Polesye [Pripet Marshes] Josef Weiss spent the last years of his life with his (the settlements belonging, historically speaking, to daughter in Pritzerbe, near Brandenburg, German Volhynia: Author's notes) must have amounted Democratic Republic, where he wrote a short history of the Volhynian Germans, a history of the school district Juljan6w-Boratyn, and his memoirs. He died here in 1978. 15 to 124,193,610.20 zioty." The same writer determines were exceptions) attempted to ease the lot of their that the entire area of land farmed by the Germans Polish neighbors as much as possible, is born witness was 85,602.38 hectare, Weisner further determines, by the visits in the villages in which they temporarily "As was to be expected, the results of the estimates of found refuge during the war, as well as those letters, the Soviet representatives of this commission in spite that are sent there today, and the testimonies of of an increase of about 30 percent were always lower thanks—there are also those—which come from than the actual transitional values and the corrected there. May the names of Marske, Krenz, and Uttich transitional values." Here also was not taken into stand for all in this respect. account the fact that Volhynians were carrying some My father also mentioned this tragic chapter in his millions in cash. Many Volhynians thought, therefore, memoirs. Here are some sentences from them: "We that in the form of an exchange, those Ukrainian did not suspect that Hitler would degrade Poland to a farmers from beyond the demarcation line would be military district (general government) and settle us settled on the German farms in Volhynia. The vacated politically naive, ethnic Germans in the Warthegau farms of the Ukrainians would then be handed over to and would misuse us to rob Polish property. Even at the Poles from the eastern provinces of the German that time I did not believe that this would be the end Empire. The Germans would receive the farms of the [of the matter). Yet, like everybody else, I kept silent Poles. To be sure, the Germans never received any because I was afraid. In the Warthegau I was again a official information on this matter. They realized later teacher. To my satisfaction I found the teacher's that their views on this matter were erroneous. When quarters entirely empty, and I did not appropriate any the Volhynians were settled in the so-called Polish property whatsoever for myself." Warthegau and thereby made into accomplices in May this report of my father be taken as a modest Nazi Germany's megalomaniacal and criminal contribution to that direly needed understanding policies, it was impossible for any individual to offer between peoples. any decisive resistance. The fact that the Volhynians (unfortunately, there INDEX of the farm owners before W.W.I. Juljanow Pawfow Markmillerszczyzna 1. Drews Wilhelm 1. Bolter 1. Abram 2. Doberstein August 2. Weber 2. Kriiger 3. Gellert Wilhelm MieczysTawdw 3. Seide 4. Uttich Friedrich 1. Pries Samuel 4. Weike 5. Fehr Johann 2. Gellert Emil 5. Gellert Rudolf 6. Gellert Julius 3. Sauder Jakob 7. Drews Jakob 4. Lach August Seliszcze Zablotce 5. Gatzke can no longer be reconstructed 1. Hansch Samuel 6. Strohschein Witwe (Widow) 2. Gellert Samuel 7. Strohschein Julius 3. Glasel Gottlieb 8. Gatzke 4. Glasel August Kurhany 5. Glasel Edmund 1. Klisch 6. Hansch Gottlieb 2. Weiss 7. Pohl 3. Malasch 8. Brachmann 4. Klisch Eduard Unfortunately, making up 9. Tonn August 5. Schuiz complete lists was no longer Czarnelozy 6. Kern possible. 1. Doberstein Friedrich 7. Fiedler 2. Doberstein Gottlieb 8. Nehrling 3. Abram Wilhelm 9. Wegner 4. Abram Rudolf 10. Kleindienst 5. Gellert Christoph ? 11. Winkler
16 TWO APOSTLES TO THE RUSSIAN GERMANS Father Christopher L. Zugger The persecutions of Stalinist times devastated the mines, forbidden ever to return home as a resident. clergy serving all religious bodies of the U.S.S.R.; the Known as "Father Sasha," Bishop Chira labored in the German churches suffered tragically. Arrests, executions, mines by day and among Catholic exiles by night. A and deportations nearly wiped out the entire body of Russian German who later immigrated to East Germany German clergy, and the mass deportations of all ethnic wrote that already in 1958 Father Sasha was celebrating Germans placed the few survivors and their flocks in Mass, baptizing, confessing, and marrying people who regions where either there had never been many Christians came from hundreds of kilometers away—all despite steady or where organized Christian life had been crippled or harassment by the secret police. eliminated. As last Bishop of Mukachevo, Bishop Chira had Both Catholics and Protestants have come to rely on faculties to serve both the Latin and Byzantine Rites, and he non-German clergy to serve them, because the few German now used his Latin Rite faculties to serve the Germans as survivors were overwhelmed by the scope of their task. well as exiled Greek Catholics. In 1961 he was released Among those ministering to Catholics were the famous from forced labor; he moved into the home of Alfredo Bishop Alexander Chira (1897-1983) and Father Jozef Hermann on Chapajev Street in Karaganda. Swidnicki, currently in internal exile. Dedicated to his ever-growing German flock, Father Bishop Chira1 was a Ruthenian priest, ordained in Sasha expanded his ministry and was well known among Czechoslovakia in 1920 to serve the Byzantine Catholic the exiles. His humility, pastoral leadership, and great love Diocese of Mukachevo. His homeland and Church came made him a focal point for the whole population. Despite under Soviet occupation in 1944 and under direct Soviet the fact that he was often interrogated, lived on only a small rule in 1945, when Czechoslovakia was forced to cede the pension, and often had to minister under cover of darkness. strategically located province of Subcarpathian Ruthenia to Father Sasha's reputation spread, and the community grew. the U.S.S.R. The Byzantine Catholic Church—or Greek Catholic, as it is known in Europe—was subjected to a slow martyrdom, culminating in two governmental actions which ordered the Church's union with the Russian Orthodox Church—quite literally under the force of the Red Army. The Church in what was formerly Polish Galicia and West Byelorussia was declared dissolved in 1946, and that of Ruthenia in 1949, after the mysterious death of Bishop Theodore Romzha. Sensing that his time was short, Bishop Romzha had secretly consecrated Father Chira as his successor in a darkened chapel in 1947. When Bishop Romzha died in late 1948, Father Chira worked secretly, only to be arrested and charged with the crime of "propagating Catholicism among the faithful," for which he was sentenced to twenty- Bishop Chira and the German choir. This photo, taken in five years at forced labor. His secret role as a bishop was 1971, is courtesy of Father Athanasius Pekar, OSBM. discovered, and he was then charged with treason and deported to work in coal mines near Omsk. Released in the general amnesty of 1956, Bishop Chira In 1977 the 15,000 German Catholics in Karaganda returned to his hometown and worked quietly among the received permission to register as a parish.2 They built their Greek Catholics who refused to attend the Orthodox church in record time with their own resources and with churches. After only three months of freedom, he was "the enthusiasm of the first-century Christians," an rearrested and deported in early 1957 to Kazakhstan's enthusiasm that enabled the elderly bishop to
17 forget his advanced years and that gave him new His funeral was concelebrated by two exiled Byzantine strength. Rite priests and thirteen Latin Rite priests in the presence of Not until the 1980 consecration of the church did a huge crowd of all ages. The parish youth carried his body the astounded people learn that their beloved Father on their shoulders to bury him outside, along the wall of his Sasha was a bishop. Denied the right to function in his beloved church. As a final tribute to him, his memorial native Byzantine Rite or to serve as legal pastor of the stone was inscribed in Old Slavonic, the language of his Karaganda church, he continued to celebrate Mass in native Rite, and German, the language he used so well in the Latin Rite, vested publicly as a bishop. His the service of the Lord. priesthood was so effective that the government The martyrdom of another apostle to the Germans, communicated its alarm at the number of active Father Jozef Swidnicki, continues today.3 A Pole born in children in 1983. the western U.S.S.R. in 1937, Jozef tried for five years to In May 1983 this heroic priest suffered his last enter the seminary but was denied permission to do so by illness. His lungs had been weakened by the years in the government. He was secretly ordained in 1971 and the mines, and on May 17 he again was hospitalized finally granted government recognition in 1975. (One of and quickly slipped into a coma. Had he died in the the many tragedies of Soviet church life is the amount of hospital, he would have been denied a church funeral, control a government of atheists exercises over believers.) so the members of the Hermann family carried him Father Jozef was allowed to work in the Polish parish of home as he was breathing his last; he died in his own Zhitomir in the Ukraine, but after exactly one year of bed on May 26. service, his license was withdrawn because he was too popular with the youth. In the autumn of 1976, he met with Father Michael Kohler, last survivor of the Diocese of Tiraspol still in the U.S.S.R. From that time on, Father Jozef has dedicated himself to the Germans. Beginning on Christmas Eve of 1976, he celebrated Masses in Dushanbe, Tadzhikistan, for the Volga Germans there. Within two years his leadership had inspired the building of two handsome churches in Dushanbe and Kurgan Tyube. Every weekend he celebrated two Masses in Dushanbe, traveled 100 km to celebrate a Mass at Kurgan Tyube, then another 20 km to Vakhsh. In addition, he served four private chapels. This energetic Polish priest heard 2100 confessions at Easter 1979; by 1983 he was spiritual leader of an extensive and dynamic network. Shortly after Bishop Chira's death, Father Jozef was denied permission to work as a priest in Tadzhikistan and was ordered out of the republic. Now, every two months a priest travels 6000 km from Latvia and is allowed to spend ten days serving the communities. But Father Jozef did not despair. He traveled north to Novosibirsk, where Black Sea Germans and others had decided to request state recognition as a parish. Novosibirsk lost its Catholic church in the 1920s: a magnificent building, it had stood on a hill overlooking the city, and so had to come down, as it was considered to be The funeral of Bishop Chira. One Roman-Hite priest is too public. Once again Father Jozef devoted himself to the leading the procession, followed by two exiled German Catholics. He celebrated two Byzantine-Rite priests, ten Roman-Hite priests, the Orthodox Archpriest (in cassock), Father Michael Kohler (in center with a biretta on his head), and FatherJozef Swidnicki. The coffin is being carried by altar boys to the grave at the left of the picture, near the church wall. The crowd was so large that people had to stand during the Mass because there were not enough seats. Photo courtesy of Father Athanasius Pekar, OSBM.
18 Masses every Sunday in the new chapel and then flew three his son could be such a man as this priest. times monthly to Tomsk to celebrate Mass for Germans and Father Swidnicki was released prior to the expiration of other exiles there. his prison term and is currently in internal exile, i.e., he is Unexplained robberies and police surveillance meant registered in a particular village and must report on a that his work was too effective; on December 19,1984, the regular basis to the local authorities. Upon completion of police arrested him in the midst of the 9 a.m. Sunday Mass. this term, he will then have to find a place in which to live Denied legal aid and thrown into an unheated cell when it and work. Where he will go is an open question: was -50°C outside, the priest went on a hunger strike and there are approximately forty-five newly registered Roman was force-fed. His trial began on April 10, 1985. It was Catholic parishes in Soviet Central Asia and Siberia, many delayed, because Catholics came to the courtroom, and the of which presumably would be in need of a priest. authorities said "only decent Soviet citizens" could come in. However, the question will be whether or not the local His lawyer was conveniently removed from the case by sud- authorities will permit a parish to employ a newly released denly being given permission to receive health care denied priest. It is there, in the towns and villages, that the her for years. False witnesses known to be police agents effectiveness of glasnost will be realized, since the limits of testified against Father Jozef without shame. The German glasnost in regards to organized religion are vague at the Catholics called to testify fell on their knees crying out, moment, "Praised be Jesus Christ!" and asked the priest's blessing, Neither of these men is an ethnic German. Indeed, They were dragged away. On May 17, the court passed Father Jozef Swidnicki comes from a nationality and region judgment. For the first time in the history of Novosibirsk, a that suffered much at the hands of the German Reich demonstration was held outside the court by a crowd of five officials during World War II. Yet, both devoted hundred people from all religious groups. Father Jozef was themselves absolutely to the long-suffering, Russian- sentenced to three years in prison for instructing children German exiles. The plight of Father Jozef is eloquent under the age of eighteen, lending religious books, and testimony to the risks run by believers in the modern mocking the Soviet flag. The jailer is recorded as having U.S.S.R. The Communist party remains determined to wipe said that he wished out religion, failing to see, as Archbishop Coggan of Canterbury once said, that "You cannot kill the Spirit of the Lord." Christianity remains very much alive, and the Russian Germans continue to adhere faithfully, patiently, and with conviction, trusting in the Lord and praying for relief. In a more positive note, the church of Krasnoyarsk now (1987) has a priest accepted by the government. Thus, this famous, priestess parish is at last functioning as a full Catholic parish after a thirty-year struggle.
