American Historical Society of

Germans from Russia

Work Paper No.13 December 1973 Price $2.50

Cover: Schlittenfahrt deutscher Kolonisten - Sowjetunion (Sleighing by German Colonists in the Soviet Union) President Ruth M. Amen December, 1973

Greetings to All: As we near the end of another membership period in AHSGR it seems appropriate to review the accomplishments of our society during these past twelve months. We have only recently celebrated our fifth birthday but we can speak with pride of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia—its rapid growth, its publications, its services to members who are working on their family histories and its program which has brought together so many of the same heritage so that the proud history of our people can be preserved for all future generations. This final Work Paper for 1973 completes the series of publications which are included with a membership. The three issues for this year were filled with articles of historical interest to all of us, whatever the region of Russia our forefathers inhabited. During this year you also received three Newsletters and a special bonus book, Clues, our very own genealogical helper. We have been pleased with its acceptance by libraries and its popularity among our members. These were factors in the decision of the intemational boa- rd to publish a 1974 edition. This will also be sent to every member free of charge. Two other publications made possible by our society were made available to you, Kuche Küchen so popular that we have ordered another 3,000 copies, and the book by Dr. Karl Stumpp, The Emigration From Germany to Russia in the Years 1763 to 1862. The initial 1,000 books were sold almost before the book came off the presses and an additional 1,000 copies will be available in January. If you haven't ordered your copy we urge you to do so now by using the enclosed order form. Our conventions have been so popular and well attended that we are continuing them on an annual basis at least through 1976. We have to plan that far ahead to find accommodations for such a large gathering. It isn't a bit too early for you to be making your plans to be in Fresno, June 20-24, 1974. If you have never been to an AHSGR convention you are in for a big surprise. We guarantee you will go away with your thoughts on the next get-together which will be in Lincoln in 1975. This Work Paper has information on some of the recent additions to our collection of books and other materials housed in the Greeley Public Library. Every one of you should order a copy of the bibliography for one dollar from headquarters. You will be amazed at the wealth of information that is available to you through inter-library loan. We belong to an exciting organization, one in which we have the privilege of making new friends and becoming better acquainted with those we have known through the years. One member has said on several occasions, “I keep thinking and talking AHSGR wherever I go." I believe many of us do this and that is what has brought so many into our society. Our enthusiasm and pride serve as magnets, drawing others into membership. May your New Year be filled with all the blessings of good health and happiness and may 1974 be a banner year for the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia. Cordially,

Ruth M. Amen

THE VOLGA GERMANS Soviet Treatment of Some National Minorities By Ann Sheehy* (Appeared as Part Two of a Report, "The Crimean Tatars, Volga Germans and Meskhetians," in the New Edition of Report No. 6 from the Minority Rights Groups 36 Craven Street, London WC2N 5NG.)

The Soviet Germans are much more numerous than the Crimean Tatars. According to the 1970 Soviet census, they total 1,846,000, ranking 14th among the nationalities of the Soviet Union. A minority are Germans who were not Soviet citizens before the Second World War, but who found themselves in the USSR as a result of later deportation or boundary changes. The overwhelming majority are the descendants of settlers who came to Tsarist Russia a hundred to two hundred or more years ago. It is with these latter, i.e. those who were Soviet citizens in 1938, that this account is primarily concerned. Most of the Germans in European Russia were deported in 1941-2 as a precautionary measure. The remainder, who were in occupied territory and were evacuated with the Nazi forces, shared their compatriots’ fate on repatriation after the war. The Volga Germans, the only ones against whom accusations of disolyalty [sic] were made, were politically rehabilitated in 1964, some three years before the Crimean Tatars. But the Volga German ASSR was not re-established, and the Soviet Germans are still barred from returning to their former homes. From the limited samizdat material available on the Soviet Germans - an item in the Political Diary1 and isolated references elsewhere - together with information from Soviet Germans who have been allowed to leave the Soviet Union in recent years to join relatives in Germany,2 it is known that the Soviet Germans were not satisfied with the partial nature of their 1964 rehabilitation. The Volga Germans, in particular, regard the re- establishment of their autonomous republic as essential if the injustice done to them is to be righted and they are to preserve their national identity. But because of their past and recent history the Soviet Germans lack the cohesion of the Crimean Tatars, and they are less united in their aims. Increasing numbers are apparently now looking to emigration to West Germany as the solution to their problem, while others seem to be resigned to merging into the general Soviet population. Differences in national character, combined, perhaps, with stronger anti-German feelings on the part of the Russians, may also have made the Soviet Germans less ready than the Crimean Tatars to campaign for their rights. At all events there has been no Soviet German movement on anything like the scale of that of the Tatars, and such concessions as the Germans have gained have almost invariably been linked with efforts on Moscow's part to improve Soviet-West German relations or influence events in West Germany to Soviet advantage. History of German Settlement in Russia There were two distinct groups in the German population of Tsarist Russia. The first was a small, urbanized element consisting of the descendants of administrators, officers, professional men, merchants and craftsmen who had come to the country when Ivan the Terrible (1533-84) and Peter the Great (1682-1725) recruited foreigners to develop Moscow and St. Petersburg and modernize the army and the administration. The second, and much larger group, who had also come at the invitation of the Tsars, were the peasant farmers. Catherine the Great, anxious to develop the empty steppe along the Volga and have a bulwark against the nomadic Kalmyks, issued a manifesto on 22 July 1763 offering foreign settlers land, freedom from taxation, permanent exemption from military service, and administration of their own village affairs. In response 27,000 German settlers founded 104 colonies on the Volga between 1764 and 1768. At the same period other German colonies were founded near St. Petersburg, and (in the 1780s) mainly by Mennonites, in the Black Sea region not long wrested from the Turks and Crimean Tatars. However the main settlement in the latter area took place after a second manifesto issued by Alexander I on 20 February 1804. Six German colonies were also founded near Tiflis (Tbilisi) in Transcaucasia in 1817-20. In all an