Notes
1. Information on Bishop Chira is from Rev. Athanasius Pekar, OSBM, You Shall Be My Witnesses (Pittsburg: Byzantine Seminary Press, 1985), pp. 41-47, and articles published by Father Pekar in The Byzantine Catholic World, June 13, 1983; June 3,1984; December 29, 1985; and September 7, 1986. Father Pekar also cites Kirchen zerstort, aber die Kirche lebt, published by the West German Bishops' Conference. 2. For additional information about the Roman-Catholic Church in Karaganda see my article "The Roman- Catholic Germans of the U.S.S.R.: 1917-1986" in Journal of the American Historical Society of Germans From Russia, vol. 10, no. 1 (Spring 1987), pp. 41-47. 3. Information on Father Swidnicki is from Keston News FatherJosefSwidnicki on the right with Father Michael Service, May 15, 1986, pp. 14-15. Kohler. Photo courtesy of Keston College.
19
20 GERMAN IMMIGRATION TO THE AUSTRIAN EMPIRE IN THE 1770s AND 1780s Imrgard Hein Ellingson 1987 marks the two hundredth anniversary of German Protestants thereby felt encouraged to immigrate to Austria. settlement in Bukovina. This occasion was celebrated at the A Patent of Settlement published by Joseph II in 1782 June 7-8 annual meeting of the Landsmannschaft der was even more inviting to potential immigrants. Included in Buchen-landdeutschen (Bukowina) e.V., held in Augsburg, its terms were free transportation from Vienna to a point of West Germany. destination in Bukovina; a house with a garden, field, and 1987 marks another anniversary. One hundred years draft animals; exemption from taxation for the first ten ago the first Swabian Lutherans from Illischestie and years and from military service for the eldest sons of the Tereblestie, Bukovina, immigrated to the United States and family. Joseph's guarantees of "complete freedom of settled in Ellis, Trego, and Rooks Counties, Kansas. They conscience and of religion" attracted to the Austrian empire were joined there by Bohemian Catholics from Furstental settlers who might otherwise have gone to Prussia or and Poiana-Mikuli (Buchenhain), Bukovina. Ellis and Russia. Trego Counties are familiar to many AHSGR members, as Many felt that life in the eastern and southern regions of these counties are the homes of many Lutheran- and the Austrian empire would be better than that in the war- Catholic-Volga Germans. torn German duchies and principalities, where in some In the 1770s the reigning monarchs of Austria, Prussia, places serfdom continued to exist until the 1790s. A person and Russia were actively seeking colonists to settle upon wishing to emigrate had to pay 10 percent of his assessed the frontiers of their respective empires with the worth plus an additional 2 percent to compensate the state expectations that colonists would assist in developing for its loss of tax revenues. He had to be able to finance his agricultural economies and in protecting national journey and that of his family from his point of departure to boundaries in time of invasion or war. Vienna and be able to pay for incidental expenses 4 Maria Theresa ruled Austria from 1740-1780 and her throughout the entire two- or three-month trip. The successor, Joseph II, from 1780-1790. Their reigns mark obstacles to emigration had begun to be placed in the the beginning of an end to persecutions, deportations, and 1750s, when the depopulation of Germany had became so suppression of non-Catholics within their empire.1 The em- great that rulers such as Kurfurst Karl Theodor of the 5 pire's territory was expanded under Hapsburg rule to Palatinate passed edicts against emigration. In spite of include Bachka; the Banat of Temesvar; further prohibitive edicts, people continued to find ways to Galicia, which had been obtained in 1771 in the first leave their homelands. Books of church records prepared in partition of Poland; and Upper Moldavia, which Austria Kaiserslautern during these years repeatedly carry the occupied in 1774 and which was later renamed Bukovina notation, "Er ist in das neue Land gegangen," or "He has (''beech-land"). The newly acquired lands were settled by gone to the new land" beside a name. It is estimated that German farmers and others who were encouraged to come over 29,000 people left Speyer between 1783 and 1785 to to the Austrian empire. colonize eastern Austrian provinces with the 6 Joseph II issued a Patent of Toleration in 1781. The encouragement of the Austrian emperor. patent granted to non-Catholics the "private exercise" of Thousands of people converged on Ulm and their religion without granting true confessional equality .2 Regensburg in southern Germany, and from there they and Groups of one hundred families or five hundred persons their possessions were transported on the Danube River on were allowed by this patent to build their own churches and large rafts, which could hold up to five hundred persons, to schoolhouses, although these structures were subject to Vienna.^ The journey by raft took seven days. Emigrants some restrictions, and to call pastors and teachers to serve from Germany who preferred an overland route either made them with the qualification that all official acts were to be their way beside the Danube River to Vienna, or traveled reported and payment made to the Catholic priest of the through Frankfurt on the Main and Prague to Mahrisch- parish. Thousands of people in the empire announced Neustadt and thus to Lemberg, bypassing Vienna. Once in themselves as being Lutheran when this patent was Vienna, all who wished to settle on "Austrian land in the announced, and German east" were required 21 to register in order to receive a Hofpass, or passport, certain exceptions. Even before his death in 1790, for seven to ten more days of travel to Biala by way Joseph II had rescinded many of his reforms, of Einwanderungsagenturen, or passport check including his plans for the colonization of Galicia and stations, in Olmuetz, Mahrisch-Neustadt, Teschen, Bukovina. In the years which followed his death, his and Bielitz. Germans who originated "in das Polland" successors were too conservative to reinstitute (Prussian Poland) journeyed either through government-financed immigration, and the French Jagerndorf and Troppau to Biala or from Warsaw Revolutionary Wars were of more pressing concern to through Zamosc.8 them. Any Germans arriving after Joseph II rescinded Wherever the immigrants traveled, government his programs received no special privileges and had to officials prepared extensive registration or rely on their own limited resources and ingenuity for immigration lists which were forwarded to Lemberg, survival.13 where some waited for as long as two or three years Notes to be directed to places of settlement.^ So many German colonists came to Galicia that colonization 1. Julius Bodensieck, ed., The Encyclopedia of the offices in such places as Czernowitz (the capital of Lutheran Church (Minneapolis, MN; Augsburg Publishing Bukovina), Lemberg, and Prague were overwhelmed House, 1965), p. 155. and unable to process the settlers. A large portion of 2. Ibid., p. 156. these settlers had to be housed and fed at government 3. Sophie Welisch, "The Bukovina-Germans During the expense in renovated monasteries. In spite of Hapsburg Period: Settlement, Ethnic Interaction, government orders in 1782 that the settlement of a Contributions," Eastern European Quarterly, vol. 5, no. 1 portion of them in Bukovina be expedited during (London: Frank Cass and Company Ltd., March 1986), p. August and September, the military governor of 76. Bukovina oppressed their settlement on the grounds 4. Ibid., p. 77. that the province was intended to be a military border 5. Daniel Haberle, Auswanderung und Kolonie-grundungen land. The colonists therefore spent the winter in der Pfalzer {Kaiser slautern: Verlag der kgl. bay. Lemberg. Hofbuchdruckerei H. Kaiser, 1909), p. 7. 6. Ibid. Joseph II took a personal interest in the case. He came 1. Michael Bresser, The Danube Swabians: Biography of a to Bukovina for the first time in 1783; People from Inception to Dispersal (Philadelphia, PA: there he expressed the desire that the region's The Danube Swabian Association, n.d.), p. 4. populace be increased through colonization. Un- 8. Johann Christian Dressier, Chronik der Bukowiner fortunately for the would-be immigrants, his wishes Landgemeinde Illischestie (Freilass-ing m Bayern: were ignored. Three years later he made a second trip Pannonia-Verlag, 1960), p. 272. to Bukovina and issued an edict on August 6> 1786, 9. The original lists, which give the names and birthplaces that there was to be preparation for an enormous of immigrant family members, the dates of their settlement on the land by immigrants who had not registrations for settlement, places of settlement, and been able to obtain farms in Galicia, but who were items with which the settlers were furnished by the now to take homes and land which had been government, are part of the Hofkammer-Archiv in abandoned by Moldavians at the time of the Austrian Vienna. However, m the permanent collection of the occupation. This settlement of German farmers in AHSGR archives are two books which have organized Bukovina then began in 1787, after Galicia and the data. These are Ludwig Schneider's book Das Bukovina had been joined for administrative purposes 11 Kolonisationswerk Josefs II, in Galisien (Leipzig: by the government. Verlag von S. Hirzel, 1939) and Dr. Franz Wilhelm In 1787 the first seventy-five German Swabian and Dr. Josef Kallbrunner's book Quellen zur families who settled in Bukovina under the deutschen Siedlungsgesckichte in Sudeuropa (Munich: sponsorship of the Austrian government arrived in Verlag von Ernst Rein-hardt, n.d.). Both are excellent Czernowitz and were directed from there to sources for historical and genealogical material Kuczurmare and then to Fratautz. They received concerning ancestors who settled in Galicia, Bukovina, twelve hectares of land free from any feudal the Banat, Siebenbiirgen, and other former regions in obligations, wooden frame houses, barns, livestock, 12 fche Austrian empire, as the books contain farm implements, and advances on grain seed. They alphabetized lists of emigrants, chronological lists, and were later joined in Bukovina by other Swabians, by maps. German Bohemians, and by Zipsers (or Saxons) from 10. Johann Christian Dressier, Chronik der Bukowiner Upper Hungary. Landgemeinde Illischestie, p. 244. Government recruitment of settlers from outside 11. Ibid. the Austrian empire ended in 1787—with 12. Welisch, "The Bukovina-Germans During the Hapsburg Period," p. 77. 13. Ibid. 22 THE GIFT OF HEALING Audre Emma Ganske Patel Emma Gross was born in the western part of Russia, in One of Emma's older sisters, Mina, married a man Volhynia (probably Rozyszcze), on June 7,1888. Her named Julius Nedjelski. He was an officer in the czar's army parents were Christ Gross and Wilhelmina, nee Wilde, both and was a very handsome man, with his mustache and his descendants of Germans who had left their country many epaulets. He had to have a horse with him at all times so years earlier to establish colonies in Russia. There were six that he was always prepared to go when the call came. In children in the family, four sisters and two brothers. Emma 1904 he and his troops suffered a bitter defeat fighting was the second-youngest child. The brothers left home in against the Japanese in Siberia in the order to escape conscription into the Russian army. They middle of winter. When he finally straggled back across went either to Brazil or Argentina. They wrote a few letters Russia and home to Volhynia, dirty and unkempt, he home, and then the family never heard from them again. frightened his young wife, who sicced the dogs on him until Most of the farm work was done by the girls. Life was he called out, "Mina, Mina, it's me." hard, but Emma had many happy memories—as well as a Later, Nedjelski and Mina immigrated to America and few sad ones—of her childhood. She loved animals. She settled first in Milwaukee, then Fond du Lac, and finally in said that in Russia the lambs would come inside and jump Racine, Wisconsin. The glory of the czar's army was gone; around the earthen floor of their one-room mud house. The children growing up there saw him as a man who was al- children always had much fun jumping and playing with the ways smoking his corncob pipe, holding it with a hand lambs, until their mother got angry and chased both lambs crippled from some accident when he worked on the and children back outside. Sometimes they did get mites railroad. He was constantly pacing the floor, because he from the animals; then they had to sleep on the straw in could never just sit still. He was very good with children, front of the fireplace. and everyone liked him. Emma loved the horses most of all. She was the one Emma's youngest sister, Bertha, married Julius Netz; who had to do most of the field work with the horses, they also immigrated to America and settled in Milwaukee. because she had the most knack for it. Years later she When she was twenty-three, Emma married Johann Jaeger, would tell her own children that, after the day's work was who was two years younger than she. Johann was also born over and the horses unhitched, she would ride them back to in Volhynia (probably Rozyszcze), on October 2,1890. the barn "like the wind." She was never afraid, and the Nobody seems to know who his parents were, possibly faster they ran, the better she liked it. One time their Hengst because he was orphaned at the age of three or four. At a [stallion] started to fight with the other horse in harness. tender age he was put out to work as a herdsman for the Emma tried to stop them. The stallion's razor-sharp hoof cut livestock of the whole village. Different villagers took turns her thigh open, and she bled a lot. For the rest of her life, feeding him as he cared for their animals. Johann loved she carried a scar more than ten inches long from her knee animals just as much as Emma did. His life, however, was to her hip. probably somewhat harder than hers. Due to not having a One of the more frightening memories that Emma had family, he never received any education. Emma had learned was of the Cossacks riding through their village. She said to read and write in German. Johann could do neither, and that if they were in a good mood, they just struck the people he always signed his name by making an "X." He did have a with the flat of the sabre; when they were drunk, they used great ability for learning to speak different languages. He the sharp edge. spoke Polish as fluently as German—also Russian, Latvian, For some reason Emma lost her eyesight when she was Lithuanian, Yiddish, and several others. a very young girl. She was terribly frightened. Eventually, The only thing anyone ever heard about Johann's family however, everyone became resigned to her blindness. One is that he had a brother who was so jealous of him, that on day a terrible thunderstorm occurred. It was the worst Johann's wedding day he cut all the buttons off his wedding thunderstorm she had ever experienced; when it was over, coat. The poor bride, Emma, had to sew them all back on she had regained her sight. before the wedding. Emma always spoke of her
23 brother-in-law with contempt. This was very unusual and her child together. As she struggled with her for her, because she had a loving nature. The wedding bulky featherbed, some young men came along and took place on October 19, 1911. picked up both the featherbed and the girl. Emma In the autumn of the following year, Emma was feared she would never see Wanda or the featherbed expecting their first child. They had moved to a again. She soon realized, however, that the men were "duplex," where they had one room; the room on the trying to help her, and she was very grateful to them. other side was occupied by two young men. Johann Johann, Emma, and Wanda were soon together in now worked as a farmhand miles from where they their new home in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. When lived, and he was often gone days at a time. Emma winter came Emma was glad that she had brought her was worried that he would not be home for the birth featherbed and also her big, woolen shawl, which she of their child. As her time drew near, she would spend wore for many years. hours in front of the window watching and waiting for him. Finally, she heard dogs barking and knew he had arrived. Their first daughter, Wanda, was born on November 4, 1912. Emma's father Christ died when Wanda was very small. He was not yet very old, and everyone remembered him as a kind and gentle man. Emma loved her father very much. Some time after that, Johann and Emma began to talk about going to America. They made their decision quickly; in fact, they decided everything in less than a month. Emma said it was a big chance to take, but they didn't want to miss taking it. Johann went first. Emma and Wanda had moved back to the farm. A contractor named John Tudor sponsored Johann and sent him the money to make the trip. Johann went to Milwaukee and worked very hard to make enough money to send back to Russia so that his wife and daughter could join him in the new land. They didn't come and didn't come, and Johann was worried. It seems that Emma's mother and the one sister still in Russia didn't want her and little Wanda to go. They made some excuses about needing the money for other things, and kindhearted Emma let them take it. Then Emma had to find another way of getting the money. Finally, she sold some of the live- stock, Johann had sent them enough money for first- class tickets. However, Emma couldn't make that much, so they finally had to go second class. There is a story told in the family that Wanda almost fell overboard on the way to New York. They were on the S.S, Kronprinzessin Cecilie. Emma felt very sick on the ship, partly from all her vaccinations Emma Gross Jaeger is seated and holding the baby, and partly from the sea. Wanda was a very cute little Albert, on her lap. Johann Jaeger is standing behind girl with long, blonde hair; their two daughters: Elsie is on the left and Wanda on other women on the ship enjoyed taking turns caring the right. This photo was taken about 1917. for her and giving her little things to eat. They finally arrived in the United States in July 1914. [This ship Life was also somewhat difficult in Milwaukee, arrived in New York on both July 2 and July 22, and they had to work hard to support their growing 1914.1 family. Over the years six more children were born to Emma was still weak from her illness and was them. They were named Elsie, Albert, Rudolph, having a hard time keeping her few possessions Oswald Frederick—who prefers to be called Fritz— Walter, and Helen. Emma did whatever she could to improve things, including
24 doing housework for the wealthier friends. In later life she didn't catch anything. Johann would get so angry, "He worked at the A&P Store and even sewed cocoa mats for would start swearing and throw the poles in the water. Then porches and, doorways. She missed the country and all the we had to buy new poles the next time." But when they did animals, but she always said she'd rather be here, because catch fish, they would feast on carp, bluegill, red horse, the poor in America could live better than the high middle silver bass, rock bass, suckers, shiners, and bullheads. They class over there. Even during the Depression she was able also used to buy bags of day-old bakery for 15 cents a to say, "In America, we live like royalty." They lived in pound from a baker on Vliet Street, Thus, with day-old several different houses in Milwaukee, but wherever they bakery bread, fresh fish, and vegetables from the garden, went, they were always helping others, just as others they were able to make a good life for themselves. sometimes helped them in special ways. They were Emma. too, felt great concern for all the horses that especially impressed by the kindness of their Jewish came into the neighborhood. In spite of having so much to landlord, a man named Rotter, who gave them a whole keep her busy, she was often seen carrying a bucket of month rent free as a Christmas present. Johann loved to water from the house to refresh one of the poor animals she garden, and he could often be found with his hands in the had seen on the street. Although she did not scold like soil. He seemed an expert at "making things grow"; Johann, she also made people think about treating all God's at most of his homes, he raised vegetables, a hops vine, and creatures with kindness. flowers that everyone stopped to admire. His ability with Emma was the religious influence in the family. languages came to good use many times. Whenever non- Although her eyes were quite bad, she would read the German-speaking immigrants arrived, they were brought to German Bible every Sunday by putting her finger under him for help. every word. She probably would have liked to do more Johann was a strict disciplinarian with his children, and reading during the week, but tending to seven children, he was known to lose his temper at times. He was also very carrying out all her other duties, and then giving assistance congenial and outgoing and a great socializer, and he had to whoever needed it, left very little time. Sunday, however, many friends. It is said he knew everyone from 21st to 27th was sacred. Emma and the family were Lutheran, but Street. His great love and concern for animals continued, Emma had a great respect for all religions, and she although he no longer had any to care for in the "big city." especially admired the Jews and the Catholics. She even The vendors, ragmen, and others with horse-drawn wagons, observed the Sabbath "in a Hebrew manner" by beginning soon learned that they couldn't come into the Jaeger her observance of it at sundown on Saturday. On many neighborhood unless their horses were in good shape. nights, when the children were awakened by storms, they Johann would scold them (in just about any language found her already awake. Emma never went to bed during except English) if he thought they weren't feeding or bad weather. She always sat in the kitchen with her Bible, treating their horses properly. He really gave it in Yiddish reading and praying. to a certain Jewish man who didn't show up again for a She soon had a reputation in her Milwaukee long time. When the man finally did come back, his horse neighborhood as a healer. This was something she had seemed 150 pounds heavier. started doing in Russia. People—mostly German—came to Johann also enjoyed fishing in Estebrook Park and often her with all kinds of pains and problems. Many were took one of his sons with him. It was not only fun but also friends and acquaintances, but some were strangers, who provided some food for the family. Rudy remembers being had been told about her by others. She would pray silently, scared as they cut through the cemetery before dawn to make a sign over the head of the suffering person, and then reach the Blue Hole. Later, they would bring home a wet move her hands over the areas that needed healing. Her gunnysack of twenty-five or thirty fish. Emma would bread children remember particularly those who had boils or and bake them for supper, and some of the boys looked carbuncles when they arrived and left within an hour forward to eating the leftovers for breakfast. Johann felt it without a mark on them. She helped many people but was was cruel to use a live worm for bait, so he always smacked unable to help her own family members when they were ill. them on the ground to stun them before putting them on the It was something she had to do for others, not her own. hook. This, he thought, was more humane. Even though Emma could have used some extra money His third son, Fritz, remembers the days they for her family, she never took a cent for all the healings she did. This was partly
25 because of her kind, generous nature and her desire to spent much time loading and unloading bricks in a help; it was also due to her belief that the healing brickyard. He used tongs to move many heavy bricks at one power was a special gift from God which would be time. His hands became very calloused and leathery. On lost if she ever accepted money for it. This special gift January 26,1935, at the age of 44, Johann Jaeger died of was supposed to be handed down to one of her bronchial pneumonia. One of the things he was most proud children, preferably the eldest. Emma said she could of at the time of his death was that he had finally learned to not pass it on to a female, she had to pass it to a male, sign his name; his good wife Emma had patiently taught or it wouldn't work. Her two older children were him. Wanda and Elsie, so they could not have it. The oldest Emma became ill with cancer but suffered quietly. She boy was Albert, but Albert was not interested in told everyone that a Christian doesn't look for a quick learning how to heal people. Albert wanted to fight death; rather a long, slow one gives ample time to gather against Evil. He was interested in guns; he loved the family about oneself and to make sure everything is in playing war and dreamed of becoming a soldier when order. Perhaps she thought some more about passing the he grew up. healing gift to one of her sons. Albert was definitely not interested, however; Rudy liked to spend time listening to her stories of Russia, but when the subject turned to healing, he, too, seemed to have more important things to do. Fritz was a busy fourteen-year-old, and Wally was an equally busy boy of eleven. Anyway, the pastor of their church had disapproved of her healings. He said it was wrong, and she shouldn't do it. That hadn't stopped her though, because she believed so strongly that God wanted her to do it. The pastor just didn't understand where it was coming from. On March 9, 1938, Emma died without ever passing on her gift. Later, her children said that even if they had been interested, it could not have come to them. They believed it could only come to someone very special, someone pure in heart, someone like their kind and loving mother or her gentle father, Christ Gross, who had taught it to her in Russia many years ago. At the time of Emma's death, only the two older girls were married. On December 29,1934, Wanda had married Rudolf Ganske, a Canadian from Manitoba, whose family were also Germans from Russia. Elsie had married Robert Grunert on June 1,1935. These two young couples would have to help care for the younger Jaeger children. Helen was only seven years old at the time of her mother's death. Albert, the boy who liked guns, was twenty-one when Emma died. He later married Florence Keene and had three children. However, he never saw his youngest child, a son named Randy. Albert had achieved his dream of being a soldier just in time for World War II. He was killed in France on June 17, 1944, a few days after the invasion of
Normandy. The young man who could have had the gift of Albert Jaeger, the oldest son of Johann and Emma healing, chose instead to take up weapons and fight as his Gross Jaeger, who had a chance to acquire the gift of way of giving help to a troubled world. healing. Johann had a variety of jobs during his life in Milwaukee. He worked in the foundry for some time. Due to a lung condition he had already developed in Russia, he was advised to do outside work. This caused some employment problems, because so much of the work was seasonal. The outside work was also not that healthy. He
26 HISTORY OF THE EBENFELD PUBLIC SCHOOL IN MARION COUNTY, KANSAS Solomon L. Loewen Ebenfeld is one of the first public schools that played an position. Toews points out that the community and the important role in Americanizing the Russian-German- teacher determined the character of the school.2 Neither the Mennonite immigrants right from the beginning of their state nor any Mennonite colony in Russia established a arrival in the 1870s and 1880s. When the Mennonites school system until near the end of the first half of the nine- settled in this district, the school board members and the teenth century. It was in 1834 that Johann Cornies teachers were English-speaking Americans. Within ten organized the Society for Christian Edu-cation.3 He years the entire school board was made up of German- developed six school districts in the Molochna colony that speaking Mennonites; the last English-speaking member to had as their aim: 1) improved school buildings; 2) dismissal serve on the board completed his term in 1894, twenty of incompetent teachers; and 3) regular attendance. He years from the time the first Russian-German Mennonites wrote and distributed a paper entitled "General Rules came to America. For sixty-five years after this, only Concerning Instruction and Treatment of Children." The Russian-German immigrants or their descendants were curriculum at first consisted of teaching the catechism and elected to the Ebenfeld school board. Within thirteen years New and Old Testaments—determined by the age of the the first Russian-German immigrant served as teacher pupil—and writing German and Latin script. Boys had (teaching in English), and the last non-German-speaking arithmetic, which was considered useless for girls. Reading teacher taught 1908-09. For the next— and last—fifty years was very mechanical and done in a monotone, two to three of the school, only Mennonite teachers were hired—with minutes per day. Towards the end of the premigratory one exception. period (mid-seventies) and later, there appeared some well- When people migrate from one country to another, they trained teachers, well motivated and innovative. Teeuwen take with them much of the culture that has become a part describes the type of education in German villages in of them in the old country. Most of the German emigrants Russia as well as the parochial schools in America. He says from South Russia were agriculturists. Their first priority in that public education in Russia was primitive when the new country was to become established on farms. They compared with the one-room elementary education in also had a strong religious heritage; the Bible and the frontier America.4 school played important roles in their daily lives. When the The Mennonite Villages of Gnadenau, Hoffnungstal, Mennonites came to this country, most of the adults and and Alexanderfeld in Marion County, Kansas, were settled older children could read and write the German language. in the manner of the villages in Russia. The settlers In Russia the Mennonite villages had their own schools, developed their own village schools, as had been the which were at first totally controlled and operated by the custom in the old country; they did not send their children church. At first, physical facilities for formal education to the free public schools that had already been established. were very meager, as were the curriculum, teacher training, The first winter after the immigrants arrived (1874), and financial support. Kroeker says schools were "austere Gnadenau built a sod schoolhouse.5 This lasted less than places into which pupils were put at the mercy of the two years; teacher.'11 He further states, "There was little demand for then the dirt walls caved in, and classes had to be moved to much learning," and "A schoolroom was always a noisy a private home for a year or two. A few years later two place with a drone of voices that went all day." The schools were built of lumber. One was at the east end and prevailing philosophy was "Spare the rod and spoil the one at the west end of the village. Several good teachers child," and any success of pupils learning something was were available among the immigrants, men who had had often more "in spite of" than "because of" the teacher. schoolroom experience in Russia. Classes were conducted Teachers were often men who had no other job, were in a similar manner to those in Russia. By 1898, forty-two poorly paid, and had had no training beyond what they privately supported elementary schools were operated in the •learned when they were in the village school. This was Kansas Mennonite settlements. After a few years some of more of a supervisory job than a teaching the Gnadenauers began to send their children to the public school. At first, the