*Ann Sheehy has been a research associate at the Central Asian Research Centre in London since 1960. She served in the British Embassy in Moscow from 1957 to 1959. 1. This item can be found in Russian in 1964-70. Politicheskiy dnevnik (Amsterdam, 1973). A German translation appeared in Der Spiegel of 4 December 1972, and an English translation (from the German) in Intercontinental Press of 18 December 1972. The author is indebted to Mrs. Emma S. Haynes for this information and much other assistance. estimated 100,000 German settlers came to Russia between 1763 and 1862, founding 304 primary or mother colonies. Thanks to their own industry and to the generous help they were given and the fact that - unlike the Russian peasants - they were not serfs, the colonists prospered, and eventually founded over 3,000 daughter colonies. At first these were in the vicinity of the mother colonies; then from the 1860s in the North Caucasus, which was opened up for settlement at the time of the emancipation of the serfs in 1861; and finally from the 1870s in Siberia, Kazakhstan and Central Asia. The economic success of the colonists aroused distrust in pan-Slavic circles, and this was reinforced by apprehension at the growing power of Germany. In consequence, following the founding of the German Empire in 1871, the privileges originally granted to the colonists were withdrawn. It was announced that henceforward they were to be treated as ordinary Russian citizens, and in 1874 they were made liable for military service. Many of the settlers, particularly the Mennonites, could not accept the changed situation, and there was a major exodus to the Americas, which continued until the First World War. Nonetheless by 1914 there were 1,621,000 Germans in the Tsarist empire excluding those in the Baltic provinces, Poland and Bessarabia which were subsequently lost to Russia as a result of the First World War or the Revolution. They were distributed as follows; Along the Volga 600,000 Black Sea and Crimea 520,000 Russian Volhynia 150,000 Asiatic Russia 102,000 North Caucasus 100,000 St. Petersburg area 22,000 Transcaucasia 21,000 Town-dwellers 106,000 Three out of four were Protestants, and the remainder Catholics. The First World War brought a foretaste of the fate the Soviet Germans were to suffer in the Second World War under Stalin. Although German settlers were called up to serve in the Tsarist army, there was considerable suspicion of and hostility towards "the enemy in our midst", and in 1915 laws were enacted ordering the deportation of all Germans living within 150 km. of the border. In the event only 50,000 Volhynian Germans were transported to the east - under such conditions that the majority died as a result. In accordance with a 1916 decree the Germans in the Volga area were to be expelled in April 1917, but after the February 1917 Revolution Kerensky agreed to stay the execution of the decree, and it was finally rescinded when the Bolsheviks came to power. The early Decades of Soviet Rule The period from the Revolution until the Nazi attack on the USSR in June 1941 was not an easy one for the Soviet Germans any more than it was for the rest of the Soviet population, but essentially the Party's policy towards the Germans as a national group was the same as that towards other nationalities. At the time of the Revolution itself, Lenin (whose own mother had German blood) had high hopes of revolution in Germany in the near future, and it is likely that the possible propaganda benefits were to the forefront of his mind when the Volga Germans - despite their lack of a large proletarian element - were one of the first peoples in the former Tsarist empire to be granted some kind of national autonomy in the shape of an Autonomous Workers' Commune on 19 October 1918. This became the Volga German ASSR on 20 February 1924. A total of 17 German National Districts were also set up in other parts of the country where there were concentrations of Germans. Six were in the RSFSR, including one in the Crimea and another in the Altay in Siberia; one each in Georgia and Azerbaydzhan; and nine in the Ukraine. Losses resulting from the First World War, the civil war, emigration and a very severe famine on the Volga in 1921-2 were responsible for the decline in the number of Germans to only 1,247,000 in 1926.The German population also suffered severely during collectivisation and the various purges of the late 1920s and the 1930s, probably somewhat more so than other nationalities, but by 1939 their numbers had risen again to 1,424,000. As before, the greatest concentration was on the Volga. In 1926 approximately a quarter of the Soviet Germans (380,000) lived in the Volga German ASSR, where they constituted two-thirds of the population. Another 30,000 were in the adjacent Saratov province. Before the war, the Volga Germans had 14 deputies in the USSR Supreme Soviet, and their republic was the main German cultural centre. They had five institutions of higher education, 400 secondary and primary schools, a national theatre and publishing house, and five republican and 20 local newspapers and periodicals. In spite of all the upheavals of the early years of Soviet rule, the Germans continued to display their traditional farming skills, and German collective farms in the Volga German republic and elsewhere were used as propaganda showpieces right up to 1941. Deportation When considering the fate of the Soviet Germans during the Second World War, it always has to be remembered that they were not enemy aliens but Soviet citizens whose forebears had settled in Russia many decades or even centuries earlier. Moreover, as the Soviet government has since admitted, there was no evidence of mass treachery on their part in the first months of the war. All the same, it is understandable that Moscow should have been uneasy about having a large German minority close to the front. There is an interesting parallel with the United States where American citizens of Japanese origin living on the Pacific coast were interned after Pearl Harbour. However not only did this action provoke adverse comment in America at the time, but - more important - the Japanese Americans were subsequently released and restored to full equality of rights. In other words, if it had been only the supposed demands of national security which determined the fate of the Soviet Germans, one would have expected that they would have been allowed to return to their homes and former existence as soon as the danger was past, or at the very least that they would have been provided with their own republic elsewhere. That the Soviet Germans suffered a much harsher fate can only be put down to Stalin's vindictive nature and a traditional Russian distrust of the Germans. The Nazi advance in the first weeks of the war was so rapid that 300,000 Soviet Germans living in the Ukraine between the Dniester and Dnieper came under enemy occupation before their deportation could be organized. The major deportations took place from the Crimea and Black Sea area (initially to the North Caucasus) in August 1941; from the Volga German republic in September 1941; from the North Caucasus and Transcaucasia in October 1941; and, after a lifeline had been established to the blockaded city by a road over the frozen Lake Ladoga, from Leningrad and the surrounding areas in March 1942. Only in the case of the Volga Germans was the deportation decree published. The decree, dated 28 August 1941, announced their "transfer" to Novosibirsk and Omsk provinces, the Altay, Kazakhstan and other neighbouring localities, and said it was a precautionary measure in view of the fact that none of the Germans had reported on the presence in their midst of tens of thousands of diversionists and spies ready to engage in sabotage at a signal from Germany. The Volga German ASSR and all 17 German National Districts were abolished. It has been estimated that some 800,000 Soviet Germans were deported from European Russia in 1941-2, 400,000 from the Volga German republic alone. Over 400,000 Germans were already living in the Asiatic part of the Soviet Union, including those who had been deported during collectivization and the purges and those in forced labour camps. The deportations were formally a "transfer" or "evacuation" and were carried out in a much less harsh manner than that of the Crimean Tatars. The Germans were given their pay in advance; they often had several days' warning, which enabled them to make preparations for the journey; and, in a number of instances at least, they were seen off at the station by friends of other nationalities. But the journey of days and weeks was made packed 40-60 in cattle cars, and among those contingents which had to cross the Central Asian deserts many of the very old, the very young and the sick died from the lack of water. The vast majority of the deportees were taken to Siberia and northern Kazakhstan, and all the Germans, including those already resident in Siberia, were put under the same restrictions and disabilities as the Crimean Tatars and other deported nations had to endure later. On the whole, on their arrival the deportees appear to have been well-treated by the local population, many of whom had themselves been exiled at one time or another, but there were Russians who called them "Fascists" of "Nazis", and on other occasions they encountered hostility from the indigenous Asian peoples. The living conditions of the local population were very primitive, and the Germans naturally received the worst of the accommodation, being billeted several to a room in crude mud huts and barracks. The rations they received were also inadequate. After helping with the 1941 harvest, the men were drafted into the labour army and sent away to various parts of Siberia, the Urals and the Far North to work on the railways, on road construction, in the coal mines and on timber felling. Many did not survive the ordeal. In 1942 the women, except for mothers of very young children, were also impressed into the labour army. Conditions are said to have been particularly bad in Karaganda, where many starved to death. On the other hand the Germans were spared the heavy losses other nationalities had to endure at the front although, remarkably in all the circumstances, according to Soviet publications "thousands" did fight as loyal soldiers and partisans, and two were even awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for their gallantry. As for the Germans in occupied territory, when the tide turned in the war they were evacuated by the Nazi forces. A long trek in covered wagons brought them to the Warthegau in western Poland, where they were settled and granted German citizenship. Later they fled before the advancing Red Army to Germany itself. But the Soviet government did not recognize their German citizenship and, under an allied agreement that all Soviet citizens should be repatriated, in 1945 250,000 of the estimated 350,000 Soviet Germans who had come to Germany were transported back to the Soviet Union, mainly to Siberia and the Komi area. There they were put in labour camps or under the same "special settlement" conditions as those deported during the war. Their treatment was much harsher than that of those deported earlier since they were regarded as traitors who had gone over to the enemy. As with the Crimean Tatars, all mention of the existence of Soviet Germans disappeared from Soviet published material, and the German place names in the former Volga German republic were changed. The German press and German educational institutions ceased to exist, and the Germans themselves were treated as pariahs. Release from "Special Settlement" Restrictions An alleviation in the situation of the Soviet Germans would no doubt have come sooner or later following Stalin's death, as it did for the other deported peoples. But the release of the Soviet Germans from "special settlement" restrictions over four months before the Crimean Tatars and Meskhetians can almost certainly be linked with the establishment of diplomatic relations between Moscow and Bonn and Adenauer’s visit to Moscow in September 1955. Adenauer brought up the question of the Soviet Germans in his talks with the Soviet leaders, and, in what was apparently intended as a gesture of goodwill, a decree was issued on 13 December 1955 which stated that the restrictions on the legal position of the Soviet Germans were no longer necessary. At the same time, however, in accordance with the stipulations of the decree, all the Soviet Germans were required to sign a statement that they would never return to the district in which they had formerly lived or put in a claim for property confiscated at the time of deportation. One can only surmise why the Soviet Germans were not fully rehabilitated in 1956-7 along with the Chechens and others and why they were forbidden to return to their former settlements. Strategic considerations could have been a factor in the case of the Black Sea Germans but hardly in the case of the Volga Germans. It is probable, therefore, that the motive was simply continuing hostility towards, and distrust of, the Germans. As regards some of the Black Sea Germans, there was, in fact, some concrete justification for doubting their loyalty. Following Adenauer's visit, the mistaken idea spread among the Soviet Germans that those who had been granted German citizenship during the war would be allowed to emigrate. Application forms were made available, and approximately 200,000 were sent to the West German embassy in Moscow. Some of the Black Sea Germans even started making preparations for their departure, only to be told that they were still considered citizens of the Soviet Union. In spite of its limitations, the 1955 decree greatly eased the lot of the Soviet Germans. They were no longer treated as criminal outcasts, and many took advantage of their newly-regained freedom of movement to shift to the towns and also away from the harsh Siberian winters to the more southerly parts of the Asiatic USSR. More important, they were now able to start seeking out members of their families from whom they had been separated ten or fifteen years previously. In 1956, after a decade of complete silence, thousands of letters were received in West Germany from Soviet Germans trying to get in touch with next-of-kin. Relative freedom of movement was not the only gain. Germans could now be elected to local Soviets and there was a gradual reintroduction of cultural facilities. In 1955 a local paper in German began to appear in the Altay, and in 1957 Neues Leben, now a weekly with a circulation of 300,000, began publication in Moscow. Moscow Radio started putting out programmes for Soviet Germans in 1956; Kazakh Radio in 1957; and Kirgiz Radio in 1962. In 1957 directives were issued in a number of republics that instruction in German as the mother tongue was to be introduced where parents requested it, provided that there were at least eight to ten German children in the school and qualified teachers available. In 1960 a symposium of the works of 31 Soviet German writers was published. After 1955 some kind of organized religious life as well became possible once again for the Soviet Germans. In July 1957 the Rev. Bachmann, a Lutheran minister who had spent 20 years in various labour camps, was allowed to organize a registered Lutheran church in Tselinograd in northern Kazakhstan.