27 immigrants had been somewhat suspicious of the "English" a half mile north of Ebenfeld School District #20. Here all public schools here in America. German was used in the of his children went to school; here he served on the board private village school, as well as in church, and the Bible for a number of years. was the main textbook. The Kansas school statutes per- During the first decade or two after the first Mennonite mitted this at that time. The Gnadenau School later became settlers from Russia had bought their farms in this School District #11 in Marion County. community, a number of their countrymen followed, Some Mennonite families, who came about the same including my other grandparents, Heinrich and Justina time as the Gnadenau people but on a different ship, Leppke. They came with ten children in 1875; six of the bought land and settled outside the village confines. Farms children were fifteen years or younger and attended the were purchased from earlier settlers, mostly Civil War Ebenfeld School. They homesteaded an eighty-acre farm in veterans who had homesteaded in the area, or from the section 24, Liberty Township, just across the road from the Santa Fe Railroad. This land was a few miles southeast of farm father bought a few years later. My mother was older; the Gnadenau village. Their children attended the English- she never learned to speak or read English and understood language public school right from the beginning, either in it poorly. Her youngest brother, Jacob H. Leppke, only district #18 or #20. These districts had been organized in three when they arrived, was the first Ebenfeld School 1871 and 1872, respectively, and later came to be known as product who later received a teacher's certificate. He came the Finch and Ebenfeld Schools. The latter was also called back to teach in his home school twenty-five years later. the Fairview School at one time. During the first year The adjustment and adaptation of these new German classes in district #20 were held in John Risley's home on immigrants to the new American school system and section 12; Isaac Risley was the teacher. He received $25 language was rapid and complete. By 1880 two of the new per month plus $5 for rent. The school term was three immigrants were elected to the school board; since 1894 months, and the total for operating expenses for the year only Russian-German immigrants or their descendants amounted to $100. For the second year, 1873, a small served on the school board until the school closed in 1960. schoolhouse, 18 by 24 feet, was built near the center of the The first two elected were Abraham Cornelsen, a minister- district on the northeast corner of section 26, Liberty farmer as clerk, and Peter Loewen, my uncle, as treasurer. Township. This district consisted at that time of sections By 1885 all three board members were Mennonite 23, 24, 25, 26, 35, and 36. This new location was two and a immigrants. Later, Francis M. Gard, a Civil War veteran half miles south of where the Gnadenau village was and our neighbor, served his last term from 1892 to 1894. established near the Risley residence in 1874. The 1885 He was the last of the English-speaking Americans to Marion County atlas shows the school on the northwest serve. An Anderson family was the only other "English" corner of section 25. This is in error, for the Ebenfeld family residing in the district at that time. Mennonite Brethren Church was built on this corner in The first schoolhouse built in 1873 cost approximately 1883. The school was just across the road from the church. $300 and measured 18 by 24 feet. In order to accommodate My grandparents bought a farm in Wilson Township the tremendous increase of pupil population, this was one mile east and a half mile south of the Gnadenau replaced in 1888 by a building 24 by 36 feet. The initial village, in Finch School District #18, where father's cost of this building was $790; it was the one in which I younger brother and sister attended. Father enrolled also as attended school. This building was moved from the a teenager of nineteen, but attended only one month, think- premises in 1927, a year after a new brick building was ing he could learn the language by himself. He must have erected at a cost of a little over $5,800. It provided some found elementary school very frustrating and modern and more adequate facilities. This building served unchallenging, inasmuch as he had had a good basic the district until 1960, when the school was consolidated education in Russia—even though it was in German. In with district #410 of Hillsboro. The school property was addition to Low German and High German, he spoke some sold to the Ebenfeld Mennonite Brethren Church across the Russian. He did learn English quite well, as testified by the road for $1.00. It is used by the church for Sunday School, written reports as school board clerk, an office he filled for youth activities, family gatherings, and other social a number of years. However, he never spoke English activities. fluently. Shortly after he got married, he bought a farm a The school operated for eighty-eight years, from 1872 mile east and when it had eleven pupils to the end
28
This wooden schoolhouse was constructed in 1888. The exact date of this picture is not known, but it is prior to 1927, when this building was removed from the premises. The "school mascot" pictured here brought the Gaede children to school. of the 1959-60 school year with fifteen pupils. The first winter months when farm work was not so pressing and year had the lowest enrollment. The largest enrollment when there was not much else to do at home. Another came only twenty-one years later, when a total of seventy- reason for the high irregularity in school was the large one pupils registered. By the 1949-50 school year, ten years turnover of settlers in the community. New immigrants before it closed, the enrollment had dropped to twelve would arrive anytime during the year, and this brought pupils, one more than the first year. Up to the year 1906-07, about a saturation point of settlers in the community; the average daily attendance for each year was only 63 some then soon looked for other areas of settlement. Thus percent of the enrollment; after that date daily attendance some pupils would start anytime during the school year or came much closer to the total enrollment and was 88 leave when the parents relocated. In the early 1890s, when percent. All these years there was only one teacher for each Oklahoma opened up for homesteaders, many left Kansas school year, regardless of the total pupil enrollment. for such places as Weatherford, Fairview, and Enid, The main reason for a low average daily attendance Oklahoma. In these areas are now well-established during the early years was the fact that the new settlers Mennonite Brethren congregations, many of whose early needed the older children on the farm in late fall and early members had a brief sojourn in the Ebenfeld community. spring in order to become established economically in this Ebenfeld was a stepping stone for many of the Mennonite new land. The boys and girls would go to school to a much Brethren who were among the eight thousand or more older age, when they had time, in order to learn the new Russian-German-Mennonite immigrants who came by way language, but their attendance was irregular. It was not of the Santa Fe and landed in Peabody, Kansas. The uncommon to have -pupils eighteen to twenty or twenty- children of these transient settlers had an interrupted school one years old in school. They would go to school during the attendance. The early Mennonite immigrants often had large families, from eight to fifteen children. I
29
Ebenfeld School District #20, Marion County, Kansas, 1914-1915
1. Jake Hagen 22. Juatina Leppke (Mrs. Sam Vogt) 2. Harry Eitzen 23. Bertha Leppke (Mrs. Herb Leidahl) 3. Leslie Nikkel 24. Helen Foth (Mrs. Herman Reddig) 26. 4. John WaU Edna Foth (Mrs. Harry Goossen) 5. Albert Wall 26. Esther Leppke (Mrs. Ben Funk) 6. Don Foth 27. Helen Eitzen (Mrs. Sam Seibel) 7. Leo Nikkel 28. A. C. Eitzen (teacher) 8. Tom Eitzen 29. Abe B. Eitzen 9. Henry Foth 30. Solomon L. Loewen 10. Arnold Leppke 31. Menno S. Gaede 11. Martha Gaede (Mrs. Oliver Lingo) 32. Adolph Foth 12. Agnes Seibel (Mrs. Pete Just) 33. Sam Seibel 13. Clara Leppke (Mrs. Frank C. Bass) 34. Tom Hagen 14. Anna Suderman (Mrs. Herman Siemens) 16. 35. Albert Leppke Esther Gaede (Mrs. Henry Lepp) 36. Mrs. Isaac Leppke 16. Alma Suderman (Mrs. Alfred Jost) 37. Mrs. Abr. Gaede 17. Sarah Seibel (Mrs. Herb Friesen) 38. Mrs. Jacob Loewen 18. Margaret WaU (Mrs, Albert Klein) 39. Andrew Foth 19. Edna Gaede (Mrs. Henry Penner) 40. Isaac Leppke 20. Leona Gaede (Mrs, Dan L, Loewen) 41. Abraham Gaede 21. Louise Seibel (Mrs. Ernest Suderman) 42. Jacob Loewen
30 came from a family of fourteen and was the youngest. Some foreign immigrants, who came to a strange land of new years our family supplied up to ten percent or more of the customs and a new language. They adapted well and total Ebenfeld school population, even in the years when the became good American citizens in a land that has been enrollments were high. As many as seven or eight were in good to them and that they have learned to love. school at one time. However, when work on the farm was The length of the school term was somewhat irregular pressing, someone had to stay home and work. I can during the first few decades. In 1874 the Kansas Legislature remember my earlier years when some of the older boys in enacted a law requiring attendance of all children between school, who were in their upper teens, got permission to cut five and fourteen, with some exceptions, for a period of six the row of hedge apple trees (osage orange) that surrounded consecutive weeks and a total of twelve weeks per year.8 the school yard. They did this during recess instead of The first year of its existence, Ebenfeld School was in playing ball. This gave them good exercise, and the school session for three months, as it was in 1882-83. For 1877-78 got a new open view of the surroundings. The school the record shows a nine-month term, which was rather benefited by getting a good pile of firewood for the winter unusual for that time period. Between 1878 and 1902 the and some money from the fence posts, which they had cut sessions lasted for four months, two years, then five and sold for a good price. The money was used to purchase months, and then six months. In 1902-03 school was in some much-needed playground equipment for the school. session only about two and a half months, with two teachers The total number of pupils for the seventy-seven years listed for the year. Apparently one took ill and another one for which records are available is 3001, 1699 boys and 1302 followed, each teaching only five or six weeks. From 1903 girls. The preponderance of boys over girls, 56.6 percent to to 1915 school sessions were five months; the next three 43.4 percent, was in some years almost three to one. In the years they were six months, then for four years, seven years when there were more girls than boys, the difference months; from 1922 to the end of the school's existence in was never great. Teachers during the first several years 1960, the term was eight months. were, of course, English-speaking Americans. The pupils all A private German school supported by certain families had to learn to speak English right from the start. The first in the district operated concurrently with the public school Russian-German-Mennonite teacher was D. E. Janzen in 1880-81. Where they met or who the teacher was has not 1887-88, thirteen years after the first Mennonites had been recorded. Between eight and fourteen pupils were arrived. He had received his training and some teaching taken out of the public school for three months and then experience in the old country. When he came to America he returned to the public school for the balance of the year. A learned the English language, applied for the teaching job, German school operated in the spring after the English- and got it. The next year another immigrant, Peter Daike, speaking public school had closed. The length of the taught at Ebenfeld School. From 1893 on most of the German school term was not recorded, but it is known that teachers were of Russian-German descent. Floy Tharp, from 1900 until at least 1915 it was two months long. In 1908-09, was the last non-German-speaking teacher in the 1915 the state legislature passed a law requiring a minimum district until 1952-53, when James Moody was hired. As of six months of regular school, at which time the German mentioned above, Jakob H. Leppke was the first Ebenfeld term was cut back to six weeks. After World War I the pupil to come back and teach (1900-02). In 1927-28 a public school term was increased to seven months and in grandniece of Mr. Leppke, Anna Daisy Suderman, also a 1922 to eight months; the German school term was reduced former pupil, taught for a year. She had taught in another to four weeks only and terminated in about 1935. At this district, but her father wanted her at home for a year before time the transition of the church services from German to she got married. Having two siblings and eight cousins as English had been completed, and the need to understand the pupils had made her apprehensive, but with a lot of sermons which formerly had been given in German ceased diplomacy she was able to "sail an even ship." The school to exist. This transition had been gradual and covered produced many good farmers, homemakers, doctors, several years, musicians, professors, ministers, businessmen, carpenters, The German school operated in the public school auctioneers, and other successful vocational and pro- facilities up to World War I, after which the German classes fessional people. The influence for good has gone out far were held in the social hall of the church across the road. and wide from this rural community of This had been a wing of the first church building constructed in