4 Elsewhere no ordained pastors were available, but congregations were allowed to meet for prayer although their situation was precarious as they were not always registered i.e. officially recognized by the authorities. Links were established with the Protestant churches in both East and West Germany, and confirmation certificates, specially- printed bibles (from East Germany), and in one case even an organ were dispatched to Siberia. German Catholic congregations also came into being, and American and Canadian Mennonites were able to re-establish contact with their co-religionists in the Soviet Union. Despite these improvements, the position of the Soviet Germans remained an uneasy one, as could be seen from the fact that only very isolated references to their existence could be found in the Russian-language press. It is true that they were included once again among the nationalities of the Soviet Union when the 1959 census results were published - they then numbered 1,620,000 - but there was a marked reluctance to reveal their exact whereabouts. This was most glaring in the case of the Kazakhstan figures which did not list the Germans at all, although it later became known that they totalled 648,000 and ranked fourth among the nationalities in the republic. 820,000 were admitted to be in the RSFSR, but no German was included in the nationality breakdown of population by provinces, although later information confirmed that the biggest concentrations were in Altay region, Omsk and Novosibirsk provinces and Krasnoyarsk region in Siberia. The presence of 91,000 in the Central Asian republics of Kirgiziya, Tadzhikistan and Uzbekistan seems to have been divulged in the local newspapers only through an oversight. Political Rehabilitation The political rehabilitation of the Volga Germans (and in effect all the Soviet Germans) came in 1964 and was probably designed as a gesture of friendship towards West Germany with whom Khrushchev was trying to improve relations. The decree was dated 29 August 1964. However, perhaps because of disagreement among Soviet leaders over policy towards Bonn, it was not published immediately, and apparently the Soviet Germans first leamt that they had been rehabilitated from the East German Neues Deutschland to which a number subscribe. They protested to Neues Leben and Soviet officials about the non-publication of the decree in the Soviet press, and finally it appeared in the USSR Supreme Soviet Gazette of 28 December 1964. The decree was very much less grudging than the one which subsequently rehabilitated the Crimean Tatars. Thus it not only said that the sweeping accusations of actively assisting the German invaders were unfounded but went on: In reality in the years of the Great Patriotic War the vast majority of the German population, together with the entire Soviet people, assisted the victory of the Soviet Union over Fascist Germany by their labour, and in the post-war years have been actively taking part in Communist construction. Otherwise, the decree closely resembled that of the Tatars in noting that the Soviet Germans had "taken firm root in their new places of residence", were taking an active part in public and political life, and enjoyed certain cultural facilities. The decree did not satisfy the Soviet Germans. Apparently even before its publication they had sent a number of petitions to Moscow requesting the restoration of the Volga German republic, but had received no concrete reply. In 1964 or early 1965 a delegation of 13 went to Moscow, but were told that they could not be received as they had not collected enough signatures. Having collected the requisite number, a second delegation arrived in Moscow in late May or early June 1965. The delegation had 35 members representing German communities in Siberia, Kazakhstan, Central Asia and the Volga area and included both Volga and Black Sea Germans. Among its spokesmen were the former head of the defense department of the Volga German republic and a civil war hero. (Many Soviet German Communists are said to have been active in the movement). They were finally seen by Mikoyan on 7 June 1965. The delegates argued that "our only real rehabilitation will be the re-establishment of the republic on the Volga. Only this step will free us from shame and mistrust." To support their case they adduced their historical right to the territory and the fact that all the other nationalities had their own republic. They claimed to have the support of at least one million Soviet Germans, and pointed out that there was plenty of room for them on the territory of the former Volga German republic since the rural areas were only 25-30 per cent populated and many of their former villages were in ruins. An agency in Volgograd was recruiting settlers for the area, but none of them stayed long. The spokesmen contrasted the meagre cultural facilities the Germans now enjoyed with those of pre-war days and even of Tsarist times, and contended that because they were scattered and had no national statehood they were inadequately represented in the USSR Supreme Soviet. They also said that the Soviet Germans resented the fact that the decree had not been published in the Russian-language newspapers. In reply Mikoyan agreed that the restoration of the Volga German republic "would be the best solution to the problem", but pleaded economic difficulties. It would be impossible to manage without the Germans in the Virgin Lands of Kazakhstan and in the Karaganda coal mines. In any case, the fact that two-thirds of the Soviet Germans had lived outside the Volga republic before the war showed that they could live without a republic. However he promised that the number of German deputies in the USSR Supreme Soviet would be increased, that cultural facilities for the German population would be improved, and that any cases of discrimination against them would be investigated. The delegates recorded their dissatisfaction with this reply in a letter to Mikoyan and Shelepin, a member of the Party Presidium and Deputy Premier. They maintained that the Soviet Germans who lived outside the republic before the war only flourished because the republic existed, and scathingly contrasted their treatment with the care and attention which the Soviet government had always lavished on the East Germans, as though "the home of the Fascists was not in Germany, but among the Soviet Germans." There was some force in Mikoyan's argument that the Virgin lands of Kazakhstan and Karaganda, which are perennially short of labour, could not manage without the hard-working and productive Germans, particularly when one considers that they accounted for 12 per cent of the population of the six provinces in 1959. Their contribution to the economy in Siberia must also be valuable. However, the re-establishment of the Volga German ASSR would not necessarily have meant a mass exodus of Germans from Siberia and Kazakhstan. Many Germans would have been content to stay where they were, but this did not prevent them from regarding the restoration of their former republic as essential to guarantee them the same political and cultural rights as other ethnic groups. Mikoyan's arguments for not re-establishing the republic might have seemed more convincing if the government had done more to restore the good reputation of the Soviet Germans, both by publicizing the rehabilitation decree and in other ways, but apparently it could not bring itself to do this. However, Mikoyan was true to his word over improved cultural provisions and representation in the Supreme Soviet. Three Soviet Germans were elected to the USSR Supreme Soviet in 1970, one of whom holds the post of USSR Minister of Food Industries. Another German holds the same post in Kazakhstan, and German representation in local Soviets has increased sixfold since their rehabilitation and now approximates to their proportion in the total population. A third newspaper, Freundschaft, was started up in Tselinograd for the Kazakhstan Germans and there were more radio programmes and an occasional TV programme. A resolution of 23 July 1965 of the USSR State Committee for the Press led to a substantial improvement in the literary field: more books were published, a German section was set up in the Kazakhstan publishing house, and there are now German sections in a number of writers' unions. All-Union seminars of German writers have also been held in Moscow, and a professional German variety ensemble, based on Karaganda, was founded in 1968. Another outcome of rehabilitation has been that since 1964 books and articles have appeared, if only in German, extolling the exploits of Soviet Germans during the Revolution and Second World War, and a number of scholarly articles on the Soviet Germans, albeit concentrating on relatively innocuous topics such as linguistics, have been published. The Situation Today Thanks to their exceptional industry, from the material point of view the Soviet Germans are relatively well-off today. For instance, the results of a survey in Siberia, published in Neues Leben in 1969, showed that they had proportionately more radios, television sets, washing machines, bicycles and motorcycles than their Ukrainian neighbours. But nearly nine years after the charge on the basis of which the Volga Germans were deported was admitted groundless, their autonomous republic has still not been restored. A very few have returned to their former villages on the Volga, but a mass return is out of the question and the majority of Soviet Germans remain in the Asiatic part of the Soviet Union, i.e. in the areas to which they were deported, although there has been a shift southwards from Siberia to Kazakhstan and Central Asia. According to the 1970 census, there are now only 762,000 Germans in the RSFSR compared with 820,000 in 1959, while the number in Kazakhstan has risen from 648,000 to 839,000. The majority of the Soviet Germans in Kazakhstan remain in Karaganda and the northern (Virgin Land) provinces, but their numbers have been growing proportionately much faster in the south-east. (Alma-Ata, Dzhambul and Taldy-Kurgan provinces). There has also been a very rapid increase in the number of Germans in neighbouring Kirgiziya from 40,000 in 1959 to 90,000 in 1970. A further 38,000 live in Tadzhikistan. Although the status of the Soviet Germans has improved and the existence of the Soviet German press with the image it projects of the loyal German citizen has done much to restore their self-respect, the authorities still display certain inhibitions about them. Thus, when the national composition of the population according to the 1970 census was published in Pravda of 17 April 1971, the Germans were unaccountably omitted from the breakdown by republics. This failure to treat the Germans in the same way as other ethnic groups naturally does nothing to lessen the anti-German feelings of some members of the general public, and the Germans complain that they are still called "Fascists" or "Hitlerites" and blamed for the war. The restoration of the Volga German republic could undoubtedly play a part in changing such attitudes, and reassuring the Soviet Germans that they are not some kind of second-class citizens. In addition it would almost certainly provide more favourable conditions for them to preserve and develop their cultural heritage. Their cultural facilities today are still nothing to what they had been before deportation or to what other comparable nationalities in the Soviet Union enjoy. Book publication has turned out to be disappointing, and they have no German theatre or school. Even the number of German children receiving instruction in German as the mother tongue as a special subject appears to have declined during the 1960s and is now estimated to be only about a quarter of the total. But here not all the blame can be laid at the door of the authorities for not being as energetic as they might over the provision of teachers and textbooks. German teachers themselves are often not prepared to forego better paid jobs in the towns to teach in the rural areas, and some parents feel that to make their children spend time on German may hamper their career prospects when Russian is essential for higher education. The German variety ensemble in Karaganda has also had difficulty in recruiting artists because it performs mainly in the rural areas. No doubt in the normal course of events the former exclusive German village communities would eventually have broken up, but deportation completed a process already accelerated by collectivization. The resulting dispersal of the German population, the greater proportion now living in the towns (39.3 per cent in 1959) and the lack of German schools have inevitably led to increasing signs of linguistic assimilation. Whereas in 1926 no more than five per cent of Soviet Germans regarded Russian as their mother tongue, by 1959 the proportion had risen to 24 per cent, and by 1970 to 32.7 per cent. Fewer and fewer of the younger generation know German, and more and more of them are marrying outside their ethnic group. A number of the Soviet Germans are very likely quite content to lose their cultural identity and become assimilated, but it seems that for one reason or another the majority are not satisfied with their present situation in the Soviet Union. However they have not been united in their aims. It has been primarily, but by no means exclusively, the Volga Germans who have been interested in the restoration of the Volga republic. Some of the Black Sea Germans argue that they did not have their republic before and are better scattered among the general population if there should be future trouble with Germany. For others emigration to West Germany has been the goal — the Black Sea Germans are more likely to have relatives there than the Volga Germans and thus have had a greater chance of being allowed to leave the Soviet Union. The lack of unanimous support for the campaign for the restoration of the Volga republic was probably one reason why the Soviet Germans were more easily discouraged than the Crimean Tatars. After the delegation was seen by Mikoyan in 1965, many of those involved found his attitude so negative that they gave up trying immediately. A few redoubled their efforts in spite of being subjected to harassment and threats, and a small delegation took a petition with 8,123 signatures to Moscow in summer 1966 but did not see anyone of importance. Two other small groups may have gone in late 1966 and 1967. But with that the movement apparently petered out, although the Volga Germans had some contact with Kosterin and Grigorenko in 1968. According to Grigorenko, the situation of the Volga Germans was even worse than that of the Crimean Tatars. It was for this reason that he declined to give the names of the Volga Germans who attended or the speech of their representative in his compilation on Kosterin's funeral. It is not clear why the Volga Germans' situation should be worse. Perhaps the sanctions against those who agitated for the republic were more severe. But it is also likely that the majority of the Germans have been less willing to stick their necks out than the Tatars. Be that as it may, according to a recent arrival from the Soviet Union, most of the Volga Germans have now given up all hope of getting their republic back and are joining the Black Sea Germans in seeking emigration. Emigration The Bonn government and the German Red Cross have been engotiating [sic, negotiating] patiently for years to obtain permission for members of separated families and others to emigrate. But so far only a very limited emigration has been permitted, and there has been a marked correlation between the numbers allowed to leave at any one time and Moscow's desire to win favour in Bonn. In all, in the region of 27,000 Germans have left the Soviet Union since 1957, but about 20,000 of these have been Germans who were not Soviet citizens before the Second World War. They include Germans from Germany and East Europe who were deported to the Soviet Union during and after the war, among them Baltic, Memel and Bessarabian Germans who were allowed to settle on German-occupied territory under the terms of the 1939 Nazi-Soviet pact. In the early years most of those granted exit visas belonged to this category, but latterly native-born Soviet Germans, i.e. those who were Soviet citizens before the Second World War have constituted the majority, Back in the mid-1950s, after it became clear that the Soviet authorities were not prepared to let the 200,000 native-born Soviet Germans who had applied to go to Germany leave the country, the German Red Cross compiled a list of 43,000 hardcore cases of separated families. But only a very few of these people, most of them elderly, were allowed to leave - some 30-40 in 1957/8 and 529 in 1959/64. Seemingly as a by-product of the political rehabilitation of the Volga Germans in 1965, an agreement on the re- unification of separated families was reached in Vienna in 1965 between the Soviet and German Red Crosses and the number of native-born Soviet Germans arriving in Germany rose to 984 in 1966 and 836 in 1967. But by 1969 it had declined again to 236. Then in August 1970 Brandt brought up the question of separated families when he was in Moscow to sign the Soviet-West German Non-Aggression Treaty, and in 1971 the number of native-born Soviet Germans arriving in Germany went up again to 871. The most spectacular increase so far took place in 1972 as a result of two blatant instances of the use of Soviet German emigration by the Soviet government to influence events in West Germany. The first occurred when the Soviet-West German treaty came up for ratification by the Bonn parliament in April and the Soviet authorities let it be known that they would allow 700 Germans (of both categories) to leave. Then in November, in order to improve Brandt's chances of re-election, 1,588 Germans were suddenly given exit visas. The following month the number arriving in Germany dropped sharply to 343 and it has continued at a low level since. In all, 2,920 native-born Soviet Germans were allowed to leave in 1972, many of them young. This made a total of 7,321 since 1959, of whom 622 went to East Germany. But at the end of 1972 there were still 30,000 native- born Soviet Germans on the Red Cross files waiting to rejoin members of their families, and the actual number of Soviet Germans who would like to leave is apparently very much larger: an estimate of 70 per cent has been given by young Soviet Germans who came to West Germany in 1972/3 from various part of the Soviet Union. In July 1972 a group of Germans living in Latvia and Estonia transmitted a petition to the UN Secretary-General Waldheim during his visit to Moscow in which they appealed to all governments and peoples of the world to try and persuade the Soviet government to let any Soviet Germans who wished to go to West Germany to do so. They claimed that all their own requests had been turned down. Further evidence of a mass movement to obtain permission to emigrate comes from a Soviet German who reached West Germany from Central Asia in March 1973. According to this informant, for several months there had been a state of unrest among the Soviet Germans. Everywhere petitions were being signed asking that even those without relatives in Germany should be allowed to leave if they wished. It was hoped to present the petitions during a forthcoming session of the Supreme Soviet. The greater number of Germans granted exit visas recently - together with the exodus of Soviet Jews - were presumably the immediate causes of this unrest, but underlying it is clearly a profound disillusion on the part of many, if not the majority of Soviet Germans with their prospects as Germans in the Soviet Union. It is impossible to say to what extent the restoration of the Volga German republic in 1957 or even in 1964 might have averted this outcome, but it seems reasonable to suppose that it would have greatly reassured many of the Volga Germans in particular about their future as an ethnic group. The likelihood of the republic being restored today is extremely remote, if only because it would have the undesirable effect from the authorities' point of view of strengthening the Crimean Tatars' case. It would also go against the general trend of the nationalities policy today which favours the breaking down of national barriers and the ultimate fusion of nations. Moreover, if it is true that now many even of the Volga Germans wish to emigrate, it could even be argued that there is no longer any point in restoring their national autonomy, even if the reason they want to go is precisely because it has not been restored. As for the chances of all the Soviet Germans who wish to emigrate being allowed to do so, these also do not seem very high at present. The Soviet Union has always been remarkably loth to let any of its citizens leave, and a mass exodus by any one national group is hardly an advertisement for the Soviet system and its much vaunted nationalities policy, besides the likelihood that it will increase the pressure from other groups. The departure of a large number of Germans could also be economically damaging. Moreover one imagines that Moscow would be reluctant to give up a handy bargaining counter in its relations with West Germany. To date Moscow has not been under pressure from a vocal German lobby outside the Soviet Union, but this could conceivably change as there are signs that the Soviet Germans themselves, who earlier took steps to see that none of their samizdat found its way to foreign correspondents, are now beginning to seek publicity abroad for their case. The fact that it has apparently been just as difficult for Soviet Germans to join relatives in communist East Germany as in capitalist West Germany gives some idea of how reluctant the Soviet Union is to allow its citizens to leave the country. A corollary of this is Moscow’s perennial fear of dual allegiances, which makes any national groups which have links abroad, and notably the Soviet Germans and Soviet Jews, additionally suspect. But, if both groups have suffered because of these links, in a sense they have also benefited from them in that they have enabled some of their number to leave the USSR, albeit with great difficulty. Like the Soviet Jews (and other Soviet citizens), the Soviet Germans are liable to be penalized in their jobs or studies merely for applying to emigrate, and those granted exit visas are subject to the education tax. That proportionately fewer Soviet Germans than Soviet Jews have to pay it merely reflects the fact that fewer of them have higher education. In one particular a distinction is made between the Soviet Jews and Soviet Germans in that the latter are not required to renounce their Soviet citizenship before leaving the country — but emigration can still be very costly for a Soviet German family, as 400 roubles a head have to be paid for a passport for even the smallest child in addition to the expenses of travel. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

Washlngton, D.C. 20520

Editor's Note: The above reply was received on August 23, 1973 in reply to the telegram sent to President Richard M. Nixon on June 23, 1973. (See Work Paper #12, page 35.) The Russian address was translated into English by Mr. Alexander Poncet de Sandon, 761 Lafayette Street, Denver, Colorado, as follows: "The main Archives Administration at the Council of Ministers of the U.S.S.R., Moscow G-435, the Big Pie Street, 17."

10

11 CAPTURED GERMAN DOCUMENTS By Dr. Adam Giesinger It will be of interest to many of our members that there are materials on the Germans in Russia among the "Captured German Documents" in the Library of Congress in Washington. These materials consist of reports made in 1942 from German villages in the Ukraine to the "Reichsminister für die besetzten Ostgebiete." Dr. Adam Giesinger of Winnipeg, Canada, recently spent several days examining these materials and made an inventory of them. The reports in this collection came from 81 German villages in the Ukraine, 41 of them Mennonite. Included in the 81 were 19 mother colonies, 47 older daughter colonies (founded 1865-1900), 9 daughter colonies founded in the 1920’s and 6 founded in 1942! Of the 19 mother colonies, 12 were Mennonite villages of the Chortitza group: Blumengart, Burwalde, Chortitza, Einlage, Kronstal, Kronsweide, Neuenburg, Neuendorf, Neuhorst, Osterwick, Rosengart and Schonhorst. The other 7 mother colonies were: Josephstal, Rybalsk (Fischerdorf) and Jamburg in the Dnepropetrovsk region; and Klosterdorf, Muhlhausendorf, Alt-Schwedendorf and Neu-Danzig farther south. The 47 older daughter colonies included 16 villages of the Sagradovka Memmonite settlement and 6 of the villages of the neighboring Kronau group, all dating back to the 1870's. All except 6 of the 81 colonies were west of the Dnieper. They lay predominantly in a relatively small part of the Ukraine, between the Dnieper and the Inguletz rivers. The 6 exceptions were just east of the Dnieper in the Dnepropetrovsk region. No colonies west of the Bug are represented in the collection. There are also in the Library of Congress (presumably "captured") several volumes of the Odessaer Zeitung, a German daily newspaper published in Odessa up to 1914. Unfortunately many issues are mutilated (pieces cut out with scissors) and there are many issues missing altogether. Dr. Giesinger will be happy to supply more detailed information about these materials to any researcher who is interested. His address is: 645 Oxford Street, Winnipeg, Canada R3M 3J3.