31 1883 and was detached from the new sanctuary, which was What happened in the schoolroom in the early years constructed in 1904. After the war the German school was has not been recorded. Did the teacher start the day with again switched back to public school facilities. No tax singing a song or two, reading of Scripture and prayer? money was ever used to operate the private school. Each How did he conduct the classes, and were the pupils family with children was taxed according to the budget and divided into grades? When the Mennonite teachers were the number of pupils from that family. The teacher's salary hired, the day was always started with reading the Scrip- was the main item of expense. At times the teacher of the ture, prayer, and some singing. During my school days we English term would also teach the German term, but more always sang the national anthem, some good folk songs, often another person would be engaged to teach the and religious songs. Pupils would often suggest a favorite, additional term. Some adjoining districts where there was which might be a round or some other popular song. Some also a strong Mennonite majority would also operate a teachers had good musical ability and could lead well; German session. Church families living in a district others could hardly start a song and would depend on the without a German school would have their children leadership of some of the pupils. No musical instrument commute to the district where they could get this service. was available until much later. School started at 9 o'clock Families too remote would board their children with a when the school bell in the bell tower was rung. Some family in the district. My parents would board such pupils were always eager to do this for the teacher. The children, for they had a big house, a big family, and big lower classes were usually taught in the morning. The hearts. The German school term ended usually with a pupils would sit at a long bench near the teacher's desk public program on the last day in order to show the parents while they recited. At 10:30 classes were dismissed for a how well the pupils had learned the language. German was fifteen-minute recess. This was always too short for the an essential language for the community in those years, for children, especially when the weather was good. The it was the language used in all church services. In a sense timing of classes and the order of the grades reciting would the German school was an adjunct of the church. The depend much on the teacher. The noon recess would last an transition from German to English was traumatic, hour, and another fifteen-minute recess was held at 2:30. especially for the older people. I remember well a Tabor Pupils usually had to march out in order, which frustrated College professor telling the older people in the church, some of the older boys, for they were anxious to get out "Mit euch begraben wir die deutsche Sprache" ("With you and play ball. Various special events were put on by the we will bury the German language.") teacher to keep the interest of the pupils and break the Dropping the German language in the community has monotony of the class routine. Special events such as been a great loss. The door to a rich heritage has been Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Valentine's Day called for closed to the members of the younger generation, as decorations to be made by the pupils; practically their entire ethnic history has been written in recitations, dialogues, and songs were learned for the German. Some of it has been translated, it is true, but much programs to be given for the patrons. Some schools also remains untranslated, and they cannot read it. Not only is held a fall fair day or week. We looked forward to Friday the High German lost, which was the written and church afternoons when we enjoyed a spelling bee. The Christmas language, but also the Low German, the language of the program was the highlight of the year. The birth of the home, the real mother tongue. Most of the Mennonites who Christ Child received the most emphasis, and a Christmas settled in Marion County used Low German, the mother tree was usually part of the decoration for the occasion. tongue of their ancestors dating back for four and a half Gifts were exchanged or distributed by the teacher for the centuries to the time they lived in northern Germany and pupils. In spring, shortly before the close of the school Holland, the "low country." Pupils in the public school at term, there might be a picnic on a Friday afternoon or an Ebenfeld would almost always speak Low German on the exchange sports day with an adjoining district. One day school ground during recess. It has many unique when I was in my upper-grade years, a neighbor lady, Mrs. expressions that are not translatable with the same punch or Lichthaler, came rushing into the school saying she needed emphasis as it has in the original. When a people loses a help. She had burned some trash, and the fire got out of language which has been a part of it for centuries, it hand and started a prairie fire in her pasture. The teacher becomes a poorer people. Many families now regret very had us older children grab gunnysacks out of the coal shed, much that they did not keep up with High and Low Ger- soak them with water by the pump, and put out the fire. A man, at least at home in the family circle. week
32 later was payday, when she arrived with sacks of candy, which we appreciated very much.9 Some teachers were very strict about whispering and other noises, while others were more lenient. Generally the schoolroom was quiet except for the class reciting in front. At first, a large, potbelly stove stood in the middle of the room. The big boys usually wanted to sit behind the stove so that the teacher could not observe them when they were noisy. In 1913 the school board put in a new stove in back of the room with a heat-shield around it. This spoiled it for the boys, for no one could sit in back of the stove anymore. The benches were long enough for two small children. The desks had a shelf underneath for a tablet and books; there were an inkwell and a pencil groove on top. Girls sometimes got their long hair tinted when a mischievous fellow would sit behind them. The school was equipped with blackboards between the windows on both sides and in This brick schoolhouse replaced the wooden one in front on either side of the teacher's desk. A Webster's 1926. It is now used by the Mennonite Brethren Church dictionary was available on a stand near the teacher's desk, across the road for Sunday School and other youth- and a rack with wall maps and other charts was in back of related activities. the room. A bookcase containing some reference books available to the pupils also stood in back. The school was a center for some community activities, such as township School in district ^20 was terminated with the school meetings and elections. year of 1959-60. At a meeting of the patrons on March 6, In the early years I never heard of anyone writing the 1959, John Eitzen made a motion, seconded by Dan J. Foth, eighth-grade county examination until 1914, when Alvin to close the school at the end of the following year. The mo- Gaede, who later became a medical doctor, wrote his exam. tion carried twenty to zero. There had been a very strong The following year we were a class of four who wrote the agitation during the last few years to consolidate with two or eighth-grade examination in Marion, the county seat, under three adjoining districts. A date was set to vote officially on the direction of County School Superintendent James A. this issue, but on that date a prominent farmer in the Ray. This was on a Saturday at the end of the school year. community was killed in a tractor accident. The people were The following Saturday was graduation or promotion day. so shook up, that nobody came that evening to cast their This was continued until the end of the rural public schools ballot, even though two persons in charge waited all and their consolidation with the city schools. It was always evening. The proposition very likely would have passed, for a great event pupils looked forward to. With the closing of at an earlier meeting a straw vote had been taken with ten the rural schools, the county school superintendent's office voting "yea" and six "nay." The motion was made by Eli J. was also terminated. Marion County had at one time 130 10 Suderman, and seconded by Sam Seibel, that this was rural school districts. Mrs. Viola Jost, who had been a contingent on the valuation of the district being one and a teacher for many years, was the last county school half million. The result was that the district later superintendent in Marion County. consolidated with Hillsboro USD N10, which in the long run Sixty-four different teachers taught in Ebenfeld School was a much better situation. The district has been during its eighty-eight years of operation. Forty-two taught represented on the Hillsboro school board by several one year or less, while sixteen taught two years, five three persons. years, and one taught four years. Salaries ranged from $25 The Ebenfeld School has been a good example of how to $462.50 per month. The lowest-paid teachers had from effective a rural public school can be in Americanizing an eleven to forty-two pupils, while the highest-paid one had immigrant people. They were somewhat hesitant to accept only fourteen pupils. Salary certainly was not determined the new language in their church services, but that is by the number of pupils in school. understandable. In other community affairs, however, the patrons in the district demonstrated their willingness and ability to adjust and fit into the affairs of their new country. It was a new life-style and a new language, but they made the most of it. They were good American 33 citizens and proud to be in a free country with its ample 5. David V. Wiebe, Grace Meadow (Hillsboro, KS; opportunities. And they were proud of their rich heritage, Mennonite Brethren Publishing House, 1967), p. 69. their Russian-German ancestry. 6. Sandra Van Meter, Marion County, Kansas, Past and Present (Hillsboro, KS: Mennonite Brethren Publishing Notes House, 1972), p. 96. 7. Samuel Seibel, unpublished manuscript on the history 1. N. J. Kroeker, First Mennonite Villages in Russia of the Ebenfeld School prepared for and read at the (British Columbia, Canada: self published, 1981), p. 7. Ebenfeld School reunion, August 13, 1960. Much of the 2. John B. Toews, "The Mennonite Village School in statistical material in this report has been taken from Nineteenth-Century Russia," Journal of the American Seibel's manuscript and from the school records in the Historical Society of Germans From Russia, vol. 7, no. office of the Marion County Register of Deeds. 1 (Spring 1984), pp. 27-36. 8. School records stored in the office of the Register of 3. Mennonite Encyclopedia, vol. 1, pp. 716-718. Deeds, Marion Courthouse, Marion, KS. 4. Randall C. Teeuwen, "The Immigration and Early 9. Much of this information comes from the author's own Education of Germans From Russia," Journal of the knowledge and experience. I also had brief interviews with American Historical Society of Germans From Russia, former Ebenfeld pupils Dan J. Pofch, Anna Daisy vol. 8, no. 2 (Summer 1985), pp. 52-67. Siemens, Eli J. Suderman, and Les Suderman. 10. Sandra Van Meter, pp. 97-99.
Slag Qvo^e @ 91 2 S 4 fi 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 10 20 21 "•*- 42 68 84 105 126 147 168 189 210 281 252 278 264 815 SSg S57 S78 SB9 421) 441 00 2 & 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1' 12 13 14 15 18 17 18 18 20 21 22 ^fi 44 66 88110182 161 176 188 220 242 284 288 808 880 352 374 889 418 440 482 484 A multiplication table—the bane of elementary students everywhere. This one is from the Friedensbote Kalender 1900, published in Beideck, Volga Region, .Russia. 34 VETTER HANNES Johann George I suppose it is only natural to put an old neighbor out of hour. Even with the defense contracts in the 1940s, the one's mind after being separated by twenty-five years and wages at her place of employment were about 50 cents per thousands of miles, and so it was with me. I really never hour. I can now look back and realize that her wages were gave much thought to an old neighbor we called "Vetter perhaps even greater than what Vetter Hannes could earn at Hannes" after I got older. He wasn't a relative, but he was a home. This explains why she was the dominating person of very good friend with whom my family became acquainted the household and why they raised their children differently after they had been in this country for about six years. He than were the other youngsters in our blocks. She probably was a close neighbor for about thirteen years. Like the other never earned more than $1.30 per hour by retirement time. neighbors, I had formed my opinions about him, his life- The fact that they still used an outhouse when I left for the style, and his daily activities from almost daily contact with service was my first inclination that Vetter Hannes was him or from neighbors' comments. I know he was probably in worse financial straits than most. But to my completely different from the rest of our neighbors, but I knowledge he never once asked for charity. believed this to be due to the fact that he was disabled and His parents came to the United States from Russia with housebound. I, like others, had formed the opinion that he their children in 1902 or thereabouts. He was the oldest was just an unbeliever, or "antichrist." This was probably living child of about nine children; four or five had died in the one thing that made him stand out or even be Russia before the family came over. He was thirteen years remembered by anyone living in our area during his old when they left Russia and had fought the move to come. lifetime. All these feelings about a person or his life-style He adored his grandparents, who were too old to make the can be completely forgotten, unless by a quirk one meets trip. He had even cried and fought to be left behind with the someone or discovers something which sheds new light on grandparents when the family decided to move. Their first the matter. This happened to me during the 1987 AHSGR work, as in most cases when large families arrived in Convention. Now I can understand Vetter Hannes a lot America, was working sugar beets in the Midwest. They better, appreciate him more than I did before, and even feel worked in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, and Michigan. some of life's frustrations he encountered that probably When Vetter Hannes was about nineteen, he had made him the person we knew but didn't fully understand. It accumulated enough money to make the trip back to is amazing how one goes through life thinking someone's Russia, where he intended to live with his grandparents. He life is uneventful and maybe even dull, only because one had come over at an awkward age of thirteen and didn't get never had to walk in the other person's shoes. We generally hardly any education in American schools. I must state at know more about a friend's personal life. Vetter Hannes this time, however, that he probably owned more books probably preferred to keep his past his secret. than did the average immigrant and was the only Volga My feelings about Vetter Hannes as I grew up were German I came into contact with in the late 1920s who had rather mixed-up. I regarded him as a wiser person than most magazines come to the house monthly. He educated of our neighbors, who were almost all Volga Germans. He himself, so to speak, and was probably the most spoke about four languages, read daily papers, and had knowledgeable neighbor on stocks, bonds, and the world of several magazines delivered monthly. I considered him to finance. All was due to his love of reading and the fact that, be more financially stable than most of our neighbors. The when we first met him, he was too