FRANK VILLAGE BAND MEMBERS IDENTIFIED The cover of Work Paper No. 8 featured the village band of Frank, Saratov, Russia. The picture taken around 1900 -1905, was displayed at the International Convention in Portland, Oregon last June and the individual band members were identified as follows: Front row, left to right: Jakob Stroh, Heinrich Löbsack, J. Bauer, ? Eckhardt (schoolmaster), Johannes Löbsack, J. Uhrich, and Heinrich Eichler. Back row, left to right: Lamberts Eckhardt (son of schoolmaster), ? Wacker, Johannes Kissler, Jakob Hoffman, ? Fahrenbruch (store clerk), (Gräbe) Bauer, ? Wagner, and J. Wacker. We are indebted to Mr. Otto Weigel of Portland, Oregon, for this information.

12 RECENT ADDITIONS TO THE LOAN COLLECTION Three new titles purchased for the AHSGR collection at the Greeley, Colorado, Public Library are the following; Up from the Volga; the Story of the Ochs Family, by Grace Lillian Ochs. Nashville, Tenn., Southern Publishing Assn., 1969. 128 p. Peter Ochs, his wife Katrina and five-year-old daughter, together with other villagers, left the village of Schoenfeldt, South Russia, for America in 1875. Katrina died during the journey and was buried at sea. Their destination was Great Bend, Kansas, where Peter married Mary, his second wife. In 1881 the Ochs family, with others from the German colony, left for Portland, Oregon, with a promise of work for a railroad. However, Peter was a farmer at heart and soon was in search of land, ending finally in the Palouse River area in Washington. The first half of the book is descriptive of the life of the family. The second half is devoted almost entirely to the preparation for, and service in the Seventh Day Adventist Church by three of the eleven Ochs children.

Anecdotes of the Prairies, Msgr. George P. Aberle. Hague, North Dakota, The Author (?). 1973, 120 p. According to Msgr. Aberle these tales, most of which involve the clergy, are based on actual occurrences during the early pioneer years in the Dakotas. Reviews by Mrs. Clarence T. Olson Erfahrungen aus meinem Missionarsleben in den Dakotas. Experiences from My Missionary Life in the Dakotas, by Rev. Peter Bauer and translated and edited by Armand and Elaine Bauer. Bismarck, North Dakota, North Dakota Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1973. 47 p. Reverend Peter Bauer was a school teacher in Worms, South Russia, before he and his wife and ten children came to the United State in 1893. He served the Reformed Churches in the Eureka, South Dakota vicinity until 1902. Pastor Bauer gives chilling accounts of the severe winters and the dangers he encountered as he traveled on his preaching circuits. His descriptions of his horse and buggy (and sleigh) trips will bring back many vivid memories to the Old Timers still with us. Pastor Bauer was appointed as Missionary by the South Dakota Classis in 1902 and thenceforth organized and served small Reformed congregations in the Jamestown area (Medina Parish), Goodrich, Lincoln Valley, Streeter, Wimbledon and the Glen Ullin area. Pastor Bauer recalls his troubles with the "sectarians," particularly Adventists and Perfectionists; and the strange church quarrels that beset some of the congregations, including the bizarre feud over a hymn-board in the Zeeland congregation that nearly split the congregation. Pastor Bauer, feeling he could no longer continue his strenuous preaching trips, accepted a call to the Loveland, Colorado, congregation where he served from 1907-1910. But the bickering between the two Sutton Reformed factions which had been transplanted to Loveland was worse than the severe Dakota blizzards, so he moved back to Goodrich, North Dakota, in 1910. Mr. Bauer's last two charges were Zeeland and then Leola where he served from 1921-1936. He died in 1942 at the age of 87, three years after the death of his wife. Their graves are located in Leola, South Dakota. Review by Armand and Elaine Bauer Editor's Note: The book can be purchased for $2.25 per copy, postage prepaid, from the North Dakota Historical Society of Germans from Russia, Box 1671, Bismarck, North Dakota 58501.

In addition to the three new titles purchased. Rev. Fred W. Gross of Sacramento, California, donated to the AHSGR collection a copy of his very recent book- The Pastor, The Life of an Immigrant, by Fred W. Gross. Dorrance & Company, Philadelphia, Penssylvania, [sic] 1973.182 p. From the silence of reminiscence and the comfort of retirement, Reverend Fred W. Gross has written a chronology of his life. This book, The Pastor, is an autobiography of his travels from Johannestal, Russia, in 1914 at age 18 through Canada, North Dakota, South America and finally to Sacramento, California. He relates the struggles, hardships, and pride of accomplishments made by an immigrant who chose a fruitfully

13 rewarding life as a Congregational minister, Born to a school principal father and a devout and affectionate mother, Fred grew up in a religious home and had a traditional village education in which the Bible was a textbook. The school and the church were the center of the community and life. It is in these formative years and in his search for further education at the Zentral-Schule of Grossliebental where both his father and older brother had attended that he prepares himself for the challenging possibilities of the United States and the fulfillment of his mother's prayer that he become a minister. All the elements known to every person who has left the security and familiarity of home make his leave-taking a poignant reminder. Homesickness, the nagging thought that he might never return, as well as the threat of the unknown end of his journey are chronicled for many readers in like circumstances. As was the case with so many immigrants before and after him, the sustaining force in the next years was hard work and prayer. His mother's prayer was answered when Fred reached the time of ordination after years of farm labor to support himself and attend school at both Redfield College in South Dakota and Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. The seeds of his earnest desire to become a leader of congregations of prayerful Germans who, like him, had immigrated to frontiers of North and South America and Canada were first planted in Canada and North Dakota. Each change of congregation meant new soil, different conditions, and additional harvests to a fervent young pastor with a growing family. But it is the six years spent in the mission fields of Argentina and Brazil where German Russians and Reich Germans settled that historical society members will find the most interesting reading. The political overtones which parallel the torments and terrors of immigrants who spoke German, practiced German religious and family customs, or read German-language newspapers in the United States during the period beginning in 1934, is particularly informative. Reverend Gross, as a writer for Der Herold, the church newspaper in the South American mission field, attempted to counteract the flood of suspicion against these immigrants as portrayed by other German-language newspapers. It is also this part of the book that will send the reader in search of an atlas in order to find the places to which Reverend Gross travelled in his mission ministry. Finally back in the United States, he and his family settled in Lodi, California, where Reverend Gross tended a congregation that started with seventy-five members and an old church until it had grown to a group of four hundred members and a $125,000 structure. He repeated this success with membership and edifice at Elk Grove. At the pinnacle of his success, he retired to begin another career as community counselor and active civic leader. By now his life had come a full circle and there was time for retirement after fifty years in the ministry and time and resources to fulfill another dream-to return to Russia on four visits with his sister and brother who came to Moscow with their children. Now he had time to fill in the missing pages of information about those he had left behind so many years before when he left Russia as a young man and time to tell of his own accomplishments. We are fortunate that Reverend Gross has had' time also to share his tribulations and triumphs from a long and full life. He has taken us on a long journey to interesting places and has given us a portrait of himself. Review by Ruth K. Stoll Editor's Note: The book is available for $4.95 by writing to Rev. Fred W. Gross, 608 34th Street, Sacramento, California 95816.

14 GERMAN-RUSSIAN CULINARY DELIGHTS Küche Kochen. American Historical Society of Germans from Russia. Reviewed by Gwen Herstein Nobbe

Blini, Rucha Brod, Dina Kuchen, Glace, Grebbel, Broda - ahhhhhhhh! All names that mean little to the average person, but to my mind they bring smells of a tiny, sunny kitchen and my grandma waving her spoon over head as she talked to me. In this day of cookbooks for every occasion, it takes a lot to make me leave frozen bread dough and quick muffin mix long enough to spend more than an hour in my kitchen. But just such a thing happened after I saw Küche Kochen, published by the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia. This volume should interest everyone of every nationality and heritage because it's more than just a cookbook. It is a living culinary history of a people who started making their mark in America less than four generations ago. Recipes were submitted by society members from all over the nation. Most of them are probably as close to family secrets as you can get, but now they will be shared with the world - or at least with those persons who are willing to obtain a copy of Küche Kochen. It's hard to thumb through the green-covered book and pick a favorite offering, especially since my most formative years were spent licking pots and pans when those selfsame dishes were being concocted at home. However, there are a few that have earned a special place in both my mind and my tummy. Take, for example, Kirsche Kuchen (Cherry Coffe Cake), which found its way to our table every Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's or Christening Day. It's a light coffee cake covered with sweet cherries and topped with a butter-flour-sugar combination that turns crunchy in the oven. Or blini, the thin, yeast-raised pancakes that made a cook out of my father on special Sunday mornings. (He was the only one who could master the delicate blini touch, or at least Mother let him think so.) In old Russia during the pre-Lenten Butter Festival, blini were downed two or three dozen at a time. It's incredible that a simple mixture of milk, warm water, egg, sugar, yeast and flour can rouse children from their beds and make them clamor for breakfast. The cookbook is available at Germans from Russia international headquarters in Lincoln at 615 D St. ---Gwen Herstein Nobbe

Reprinted from the December 30, 1973 issue of Focus by permission of The Lincoln Journal and Star.