disabled to walk very papers, magazines, and the fact that he owed nobody and well and was practically a shut-in. I couldn't begin to always paid cash for everything he bought created this remember how many people had business dealings with assumption. In later years I realized that his ability to obtain him, usually on credit, which he extended to most credit was probably limited because he was an invalid countrymen. Although most considered him to be a doing business out of his home. His wife was considered nonbelieving complainer in those years, they would deal the breadwinner of the household. During those days of my with him on credit and go elsewhere when they had cash in youth, she worked for about 14 cents per their pockets. I can't remember him ever refusing service to anyone and know several people 35 who never repaid him. have their daughter married to a crippled cowhand. When Vetter Hannes arrived back in Russia, things Vetter Hannes decided he had better settle down didn't seem as great as he had remembered them being near his parents, brothers, and sisters. He married a when he was a lad of thirteen, His grandparents and lady who was now the third lady of his life. To our other friends and relatives were astounded that he family and neighbors, however, she was the one and should come back from the "land of milk and honey" only as far as we knew. The facts about the child born when everyone else was setting their sights on getting out of wedlock never surfaced until after WWII, when to America. Within a year or so, Vetter Hannes met the child, fully grown, came to locate the biological and married a girl from there. They decided to make father. To this day no one knows if Vetter Hannes and the move to the United States and be with his family. the wife he had to leave behind in Russia ever had any Hopefully, they could get funds together here to help children. He and his wife had a son about my age some of her family come over in a short time. He, his when we happened to move into the neighborhood wife, his brothers and sisters are all dead now, so and lived about three houses away. As with most there are only children and grandchildren of the people with disabilities in those days, Vetter Hannes original family to supply any information. As in most had to try to do something at home, while his wife got cases, the finances of these trips were usually made a job. This way they could make ends meet. Many of by way of loans from family members or friends and our Volga-German men made furniture or clothes repaid later. Nobody now living knows about the baskets of reeds, which they sold to their fellow coun- arrangements. In later years the repayment of the trymen. Some did barbering, shoe repairing, sewing expenses seems to have been responsible for a machine repair, or just about anything to make a squabble between Vetter Hannes and his brothers and dollar or two. sisters. However, when the newly-weds landed in From the very beginning I knew that their home New York, she wasn't allowed into the country life was different from the rest of us "damned because of trachoma; she was ordered back to Russia. Roosians," as our English neighbors referred to us. I He decided that he wouldn't let her return to can count over ninety youngsters of German-Russian Russia while he stayed here, so they both returned to families in about a four-block-long area on both sides Russia. In a matter of a year or so, the grandparents of the street. This doesn't include any of those on the had died over there. The Russians were going to draft next street north or the one south of our street. Most more Germans his age, so reluctantly he decided to of the neighbors turned the children out to play, and it come back to the U.S. a third time, even though she was taken for granted that the older ones, fourteen or wouldn't come along fearing she wouldn't be allowed so, would look out for the younger ones. It wasn't to enter this country. By this time he had experienced unusual for a neighbor from a block or two away to enough bitterness to make him sour on life in general. sneak up and give Fritz or John, or someone who When he returned to the U.S., he worked sugar beets wasn't conducting himself properly, a good Votch and then moved west with three companions. They (cuff) on the ear. I can truthfully say that there were worked on cattle ranches and learned to herd cows only about a half dozen nice lawns in our and break wild horses that the ranchers sold to the neighborhood. These belonged to longtime English army just before World War I. His hip and leg injuries residents, who strung cables or fences around their occurred at this time and made him the disabled man lawns and told us "Hunkies" to keep off their lawn. we first met. (I was in grade school in the twenties They sometimes even called the police about the when my parents moved into the area.) He probably bigger boys getting into their fruit trees. never held out any hope of ever being reunited with Vetter Hannes and his wife never allowed their son his wife in Russia. Sometime in the period of his out on the street with the rest of us neighborhood travels from working the sugar beets and being a youth. In fact, when I got better acquainted and went cowboy, he became acquainted with another lady, and over to socialize with the boy, we were allowed to they had a child out of wedlock. These facts were play only in their yard or the one next door where rumored in our neighborhood when I was a boy but three English boys lived. This is when I discovered disregarded by most folk. No lady or her family ever that Vetter Hannes was educating his son at home and made an appearance seeking financial aid for this later would teach a daughter too. They had regular child, so most folk disregarded it as gossip. A few hours of reading, writing, and arithmetic, and the suggested that the lady's parents weren't about to father learned as eagerly as he wanted his chil- 36 dren to learn. He was probably the most knowledgeable son I have known in my lifetime. However, his hours of Volga German in our end of the city, except for our pastor, reading newspapers, magazines, and history books made whom I considered to be the most learned person with him as knowledgeable as any teacher I had in school. He whom I ever came into contact. The pastor and this always encouraged me to read to better myself, live by the nonbeliever had children that were considered some of the Golden Rule, and not worry too much about whether I best students to go through our school. This shows me now made it to church or Sunday School regularly, and above that while we were out working sugar beets or caddying at all, try to work at a job with a future. In those earlier days the golf course to make a little spending money, these two the labor unions were being organized like never before, sets of parents kept their children home and insisted they and although he was an outsider without a job, he never get a proper education. All of their children are successful failed to encourage everyone with whom he came into in their chosen field of endeavor. contact to get involved in the battle to collect a decent wage Vetter Hannes had attended church and even for their labor. There were many members of the Versammlung (meeting) in his early days in the U.S. I can Brotherhood that visited Vetter Hannes in regard to the recall that several of the prayer brothers used to tell of an business he ran from his home. They even sought advice incident that occurred in front of the church one Sunday from him, because he was considered an authority on after services. A brother was taking the preacher to task be- business matters and world affairs. Some were amazed at cause there was a lightning rod on the roof of the church. his knowledge of the Bible for a man whom they never saw This brother thought putting a lightning rod on the roof of in church. I think it would be fair to say that many the church showed a breach of faith in God on the pastor's neighbors asked for legal advice from time to time, because part. God was supposed to protect his house. Vetter Hannes he was well read and up on such matters. came to the pastor's rescue, when he spoke up and I went into the service in the early 1940s, as did most suggested that God had provided us with brains so that we other boys, so I visited Vetter Hannes and his wife to tell would have the foresight to install implements such as this them goodbye. He appreciated my stopping by, and even lightning rod to protect ourselves and our properties. My his wife, who hardly ever partook of conversations between mother thought it would be nice if I would invite the son of Vetter Hannes and his customers, was elated that I took the Vetter Hannes to go to Sunday School with me, which I time to visit with them. He asked me to write to him and did. I was politely told that making appearances in church promised he would answer my letters. I wrote to him for or Sunday School didn't make a Christian, and they could three years on occasion and even sent him little souvenirs I raise their son and get him into heaven without his picked up in my travels through France and Germany. He attending Sunday School with the rest of our neighborhood always wrote and thanked me. After the war I married and youth. Evidently others had gone through the same ex- resettled in another state. I didn't come into contact with perience before we moved into the area and had given up; Vetter Hannes again until 1950. He was very elated that I thus it was easier to call this a family of antichristians and would visit him while on a tightly scheduled vacation. He let it go at that. told me that at least six other young men who had been As the years passed and I grew older and wiser, I could away to war had come to visit him either while home on enter into adult conversations with Vetter Hannes, and he furlough or after the war ended. They came to thank him never uttered a word against religion in my presence. Often for the credit he had extended to the young men or their he would call attention to someone's hypocritical behavior parents over the years. They also told him how they pertaining to things occurring at church or Versammlung. It remembered kindly pieces of advice he had rendered them bothered him greatly that his brother-in-law belonged to the over the years. These they remembered and appreciated Versammlung, which was having internal disputes. A dozen when they were far from home in a foreign country. That or so members were withdrawing and starting a new was the type of person he was: gentle and full of good Brotherhood. This had occurred several times in some of advice but frowned on by many people because of his our churches too. This infuriated him, and he never failed seemingly bitterness towards the church. Yet, he never to bring it up when someone talked religion to him. I argued against religion itself, only the way that so many of suppose I could .safely say that he came into contact with his neighbors were practicing it. fewer people outside of just neighbors than any per When one marries and has children, one travels less frequently or confines his time to 37 more immediate family on vacations. I was able to left him almost helpless in a constant battle with his visit Vetter Hannes and his wife only about two more wife, who either knew nothing of this child or was times. One day we got a letter from a relative who resentful over the child's appearance, although the enclosed a newspaper obituary stating that he had child was middle-aged by now. It seems that a close died. We devoted a few hours discussing this relative, after years of ignoring Vetter Hannes, was departed friend amongst our family members old responsible for getting the child to visit. The wife was enough to remember him. We all felt the grief of resentful and forbad the child to come to the house to losing a friend, as one does even when the miles and visit. The old gentleman was a shut-in, so he couldn't years have lessened contacts. Until his widow died, get out to meet the child. I was told that, in sheer too, we exchanged Christmas cards. In my mind I had desperation, Vetter Hannes took his own life. Vetter Hannes tucked away in a grave, resting in I suppose it would have been easier for me to have peace after a small funeral. He had been a friendly never learned of the end he had, but then again I had man who gave me good advice, treated me more as an looked upon his life as a mediocre affair and equal than did the devoutly religious neighbor men, uneventful. Now I realize that his life was probably and always seemed elated to see me after I grew out more action-packed than what we assumed when we of my teens. were growing up. In fact, he had probably seen more I never knew about the first two women in his life of the world than did the average immigrant who nor the numerous trips from and to Russia. Upon came over and settled down to the rigors of raising a hearing of the events surrounding his last few years of family in the strange, new country. Maybe, had I life and his death, I have had to revise my thoughts. I resettled in the area, Vetter Hannes would have can fully understand some of the events that caused phoned me and taken me into his confidence, and I his being considered a loner and even excuse him for could have driven him to meet his child. That, like his atheistical feelings. Before we became acquainted other suppositions, is idle wishing. I only hope that, if with him, he no doubt had suffered many there is a spot in heaven for deserving people, Vetter embarrassing comments from both family and friends Hannes will make it. His reputation as an antichrist due to his first two women, which caused him to wouldn't be enough reason, in my eyes, to keep him separate himself and his new wife from the former out. I only remember a man who was kind, friendly, friends and his family members. When his child born and extended a helping hand to his fellowman, even out of wedlock came to seek him out after WWII, it though he himself was a partially disabled shut-in. created problems too severe for the old gentleman to These are but a few kind thoughts of an old friend. handle. Not having a close friend available to discuss this with, SPRUCHE Gott die Ehre, To God, honor; dem Nachbar Hilfe, To the neighbor, help; und dem Freunde das Herz. And to the friend, your heart. Wenn man auch sonst When one otherwise can't give nichts geben kann, anything, Liebe kann man immer geben. One can always give love. 38 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE ADVENTISTS IN RUSSIA* A Historical Survey Daniel Heinz Translated by Leona Pfeifer The Seventh-Day Adventists can presently look part of the Adventist community. On July 31, 1886, he back on one hundred years of existence in Russia. The organized the first community of Adventists at Berdy- intolerant treatment of the Russian-Orthodox Church Bulat on the Crimean Peninsula.4 He was immediately toward other religious denominations during the reign arrested by the authorities and j ailed for spreading of the czar as well as the atheistic propaganda of the Jewish heresies. Only after the American Soviet dictatorship could not impede the rapid representative in Petersburg convinced the Russian diffusion of the Adventists in this country. Like the authorities that the Adventists were a Christian and not Baptists, the Seventh-Day Adventists were successful a Jewish religious organization was Conradi released in firmly establishing themselves here from the very from prison. Working out