15 REPORT FROM GERMANY By Emma Schwabenland Haynes The arrival of Soviet Germans in Germany is a subject which must interest every member of AHSGR. Two articles on this topic appeared in Work Paper No, 11 for April 1973. Recent developments will be discussed in the following pages. According to statistics compiled by the German Red Cross, approximately three thousand Soviet Germans were given permission to emigrate in 1972. More than half came in November alone. The year 1973 began at a very low ebb, but numbers increased as the months went by. In September 1973, 549 people arrived at Camp Friedland, and in October, 634. During the first ten months of 1973, 3,600 Soviet Germans reached the West. Both in 1972 and 1973 the overwhelming majority of these people had been born in the Soviet Union. The others, perhaps 18%, were Germans who had been deported either from the Reich itself or from eastern European countries, Although this exodus of German families is gratifying, far larger numbers of Soviet Jews have been allowed to emigrate to Israel. In contrast to the 3,000 Soviet Germans who left the USSR in 1972, there were 32,000 Soviet Jews; and in contrast to the 634 Soviet Germans who reached Germany in October 1973, 4,200 Soviet Jews arrived in Israel.1 The lengths to which some Soviet Germans go to escape from the USSR is told best by the story of a recent "Heimkehrer," Viktor Schneider, whose father was a Volga German. Viktor's name first came to my attention on July 26, 1973 when an article in the International Herald Tribune bore the heading, "Finns Grant Brief Asylum to Refugee." Four days later, a more complete story appeared in the Süddeutsche Zeitung of Munich, In 1941, at the time of the deportation of all Volga Germans, Viktor's father was sent to a forced labor camp near Novosibirsk, Here he met and married a Russian woman. Victor was born in 1948, His father died in 1959 and his mother two years later. The boy grew up in a Russian environment and never learned to speak German. Nevertheless, he soon began to plot and scheme how to reach Germany, the land of his father's ancestors. By the time he was twenty, Viktor had already saved enough money as a stonemason in Latvia to make his first attempt to escape. Since he had no close relatives in West Germany, he knew that this would have to be done illegally. Therefore he journeyed to the Caucasus from where he hoped to cross secretly into Turkey. Unfortunately, he was caught by Russian border guards, interrogated for five days, and then given a one and one- half year prison sentence to be served in Riga, Latvia. At the conclusion of this term, Viktor went back to his old trade. Within six months he had saved four hundred rubles. This time he decided to make his escape from the Siberian Far East over the Bering Straits to Alaska. But, after flying to an airport in eastern Siberia, he soon discovered that is was impossible to enter the region around the Bering Straits without special permission. The thought then occurred to him to reach Japan by way of Sakhalin, but again he was unable to buy the necessary airplane tickets. He was now becoming an object of suspicion. In order to escape arrest, he hurriedly used his last savings to fly back to European Russia and to resume his old place of employment in Latvia. Systematic training then began in swimming and rowing for Viktor's next plan: to escape by rubber raft over the Baltic Sea to Sweden. The best exit point was near Tallinn on the northern coast of Estonia, approximately two hundred miles from Sweden. Viktor hoped to cover this distance in four to five days. Early in July 1973 he set out at night taking with him eight quarts of water, five pounds of bread, seven packages of cookies and one pound of sugar. His navigational equipment consisted of two compasses, both of which proved useless. Thereafter he had to depend upon the sun and the stars. On four different occasions Russian ships passed, but Viktor hid inside the raft and remained undetected. After the second night he saw a Finnish ship which he mistakingly took to be German. He flagged it down, was taken aboard, and brought to Helsinki, At this point Victor's difficulties really began. Under a consular agreement with the Soviet Union, Finland is obliged to return Soviet citizens arriving without identification papers. In spite of his protestations that he was of German descent and wanted to live in Germany, Viktor was put in a Finnish jail. After twelve days of inactivity, he began a hunger strike. But by this time his story had reached

1. International Herald Tribune, November 2,1973.

16 Western newspapers and voices were being raised in his behalf. Through the intervention of the United Nations Refugee Commission, as well as of the governments of West Germany and the United States, Victor was released from jail and flown to London. Here the West German government granted him travel documents and an airplane ticket to Cologne. He was then taken to Camp Friedland for processing. Viktor Schneider's story concerns only one individual, but it is indicative of the unrest prevalent among many Soviet Germans. On March 2, 1973, my husband and I visited Camp Friedland where I was able to talk to a Soviet German woman from Central Asia who had arrived that very morning with four children. (She was of Black Sea origin and had been given permission to join her mother and sister in West Germany.) This woman told that for many months petitions had been signed by thousands of Soviet Germans who wanted to emigrate to the West. Money was also being collected to pay the travelling expenses of a delegation of Soviet Germans who would present these petitions to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in Moscow. A report on this delegation appeared in the October 25, 1973 issue of Die Welt, a German newspaper published in Hamburg. Information for the article was supplied by a thirty-six-year old truck driver named Viktor Trenkeschuh, who had arrived in Germany one week previously. Mr. Trenkeschuh told that he had been attempting to emigrate from the Soviet Union for the past sixteen years. He was also a member of a committee of sixteen Soviet Germans who, in spite of constant harassment, had collected the names and addresses of thousands of Soviet Germans who wished to emigrate to the West. On May 18, 1973 twelve members of this committee, who had arrived in Moscow from every section of the Soviet Union, presented to the Supreme Soviet the long lists of names which they had brought with them. The delegation had not been able to obtain accommodations in a hotel and was living in rooms on the ninth floor of a Moscow apartment house. This house was now surrounded by the Secret Police. For three days no delegate ventured to leave the building. The rooms were then entered by force and all twelve Soviet Germans were taken to police headquarters. After three days of interrogation, they were allowed to return to their homes where many of them were arrested for a second time. Five months later Viktor Trenkeschuh arrived in Germany. In his interview with Die Welt he requested that radio programs to the Soviet Union inform German citizens of emigration possibilities. He also stated that, in his opinion, 70% of all Soviet Germans would like to leave the USSR. Before closing this section of my report, there is one further announcement. Late in October of this year, a Volga German pastor named Johannes D. Schlundt appeared in West Germany. This is his story: Pastor Schlundt was born in 1900 in the colony of Bauer on the "Bergseite" of the Volga. He was graduated from an Evangelical Lutheran Theological Seminary in Leningrad in 1928 and then served as pastor in Rosenberg (Volga) from 1929-1930. During this period Stalin's liquidation of clergymen began, and for an additional year Pastor Schlundt hid on an outlying farm near Kamyschin. He then fled to the Caucasus, and from there to Novosibirsk in Siberia, only to be arrested in 1934 on charges of "espionage for Germany." He was sentenced to a concentration camp near Vorkuta on the Arctic Circle for five years. At the conclusion of his term, an additional three years was added. He was then released from the camp but kept under police control until 1955 when all Soviet Germans were freed from their "closed settlements." At this time one of Rev. Schlundt's daughters was living in the town of Luga, south of Leningrad. Rev. Schlundt and his wife now moved to Luga where he earned his living as a bookkeeper. In 1965 his wife died. Three years later he married a Soviet German schoolteacher who had been born in the Crimea. Throughout all of these years Rev. Schlundt yearned to return to religious work. Finally in 1970 he moved to the town of Prochladny in the North Caucasus where about 5,000 Germans had settled. Although his religious activities had to be carried out very quietly because his congregations were not registered, Rev. Schlundt's name soon spread to many outlying communities where he was called upon to baptize children and to conduct other pastoral duties. Incidentally, a very moving testimony to Rev. Schlundt's ministrations appears in the December 1973 issue of "Volk auf dem Weg," where a recent "returnee" named Jauck states that his whole life was changed as a result of a Christmas sermon delivered by the pastor. Rev. Schlundt's second wife had a sister living in West Germany. It was this sister who sent the "vysov" by which the Scmundts were able to leave the country. They arrived so quietly that no member of the Landsmannschaft was on hand to greet them. Several days later, their presence was accidentally discovered by Frau Irmgard Stoldt, who initiated immediate efforts to come to their aid. I am certain every member of AHSGR joins me in wishing for Rev. and Mrs. Schlundt many years of peace and happiness in their new homeland. 17 On the weekend of August 25 to 27, 1973, a reunion of about one hundred Volga Germans now living in Germany took place in Hedemuenden near Kassel. I had been looking forward to this meeting for several months because it was my first opportunity to talk with Dr. and Mrs. Hagin after their return from the United States. I was especially interested in seeing the pictures of their trip which Dr. Hagin had promised to show to the assembled group. As a native American, it is always a fascinating experience for me to hear the reactions of Russian Germans who have never been to the United States when slides on America are shown. Dr. Hagin had been a guest in American homes in Chicago, Illinois; Portland, Oregon; Menlo Park, California; Greeley, Colorado; and Hays, Kansas. Everywhere he took pictures, not only of his hosts, but of their homes. These homes were regarded with much interest by members of the audience. Everyone was impressed by the luxurious lawns in front of the houses. (Here in Europe most lawns are in back of the houses.) They also found it interesting that all of these families lived in privately owned homes, (Apartment house living is much more common in Europe.) But the chances are that no house attracted as much attention as that of David Schultheiss in Portland, Oregon. The reason is that several members of the audience knew Mr. Schultheiss personally. He had grown up with them in the Soviet Union; he had come to Germany with them during World War II, and then emigrated to the United States in 1951. It was quite obvious that at least some of the people present wondered if they should have followed Mr. Schultheiss’ example and gone to America. The scenic beauties of America also aroused admiration. Dr. and Mrs. Hagin had been taken down the Columbia River by John and Emma Deines, and we were shown a particularly beautiful picture of Multnomah Falls. On the trip to California with Arthur and Cleo Flegel, pictures had been taken of the Giant Redwoods, and in Colorado, where David and Lydia Miller had driven them through the Rockies, there were magnificent slides of snow-capped mountains. At the Portland Convention Dr. Hagin had taken several slides of various exhibits. Such things as Russian felt boots, shawls, wooden spoons, kitchen equipment, and especially the model of a 19th century threshing floor with horses, aroused universal interest. In some cases Dr. Hagin was asked to show the slide twice. Other slides which were particularly meaningful to the audience were those of the Volga German Catholic villages near Hays, Kansas. Lawrence Weigel had taken time off from work in order to drive the Hagins to Victoria (formerly Herzog) to see the "Cathedral of the Plains,” and to show them the villages of Catherine, Schoenchen, and Pfeifer. The wheat crop was particularly good in Kansas this year, and there were lovely shots of golden grain. Dr. Hagin also pointed out the resemblances between the flat prairies of Kansas and the steppes of southern Russia. He stated that he could easily understand why this section of the United States had been chosen by so many Germans from Russia as the site of their new homes. Throughout his address, Dr. Hagin made constant references to the friendliness, hospitality, and kindness of his many American hosts. In this connection he paid special tribute to Phil Legler, not only in Portland but also in Denver, and he mentioned by name the various Chicago families: Schwall, Schwebel, Altergott, and Ziegler who had been the first Americans to welcome him. It was easy to see that he regarded this visit to the United States as one of the most pleasant events of his entire life. At the Hedemüenden Conference I was asked to report on "AHSGR - Five Years of Accomplishments." In my talk I emphasized the following points: the expansion of AHSGR throughout most of the United States and Canada as a result of the long hours of work of Mrs. Alice Heinz and Mrs. Rachel Amen; the holding of four highly successful conventions due primarily to the outstanding organizational ability of Ruth M. Amen; the printing of twelve important Work Papers for which Jake Lebsack deserves much credit; Arthur Flegel's achievement in selling one thousand copies of Dr. Stumpp's book on Emigration from Germany to Russia; the printing of a Russian German Cookbook; Esther Fromm's help in establishing a Loan Collection consisting of 400 books and articles connected with Russian German history; the outstanding accomplishments of our Genealogy Chairmen: Mrs. Gerda Walker and Phil Legler; and the renting of a headquarters building in Lincoln, which will also serve as a Russian German Museum. I also mentioned Lawrence Weigel's long years of effort in collecting Russian German Folksongs and played three of these songs for the group. My final statement concerned the telegram sent to President Nixon from Portland by David J. Miller and Ruth M. Amen in support of the Soviet Germans. At this point I was interrupted by long and prolonged applause. There is probably nothing which AHSGR has done in the past five years which was so appreciated in Germany as our plea that all Soviet Germans be allowed to either return to their former homes on the Volga and the Black Sea or be given permission to emigrate to Germany.