of Germany as one of the beginning.1 most successful Adventist missionaries ever, he was Today the Adventists, with roughly 30,000 entrusted with the organization and guidance of the officially registered members, are among the best Adventist communities in Russia. At first, the known of the independent churches in Russia.2 Adventists were often suspected by the Russian Articles about their active missionary efforts can be authorities of being Jewish sects and were banned by found repeatedly in the public media as well as in the government. underground literature. The following report is an attempt to point out and The Development up to the Beginning of the clarify in a factual and objective manner the most October Revolution (1886-1917) important developments of the Russian Adventists from their origin to the present, as much as this is In the years following 1886, the Adventists gradually converted some Russians in the Caucasus possible in a survey. and the Ukraine. The missionary work among the The Beginning (1882-1886) German settlers in Russia, especially those along the Volga, was successfully continued. Thus, it was The Adventist community in Russia began as a possible to hold the first mission conference in the movement of lay brothers. During the early 1880s German settlement of Eigenheim in the Caucasus in Germans who had emigrated from Russia to North 1890. More than one hundred representatives from the America, where they became acquainted with the various congregations attended, even though the 5 Adventists, began to inform their friends and relatives membership at that time was still very limited. at home of this new religion through magazines and The missionary work was carried on mainly by pamphlets. Through these letter exchanges some trained door-to-door salesmen who, through the sale of small, isolated groups of German settlers in southern Adventist literature, were able to provide for their Russia could be converted to the Adventist community livelihood. Occasionally these salesmen were also even before the arrival of an Adventist preacher or utilized as roving ministers. Proper training for the missionary in that country. Not until 1886 did the ministry was not possible until 1899 when the Adventist preacher and director of missions, L. R. Friedensau Theological Seminary near Magdeburg Conradi,3 visit those groups that were observing the opened a special department for the theology students Sabbath and that had by this time officially declared from Russia. themselves as During these first ten years (1886-1896), the Adventists confined their missionary work almost entirely to the rural population. Consequently, the first ^This article appeared under the title "Entstehung Russian Adventists came from the peasants and lower und Fortschritt der Adventgemeinde in Russland" in: STUFEN: Mitteilungsblatt des Adventistischen middle class. Toward the end of the 1890s and at the Wissenschaft-lichen Arbeitskreises e.V,, 27/1, March turn of the century, the Adventists began their 1983. It has been translated and is herewith published missionary activities in the large cities (Petersburg, by permission of the author and the publishers of Riga, Kiev, STUFEN. 39 Moscow, Saratov),6 resulting in significant persecuted. A number of them were arrested, and sociological changes within the congregational some were deported to labor camps in Siberia. structure.7 The Adventists dissociated themselves Threatened by the government and occasionally from the rural ghetto and attempted to establish a firm persecuted, the Russian Adventists saw themselves footing among the workers and middle class of the facing even greater internal problems. The so-called large cities. There the missionary work was carried on Adventist "reform movement," which arose in 1915 by well-educated preachers and, in some cases, by in Germany and which today, however, has lost its foreign-born preachers. significance, led to a split of the Adventist When the voluntary transition from the orthodox community in Germany and also succeeded in church to a nonorthodox religious community was acquiring followers in Russia, especially in the permitted by the government in 1905, the leaders of Ukraine. A different answer to the question of how an the Russian Adventists composed a document of Adventist would deal with compulsory military gratitude to Czar Nicholas II. In it the leadership service provided the reason for the division within the declares its faith and loyalty to the czarist government community.12 Not until after World War I were the and expresses special gratitude for the legalization of Adventists slowly able to recover from this external the long-sought-after freedom of religious expression and internal crisis. for all Christian denominations.8 Several months later on November 5, 1906, an edict was issued by the The Expansion and Strengthening of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which legally gave the Russian Adventist Congregation Between the Adventists equality with the Baptists.9 The Baptists World Wars (1918-1945) had, as early as 1879, acquired religious freedom. This privilege was now also afforded the Adventists, The years immediately following World War I whose dogma, in the opinion of the authorities, was (1919-1924) were the most favorable and successful similar to that of the Baptists, and they could, years for the Adventist missionary work in the Soviet therefore, be regarded as a branch of that religion.10 Union. Within a few years the Russian Adventists In 1907 the Adventists, under the leadership of the were able to double their membership from 6,085 to German minister, J. T. Boettcher, was elevated to an 12,697 (1926). The still-young Soviet government independent Adventist union. At this time the 41 was relatively friendly toward the Protestant Free congregations in Russia with their 2566 members Churches, because it recognized that those churches assumed an important social responsibility through were served by 31 preachers and congregation 13 leaders. It was not long before the Russian Adventists their active charitable activities. Moreover, their became financially independent from the European oppositional stance to the state church was leadership in Hamburg and were able to finance their appreciated. The affairs of church and state were now own missionary activities (1911).11 sharply separated, religious propaganda was In order to be more effective with their missionary tolerated," and some other form of military service was substituted for those who, because of religious work, the Adventists published more and more 15 literature in the native languages of the country. The beliefs, objected to bearing arms. On the basis of books and pamphlets were published mostly in Riga, these and other governmental favors, it is not Helsinki, Hamburg, and Petersburg, and later also in surprising that Russian Adventists still hold Lenin in Saratov and Kiev. The outbreak of World War I high esteem today. Under the dynamic leadership of the German posed great problems for the young congregation of 16 Russian Adventists. The close association of the preacher, H. J. Lobsack, who was appointed the Russian Adventists with Germany, the presence of administrator of the entire Russian mission field in preachers of German nationality, as well as the anti- 1920, a new organization of the Adventist militaristic attitude of the Adventists in general, led to congregation was implemented. The 430 con- more and more conflicts with the czarist regime. The gregations and groups were organized into 24 dissemination of Adventist literature had to be associations, 5 district unions, and an All-Council discontinued. Through special edicts the Adventists Union with its headquarters in Moscow, according to were also forbidden to gather for church services and the government-supported federative guidelines. An missionary conferences. Occasionally, here and there, All-Council Convention, which was attended by representatives from all of the congregations, Adventist preachers and congregation leaders were convened in Moscow almost every year.17 New missionary programs were developed, lay evangelism and youth activities were promoted, and congregational leaders were 40 encouraged to become socially and politically active. more or less, according to an independent congregational Through new governmental regulations this positive structure.21 Religious services of those congregations which development came to an abrupt end in 1929. The increased were officially registered could, up to this time and without industrialization and nationalization of the economy also much more difficulty, be conducted in those areas and brought about changes in the religious sphere. Laws were buildings which had been designated for that purpose, passed which strictly prohibited all forms of religious while, at the same time, religious proselytizing is still propaganda. Religious gatherings were permitted only on strictly forbidden. The publication of literature is narrowly private property or on specially designated premises with restricted to literature for internal, congregational use.22 The correspondingly high rent. All Adventists were required to training of student preachers presents a problem. In most register with the police and were regularly subjected to cases they receive their theological training by being governmental controls. The publication of Adventist actively and practically involved in Bible and missionary literature had to come to an immediate end. Many work.23 This is accomplished by working together with an Adventist preachers and congregational leaders were experienced and proven teacher. The Adventists in the imprisoned for "counterrevolutionary activities" and died in Soviet Union do not have a theological seminary of their exile.18 The community unions and associations were own at their disposal. partially dissolved, and contact with the leadership of the In recent years official contacts of the Russian general conference was completely broken off. World War Adventists with the leadership of the general conference II represents the really low point in the deprivation of the have increased.24 Conversely, several leaders from the Adventists. Congregational members died in the war,19 general conference were able to visit the congregations in while others, because of their German origin, were the Soviet Union. These visits quite obviously led to a suspected of collaborating with the enemy and were forced significant strengthening of Adventist community life in to spend many years in prison or in a labor camp. The Russia.25 problem of bearing arms and military service brought many members face-to-face with a moral dilemma. In spite of this Notes it can be assumed, in retrospect, that these years of 1. This could be accounted for by the fact that important deprivation led to a general revival of religion in the Soviet Adventist teachings were already known in Russia through Union. Governmental restrictions, war, and starvation indigenous, fringe religious groups. This opinion is could, in the end, not halt the continual growth of the expressed by W. Kolarz, mReligion in the Soviet Union (New Russian Adventist community. York, 1961)> p. 324. For example, as early as the fifteenth century, there were denominations in Russia which sympathized with Judaism, and, along with the health rules The Situation After World War II (1945-1982) as prescribed in the Old Testament, also kept holy the Sabbath as commanded by God. Later they were called. The 1950s saw a change, admittedly a somewhat "Subbotniki" (People of the Sabbath). See L. R. Conradi, Die insignificant one, in the attitude of the Soviet government Geschichte des Sabbats (Hamburg, 1912), p. 569-576; 633- toward Christian religions. The Communist Party publicly 636. 2. Kolarz, op. cit,, p. 325: "According to all Soviet accounts the admitted that the Adventists and other religious Seventh-Day Adventists are among the most thriving sects denominations had been persecuted unjustly during the and one of the few which have gained ground under Stalinist Era.20 The membership of registered congregations Communist rule." increased to 26,000, primarily because of the newly 3. Conradi provides a detailed account of this first missionary acquired regions of East Prussia and the Baltic area, which trip to Russia in Historical Sketches of Foreign Missions of the Seventh-Day Adventists (Basel, 1886), pp. 250-271. at that time could be counted among the heartlands of Some of these isolated groups were visited earlier by Adven- Adventist missionary work in Europe. tists from North America, but no congregations had In the 1960s Khrushchev again exerted enormous previously been organized as a result of those visits. Those pressure upon the churches and religious denominations. first Adventists m Russia were recruited almost exclusively As a result, the supra-regional organization of the All- from German settlers who shared a common language, culture, and legal conditions. Council Union (All-Rate Bundesunion) of the Adventists 4. See A. V, Belov, Adventizm (Moskow, 1968), p. 46. G. Perk, was dissolved in 1960. The Adventists then had to the first Seventh-Day Adventist in organize, 41 Russia known to us, accompanied Conradi as article was also published among others in Spectrum, interpreter. 11/4, 1980, p. 24-32.) Religion in Communist Dominated Areas (RCDA), 18/4-6, (1979), p. 85-91; 5. Seventh-day Adventist Encyclopedia (Washington, Christianity Today, 23/14, April 20, 1979, p. 53; Ibid., D.C., 1976), vol. 10, p. 1523. It is estimated to be 356. 24/15, Sept. 5,1980, p. 70; New York Times, Oct. 16, 6. Ibid, pp, 1525-1526. 1977, p. 8; Revue Adventiste, July-August 1978, p. 7; 7. Some interesting religious and sociological aspects Student Movement (Andrews University), 65/4, (1980), which crystallized in the course of the development of p. 1. Russian Adventism and today are quite typical of the 13. Sapiets, op. cit., p. 202: "The period looked on most congregations in that country are mentioned by C. favourably by all Adventists is that time between 1918 Lane, Christian Religion in the Soviet Union (Albany, and 1924, when the Soviet government was still New York, 1978), pp. 167-174 and K. Murray, "Soviet allowing evangelization by non-Orthodox sects and in Seventh-Day Adventists" in Religion in Communist some cases encouraging the concept of 'Christian Lands (RCL), 5/2, 1977, pp 88-93. socialism.'" Also see L. W. Roth, "Soviet Russia and 8. The "document of gratitude" is printed in its entirety in Religion since 1917" (unpublished master's thesis, Zions-Wachter, 12/2, June 18, 1906, pp. 215-216. Andrews University, Berrien Springs, Michigan, 9. This in no way simplified the missionary work of the 1951), p. 144-128 [sic}. Adventists, See Seventh-day Adventist Encyclopedia 14. Adventist literature could be published again. Adults (Washington, D.C., 1976), vol. 10, p. 1526: "... [T]his (18 years old) had the opportunity to further their did not significantly improve the climate in which the theological training in parochial schools, if such were work had to be done. .. . After the revolution of 1905 available, but the Adven-fcists did not have any such martial law was proclaimed in the land and not lifted schools at their disposal. Religious instruction for for a number of years. This law was made an excuse children, however, was forbidden. for requiring permits for holding even regular 15. L. W. Roth, op. cit, p. 115. In 1919 Lenin ordered Protestant church services, for prohibiting the compulsory military service. The possibility of circulation of SDA publications, for proscribing exemption from this military obligation remained in general meetings of workers, and for making im- effect only until 1926. possible the missionary travels of ministers." 