18 was Peter, and one day - Joe told me - a man from Park, Kansas, came to Herzog on the old U.P. "Plug" (This was a small passenger train that people used to say stopped at every telephone pole). When he stepped off at the depot, he asked the first native Herzoger if he knew where Peter Goetz lived. "Nope," he said, "I never heard of the man." The Park visitor then said, "He has lived here all of his life; surely you must know him." He then met another man from Herzog and asked if he knew Peter Goetz. Again, the negative reply. Just then a man was coming toward them and the Park man said, "Why there he is; that's him." The reply was, "That's not Peter Goetz; that's 'Binder Peter.' " Two men were named Nick Kuhn. Their identifying names were: "Der Baltazers Nicklos." It so happened that Baltazer was his grandfather's name, and all of his brothers were identified by their grandfather's name - used ahead of their own names. The other one was "Der Dicka Nick," and from the description you knew that he was a heavy set man. In Herzog my great-grandfather was known as "Der Pfeifers Halba." His name was John M. Pfeifer. I am told that this name was a result of an incident in Russia, when he was told "Now you are a man — so you must work." "Ne, ich sin blos a halber Mann," he replied - meaning I am only half a man as I am still a boy . . . and so the name "Der Halba" stuck for life. His son, John J. Pfeifer, was identified as "Der Fertel," meaning "quarter." In other words, the father was called "half and his son "fourth." The Linenberger family had the name "Fisha" in front of the given names. There was "Der Dicka Fisha Josep;" "Der Fisha Peter;" "Der Fisha Hans;" "Die Fisha Marie." This by-name came about 175 years ago when Hanjoerg Linenberger married a girl by the name of Fisher, and from that time on his descendants were identified this way. It can be seen that the "r" was dropped or slurred over. One of the Kuhn families in Herzog is identified as "Die Schmidts." There is "Der Schmidts Anton" (Anton Kuhn); "Der Schmidts Grossa" (John Kuhn); etc. It is also possible that somewhere in the past a greatgrandfather might have been a blacksmith and the name came about that way. In German a blacksmith was called "A Schmidt." Name of Profession Used to Describe a Man There was "Der Store Dreiling;" "Der Zahn Docktor" (Dreiling); "Der Barber" (Weigel); "Der Schuster" (Sander); "Der Telephone Tony" (Denning); "Der Elevator John" (Dreiling); "Der Postmeister" (Franz Brungardt); "Der Christians (Bona) Josep (Vonfeldt)." By-Names Were Used to Describe a Person Listed below are some very good illustrations. "Der Windholza Dicka" (John Windholz); "Der Dicka Mike" (Mike Vonfeldt); "Der Ruppert's Peter" (Peter Mermis); "Der Worscht Ed" (Ed Weigel); "Der Dick Finger" (John Hammerschmidt); "Die Schwartz Kat" (Catherine Dreiling); "Des Klena Kaetja" (Katy Dreiling); "Die Alt Gertraud" (Gertrude Kuhn); "Der Langa Petter" (Peter Braun); "Die Lang Got" (Mrs. Peter Braun); "Der Klena Michael's Rota" (Michael Rome); "Der Dre Lauber" (Peter Lauber); "Der Grufflicha Peter" (Peter Brungardt); "Der Daba Wendlin" (Wendelin Kuhn).

Note of thanks; Especially from Victoria, I wish to thank Mrs. Peter C. Rome and Christina Sander for their help with names from Herzog.

20 RESEARCH IN HESSE by Arthur and Cleora Flegel For someone intent on tracing ancestry of Volga German descent to the place of origin, the logical area in which to begin is that region of Germany called the Land (State) of Hesse. The Hesse of today encompasses some 8,150 sq. mi. and it boasts a population of some 41/2 millions. It extends from the Rhine Valley in the west, almost directly across the center of present day West Germany to Thuringia (Thueringen) and the Rhoen Hills in the east where is joined the DDR (East German) border. Of significant importance to the researcher are regional names, such as Wetterau (between Frankfurt and Buedingen); Spessart (directly north of the Bavarian border); Vogelsberg and Isenburg (south central Hesse); Ober Franken and the Frankische Schweiz (northern Bavaria); Odenwald (south of Frankfurt); Taunus and Westerwald (north and west of Frankfurt); and the Hohe Rhoen and Kuppige Rhoen (the hilly sections between Fulda and Eisenach in the east.) During the summer of 1972, Mr. & Mrs. Arthur E. Flegel decided to criss-cross the regions indicated with the hope of uncovering something significant relating to Mrs. Flegel's ancestral names: Reuscher, Schnell, Spohn, Heiser (Heuser), Burbach, and Hinkel, all of Volga German descent and of the village Norka. Having experienced success in southern Germany (Wurttemberg, Baden) and the French Alsace tracing Mr. Flegel's maternal family history to the 1500 and I600’s through old church records, we elected to follow a similar procedure in the Hessen communities. However, here we chose to concentrate on the marriage lists of the years 1762-1767. Available records of emigration to Russia during this period of time reveal a large number of new unions taking place. Therefore, the copying of names of couples married at this time was undertaken with the hope that some people of Volga descent who here-to-for had failed to find family names in available sources, might be able to identify with some that these lists would disclose and form their own conclusions. Some knowledge of the dialects which people emigrating from the Volga Region had brought with them to the United States, intensified as well as broadened our search. It was interesting to discover that the "sh" sound as in "Misch or Disch" (Mich-I, or Dich—you) is prevalent in the southern Hessen and northern Bavarian (Unter Franken) districts in the vicinity of Aschaffenberg. Further east, near the Ober Franken (Upper Prankish) border, one hears the transfer of the "w" for the "b" sound. Instead of "Leben" (life) it is "Lewe." For "Drüeben" (over there) is heard "Driewe," Pertinent to this, the same dialectic tendency is evident in the Rhine Hessen area north of Wiesbaden at Kaub, between St. Goarshausen and Rüedesheim. What was more remarkable, we found intermarriages between these two sections are not uncommon, even though they lie nearly 100 miles apart. Further north, in the Westerwald, the "ei" (pronounced "eye") sounds replace the "i" (pronounced "e"). It is "Eich, Meich, Deich" instead of "Ich, Mich, Dich" (I, me, you). This supports the theory that Volga dialects are a composite of the above, plus some influence by the tongues of people emigrating from the Rhine Palatinate (Rhine Pfalz), Wurttemberg and Baden. It has been well accepted that the vicinity of Buedingen, east of Frankfurt, was the center of Hessen German emigration for Russia during the years 1763-1767. Not to be over-looked, is the city of Giessen to the northwest, another important center which drew emigrants from the Westerwald, Herborn and the Lahn River valley. It is evident from the many names common to the Volga which are not revealed in the Buedingen records, that the 29,000 (more or less, according to historians) who emigrated for Russia did not totally originate in this central portion of Hesse. Thus, the researcher must use his ingenuity, along with a very well detailed map and a thorough study of the history of adjoining communities, to arrive at creditable conclusions and possible personal success in his search. A strongly supported contention exists that the German Colonies along the Volga derived their names from surnames of their most prominent settlers. It is also fair to surmise that district names from which people had emigrated in Germany may have been used. The dialects and family names common to the Bavarian Prankish region are remarkably similar to those of people from the Volga. The Frankenwald and Frankische Schweiz (Frankish Swiss) communities in the vicinity of Bayreuth, north of Nurnberg, had been intensely populated by Huegenots, religious refugees from France. During the Thirty Years War (1618-1648), this area was a prominent battleground between Protestant forces from the north opposing Catholic armies from the south. Not yet fully recovered from the devastation of the previous century, at the close of the Seven Years War (1756-1763) this was fertile territory from which people could be enticed to emigrate to Russia under Czarine Catherine II's Manifesto. Common to this sector are the variations of the surname, "Amm," (viz. Amm, Amman, Aman, Amann, Amen, Amend, Amendt, Amonn.)