16. See D. Heinz, "Heinricht J. Lob sack—Pionier der 10. The edict is reprinted in Deutscher Arbeiter, 7/8, April Adventgemeinde in Russland," in: Adventecho, 80/17, 18, 1907, p. 59. Sept. 1, 1981, p. 10-11. 11. In 1911 the Adventists received considerable 17. At the fifth All-Council Convention in Moscow in recognition and significance when S. D. Bondar, an 1924, a declaration was drafted, which established the official of the Ministry of the Interior in Petersburg, general principles and organization of the Adventist published an official report about their work. The community as well as defined its relationship to the report, which gave a very positive impression of the new Soviet regime. In this document the loyalty and Adventists, was sent to every appropriate office in the faithfulness to the new government is clearly country. The Adventists, who, up to this time, had expressed as follows: "Immediately after the remained more or less unnoticed by both the appearance of the Soviet Government in the territory government and the church, were now, with one of Czarist Russia, the Seventh-Day Adventists who stroke, introduced to the public, J. T. Boettcher resided in the Socialist Soviet Republic never doubted expressed his opinion about this remarkable report as that the slogans of the Soviet Government, such as follows: "It is one of the finest documents that ever *the transition from capitalism to socialism,' 'all was published on the work of Seventh-day Adventists government in the hands of the Workers' Councils,' by an outsider.... Whereas a few years ago we were 'land for the working farmer,' 'equal rights and self- practically unknown, we are now spoken of in all administration for all ethnic groups,' 'religious and official circles. This book is a splendid antireligious propaganda,' 'the Soviet Republic—a recommendation to the cause of God." General shelter for the victims of religious persecution,' Conference Bulletin, 7/6, (1913), p. 87. 'separation of church and state,' are a magnet which 12. One of those reformed groups still exists in the unites all serious-thinking people into a strong Soviet U.S.S.R. today under the name of "Ware und Freie republic. Based on the principle of divine assistance to Gemeinschaft der Siebenten-Tags Adventisten" (True governments, we are convinced that God in his and Free Association of Seventh-Day Adventists) and providence guided the heart of our unforgettable W. J. recently aroused much sensation through the Lenin and gave him as well as his immediate spectacular "Case of Shelkov" (see footnote 17) and followers the wisdom to create the only progressive, the extensive samizdat literature. Also see: M. Sapiets, up-to-date form of government existing in the world "V. A. Shelkov and the True and Free Seventh-Day today." Cited in Die Wahrheit ueiber die Adventists of the USSR," Religion in Communist Reformationsbewegung in der Adventisten-kirche Lands (RCL), 8/3. (1980). p. 201-207. (This (Hannover-Buchholz, 1926), pp. 23-24. This pro- Soviet compromise position of the 42 Adventist leaders led to great tension within the Conference Archives, Washington, D.C. Adventist community. Many members saw this 19. We do not have exact numbers. Sources about the declaration as a betrayal of the Gospel and began to condition of the Adventists during this time are very dissociate themselves from the official leadership. At scanty. Some figures can be found in Roth, op. cit., pp. this time, as in World War I, separate splinter groups 122-127. existed. Later they also dissociated themselves 20. Seventh-day Adventist encyclopedia (Washington, organizationally from the mother church and, up to the D.C., 1976), vol. 10, p. 1531. K. Murray, op. cit., p. present, continue to exist underground as, for example, 89: "The post-war period of reconstruction was a time one that has already been mentioned, "Gemeinschaft of comparative freedom for the Adventists." der Wahren und Freien Siebenten-Tags-Aventisten," 21. In reality, this form of community organization has with their legendary leader Shelkov, who, at an been in existence since the 1930s. Now, because of the advanced age, perished in 1980 in a Siberian labor final dissolution of the General Council, it had to be camp. For information about the split among the officially introduced, while some local associations Adventists in the U.S.S.R. consult, The Sabbath and unions seem to continue to exist. Sentinel, 31/11, (1979), pp. 17-19 and the Adventecho, 22. M. P. Kulakov, "Les Adventistes du 7ejour" in: 80/21, Nov. 1, 1981, p. 8. The question of how a Conscience et Uberte, 20/2, (1980), p. 121. Christian and especially an Adventist is supposed to 23. Recently a few prospective preachers were able to live under Communism has not been and probably complete their theological studies at an Adventist cannot be clarified. The basic concern of the leaders of seminary abroad (Seminar Frie-densau, Newbold the General Conference is that the Adventists in the College). U.S.S.R. build a friendly relationship with the 24. Therefore, in 1975, for the first time in decades, the government. It also endeavors to unite all the representatives of the Adventist community in the Adventist splinter groups, but leaves further specifics U.S.S.R. could participate in the General Conference to the conscience of the individual members. in Vienna. Consult: Adventist Review, 125/38, August For information about the condition of the Adventisfcs 7-14, 1975, p. 23. during this time consult the Seventh-day Adventist 25. Adventist Review, 155/42, October 19, 1978, p. 4-7; Encyclopedia (Washington, D.C., 1976), vol. 10, pp. Ibid., 155/43, October 26, 1978. p. 6-8; 1530-1531; "Report of a Russian Trip" (unpublished Adventecho, 77/23, Dec. 1. 1978, p. 11-12; Ibid., manuscript) by C. P. Crager to I. H. Evans, R. G. 81/12, June 15. 1982. p. 12; Ibid., 80/21, November 1, 11/1934-C, General 1981, p. 8-10. 43 SONG OF THE MEADOWLARK From a land called Russia the Germans came, A hundred years ago; To settle a new land was their aim, Across the sea so wide; To homestead the prairies of Mid-America Where the grass grew long, And the meadowlark vibrantly sang his song. They broke the sod of a new land, But kept the ways of the old; Traditions—centuries old—they kept in hand In grassy islands of culture; They labored hard, prayed, and sometimes played, In the Old German way, And the larks of the meadows echoed their song. Now we—their children and grandchildren-have migrated anew, Away from the prairies; Away to settle in places where "Our People" are few, And the cultures many; To cities of concrete walls and manicured lawns Where the All-American robin is king, And the meadowlark is seldom heard to sing. How oft we yearn to return to the prairie fold, Our few remaining kin; To witness again that song of old, The traditions of the settlers; But when we return we with sadness hear A much weaker song; A song more distant, less clear, Ever competing and blending with modern tunes. And we lament over what the prairie has lost. But should we stop on the prairie At dusk And inwardly reflect, We may with greater sadness find That the song within us Is weaker too; Less clear, Changed from the days of our youth, And changing still. May we not stop And silently pray That the song Will not Fade Away. May the larks of the meadows sing on and on. — Dallas D. Zimmerman 44 BOOKS AND ARTICLES RECENTLY ADDED TO THE AHSGR ARCHIVES Frances Amen and Mary Lynn Tuck PLEASE NOTE: When a number has an R before it, that indicates that the item does not circulate. This means that patrons may use the item in the AHSGR library itself, but they may not check it out for use elsewhere. The items mentioned below and other library materials may be borrowed from AHSGR Archives through the interlibrary loan services of your local public or college library via an interlibrary loan request form or the OCLC computer system. Most of the items below are not for sale by AHSGR. Please consult your current Order Form to see what is available for purchase. DK170 .A573x Union's religious situation. The book begins with a Anthony, Katherine Susan. demonstration in Moscow May 16, 1966, by Baptist Catherine the Great (New York: Garden City delegates who represented congregations throughout Publishing Co., 1925), 331 pp. Photos. the Soviet Union. The book has a detailed account of "Primarily a story," this biography was compiled Georgi Vins, whose German father Peter became a from Catherine's own diaries and letters. The author missionary in Siberia. Here Georgi was born. His presents her in her true proportions as a real woman experiences as a Reform Movement leader and involved in the perplexing pattern of eighteenth- eventual imprisonment for his faith and testimonies century politics and as a jealous mistress of men. are very moving. BX8143 .B33x F674 .C35A46 1986x Baerg, Anna. Campbell Centennial Book Committee, compiler. Diary of Anna Baerg, 1916-1924. Trans. and ed. by Along and Beyond the Little Blue (Campbell, NE: Gerald Peters (Winnipeg. MB: CMBC Publications, Campbell Centennial Book Committee, 1986), 406 1985), 158 pp. Courtesy of Mennonite Heritage pp. Illustrations. Donated by Norman and Pauline Centre. Dudek. Anna Baerg lived near the Molochna Mennonite Centennial history of Campbell, Nebraska. The colony and began recording at age eighteen her town was platted in May 1886 and incorporated perceptions of the Russian Revolution and Civil War. January 1890. The influence of the railroad, the She describes the complete change of life in the schools, farming, and the churches is emphasized. village under the new regime and the eventual Germans from Russia were among the settlers of the migration of Mennonites to Canada. area. F644 .M66M66x CS71 .C521 1975x The Banner City (Monango, ND: Monango Claassen, Ernest Gerhard. Centennial History Committee, 1985), 440 pp. Abraham Claassen: Vistula to Plum Grove (n.p., 1975), 149 pp. Photos. Donated by Mrs. W. E. Hieb. Photos, maps. Donated by J. Albert Oster. A profusely illustrated volume depicting the The Abraham Claassens were Mennonites from history of two towns: Keystone, Dakota Territory, Simonsdorf, West Prussia. They immigrated to which died with the advent of the Chicago, Rosenort, Molochna, in 1859. When the military Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railroad, and Monango, service exemption ended in Russia for Mennonites, North Dakota, which flourished as an agricultural the families began to immigrate to and settle in community. The first Lutherans from South Russia Kansas. Included are the genealogies of five families settled here in the 1890s. Besides family histories and and an index. name index, the volume contains numerous feature DK508.7 D78x stories, one of which is "Those German-Russians" by Rev. Richard Schwartz. Druzhinina, E. I. luzhnaia Ukraina v 1800-1825 gg. (Moscow: "Nauka," 1970), 381 pp. In Russian. Donated by BR1608 .R8B66 Alexander Dupper. Bourdeaux, Michael. Based on extensive research of documents in the Faith on Trial in Russia (Toronto, ON: Hodder and archives of Moscow, Leningrad, Odessa, Kishinev, Stoughton. 1971), 192 pp. and other cities, as well as published materials Since his student days in Moscow, the author has (domestic and foreign), this book gives an dedicated himself to a study of the Soviet interpretation of the socioeconomic develop- 45 ment of the least-known part of the Ukraine- Raboldt, Schneider, and Peter families. Historical Novorossiya (New Russia) and South Bessarabia. The accounts and biographies are presented for each reasons why this area, which joined Russia relatively family. late, became a region of the most rapid capitalistic development are revealed. The book is a continuation F659 ,B6B68x of the previous books by the author (Kiuchuk- Goetz, Connie, compiler. Kainardzhiishii Mir 1774, Moscow, 1955, Severnoe Bowdle Centennial 1886-1986 (n.p., 1986), 642 pp. Prichernomor'e, Moscow, 1959). Prime consideration Photos. Donated by Irene M. Rader. is given to the problem of populating the southern This South Dakota town was established on an steppes, organizing regional administration, economic empty prairie. The mill started operating in 1892 and life on Crown and private land. and developing produced flour that was shipped all over the world. domestic and foreign (Black Sea) trade. MucR Many of the early settlers came from South Russia. attention is also given to cooperation among the Included in this volume are many family histories and settlers belonging to different ethnic groups in the lists of 1912-1985 high school graduates. process of cultivating virgin land and their fight against feudal serfdom. (Annotation provided by Dr. F672 .A2H57x Dupper). Historical News (Hastings, NE: Adams County Historical Society, bimonthly). F702 .R6E93x AHSGR has incomplete holdings of 1973-1982 Evett, Leila F., compiler. and the July 1986 issue, which has an article by Kiowa Cemetery (n.p., 1983), 123 pp. Maps. Rebecca Kimminau, "The Germans from Russia in Donated by compiler. Hastings." This cemetery is located three miles south and three miles west of Hammon, Oklahoma. This book CS71 .K382 1980zx includes the cemetery history, grave listings, Kauk, Kenneth D. obituaries, and biographies, plus a name index. Descendants of Johann Jacob Kauk and Susanna Ochsner. Typewritten. 79 pp. Photos. Donated by CS71 .G474 1981x author. Fischer. Jeanette, Charlene Mason, and Jo Ann Worms, Russia, was the home of the Kauks. One by one their sons began to immigrate to America, Doetzel, compilers. settling in Nebraska and Oklahoma in the 1880s. Gette Family Book (Unity, SK: Northwest Includes many interesting accounts of their Publishers Ltd., 1981) 72 pp. Photos. Donated experiences and lists the generations. by George Gette. Family record of Albert and Maria Gette, who DD901 .U33K62 1911x migrated from the Volga area to Saskatchewan in the Kocher, August, ed. early 1900s. Included are family charts and a Das Uffriedt (Herlisheim, Alsace, France: Self- collection of family recipes. published, 1911), 81 pp. Photocopy. Maps, illu- GR 1090 (perm.) Flaming, strations. Donated by Gregory R. Dockter. Helen Maier. Historical description of all the inhabited areas Herein Is Hope. Teachings From the Life of a, between Drusenheim and Selz [Seltz] in Alsace. Some Shepherdess (Clovis, CA: published by author, 1983), German-speaking people emigrated from this area into 180 pp. Anonymous donor. Russia. A collection of poems, meditations, and devotions, including some guidelines for those who are leaders PF3625 .M36 1901x Mann, in business, church, and civic groups. The author was Friedrich, ed. the wife of the late Rev. Carl J. Maier. Kurzes Worterbuch der Deutscken Sprache. 5th ed. (Langensalza [Saxony], Germany: Hermann Beyer & CS71 .F732 1986x Sohne, 1901), 332 pp. Freehling. Ruth. This dictionary pays particular attention to correct Our Kith and Kin (n.p., 1986), 112 pp. Photos, spelling according to the recently established rules maps, documents. Donated by author. [late 1800s] and word stems, sometimes not including Kukkus in the Volga Region was the homeland of compound words and meanings. Generally, there is no the Freehling and Herzog families. Vol-hynia was the mention of regional meanings, and colloquialisms are ancestral home of the Richert, not included. 46