21 Leaving the Autobahn at Roth, traveling north from Munich, we spent the night at a small town, Windsbach. Here we met and visited at some length with a retired Professor Rudolph Eichner, who possessed considerable knowledge of dialects and was able to offer direction in establishing our research route. The following morning we passed through Ansbach in the heart of Mittel Franken area, traveling northwest towards Ochsenfurt. Later, we learned that our search should have begun at Ansbach. That was a community which had suffered greatly during the Seven Years War, and being heavily indebted, sold its young men to the British to serve as troops during the American War of Independence. Such unsettled conditions often had connections with emigrations, in this case, possibly the Volga. Our first stop was Ochsenfurt which we discovered was until 1803 a totally Catholic community. Since Ochsenfurt is now the Parish Center, it did have the records of some older communities. We prevailed on the Ev. Lutheran Pfarrer Schmidt to allow us to study the Winterhausen parish lists dating from 1760-1767. It was a revelation to note how many people had come from considerable distances to be married there. The Graf (Count) of Hohenlohe had been able to keep the communities, Winterhausen and Sommerhausen on opposite banks of the Main River in the Lutheran tradition, while all around was Roman Catholic, The dialect common to these localities changes the "Ich hab" (I have) to "Ich haun, "Er hat" (he has) to "Er hot," and "Wir haben" (we have) to "Mir hamm." Among the lists studied, the following names, may have some meaning to people of Volga heritage. None of the lists indicated that any of these couples were leaving for Russia. Schwenkert/Henning; Fromm/Schneider; Forster/Koch; Forckel/Lutz; Appold/Duerr; Richter/Loblin; Schilling**/Duerbig; Reichenbach/Weickert; Heinrich/Kaestner; Seyboth/Hamm; Hahn/Engel; Wiegner/Schreiner; Fuchs/Engel; Scharger/Feil; Bender/Pfeiffer; Schmidt/Staudt; Engelhard/Glier; Nappert/Henning; Conrad/Zenckert; Seyboth/Unger; Senger/Henning; Sichart/Hess; Henning/Fasselman; **(0ne of the early villages established on the Wiesenseite was called Schilling. There is also a town, Schillingsfurst, to the south near Ansbach.) Pfarrer Schmidt advised that Sommershausen had kept its own lists. We left Ochsenfurst, passed through Wintershausen and crossed the Main to Sommershausen, but here we met with disappointment. The Pfarrer was out and his wife being ill, the housekeeper refused us access to the archives. From earlier study, we were aware that the city Fulda lay on the principal route of Volga bound emigrants traveling north to Luebbeck for transportation to Russia. Hoping the marriage lists would be especially plentiful, we hurried there, arriving in the late afternoon. Ev. Lutheran parish records dated back only to 1803. However, a very kind Hr. Reichardt urged us to visit Tann in the Rhon Hills region near the East German border. Tann is reported as being one of the oldest Ev. Lutheran parishes. We covered the 55 Kilometers in good time, but arrived too late to accomplish anything on that day. The resort- like atmosphere and the quaint hotel made our overnight stay very pleasant. Our visit to the Parish house on the following morning was uneventful. The records had been taken by a researcher. Repeated calls to his home availed nothing. He was away for the day. Finally, the clerk, a Frau Kniepper, promised to copy the lists and mail them to us, for which we were later obliged to pay $20.00. Names from marriage lists of Tann 1762-1767: Johann Georg Schuhmann/Margaretha Juliana Link; Johannes Trott/Anna Sabina Werner; Johann Heinrich Gross/Anna Katharina Gundlach; Johannes Ritz/Anna Maria Stiehl; Kaspar Braeutigam/Ursula Elisabetha Grob; Johann Adam Huneck/Anna Katharina Grentzer; Johann Christoph Stahl/Ottilia Knapp; Johann Heinrich Marth/Maria Elisabeth Mueller; Johannes Bokris/Anna Barbara Müeller; Johann Heinrich Wagner/Magdalena Voegler; Johann Georg Freund/Anna Barabara Hoffman; Joh. Heinrich Herchenhan/Anna Margaretha Henkel; Heinrich Reich/Anna Margaretha Freund; Johann Georg Ziegler/Eva Magdalena Ettlinger; Ambrosius Koch/Margaretha Kirchner; Joh. Ludwig Kramm/Anna Margaretha Mihm; Kaspar Gerstung/Anna Katharina Koch; Joh. Kaspar Muller/Dorothea Laemmerhirt;

22 Johannes Ort/Anna Katharina Krenzer; Johann Schmidt/Maria Wagner; Johannes Braeutigam/Anna Margaretha Seiffert; Johann Heinrich Witzel/Anna Elisabetha Roth; Johannes Bachmann/Elisabetha Danner; Johannes Mihm/Katharina Stumpf Michael Johannes Ziegler/Susanna Knapp; Fuss/Anna Katharine Bräuning; Johannes Neuman/Anna Kath. Both; Joh. Heinrich Foerges/Anna Kath. Bernhard; Joh. Matthaus Kalb/Anna Kath. Guthmann; Samuel Wagner/Anna Kath. Thiel; Johannes Reichert/Margaretha Elisa. Güenther; Joh. Georg Bonn/Anna Kath. Guthmann; Johann Georg Moritz/Elisabetha Stopfel; Johannes Koch/Margaretha Sophia Ewald; Jakob Schwarz/Martha Schubert; Georg Handschuh/Christina Wiegand; Johann Georg Althof/Eva Elisabetha Klüeber; Johannes Koch/Anna Elisabetha Richter; Johann Georg Wagner/Eva Pilger; Andreas Gerstung/EHsabetha Jacobi; Sebastian Hartung/Susana Groening; Johann Georg Bernhard/Elisabetha Koch. Dialect spoken in the Tann region was reminiscent to that of the Volga colonies: "Sein Eich fertich?" (Sind Sie fertig?-Are you finished?). Conversation with people of the locality revealed that nearby at Wartburg in Thuringia (now East Germany) Martin Luther had translated the Bible into the German language from the Latin. The Duke of Wartburg sheltered Luther and the area remained a Lutheran stronghold. Our next stop was Schlitz, to the northwest of Fulda, This community boasts a Lutheran Church dating from 1512. Here we met the youngish Pfarrer Joachim Schuize, himself a refugee from east of Berlin. He became very interested in our project and has since been of extraordinary help. At Schlitz we found marriage lists of young couples actually enroute to becoming Russian immigrants. The first group of seven couples was from some distance south of Schiltz and various villages while the second of eleven couples came from villages to the west of Schlitz, The following lists were submitted to Dr. Karl Stumpp and are printed in more detailed form on page 498 of his book, "The Emigration from Germany to Russia in the Years 1763-1862." Seven couples married on July 22, 1766 listed as Russian colonists: Johann Conrad Herber/Anna Maria Schmidt Joh. Christoph Stoppel/Anna Kath, Eyrings Johann Adam Mueller/Anna Elisabeth Walther; Joh. Caspar Faber/Anna Barbara Bauer Joh. Christoph Hill/Anna Marg. Richter; Joh. Peter Lotz/Elisabetha Muller Johannes Blum/Anna Margaretha Kumpf. Eleven couples listed as Russian Colonists were married on August 18, 1766: Johann Adam Best/Ottilia Elesabeth Stab; Johannes Müeller/Anna Katharina Luft Johannes Winterholder/Anna Marg. Unkefug; Andreas Roth/Anna Catharina Dechert Andreas Unkefug/Anna Barbara Kayser; Andreas Ortstadt/Maria Elisabeth Eiffert Conrad Eiffert/Anna Maria Eiffert; Johannes Bindewald/Anna Catharine Kenets Johannes Roth/Catharina Eiffert; Andreas Winterholder/Anna Kath. Darners Johannes Maul/Philippina Bonert Other marriages taking place in Schlitz during the years 1762-1767 follow. Although it does not state that any of these emigrated, some very possibly did. Joh. Georg Herrmann/Anna Katarina Bolander; Georg Heinrich Witzel/Anna Kath. Schäfer; Joh. Conrad Streng/Anna Barbara Otterbein; Joh. Georg Imhof/Anna Elisa. Kiegelmann; Joh. Conrad Habicht/Anna Elisabeth Weber; Joh. Wilhelm EtUeng/Anna Maria Stur; Joh. Heinrich Niepot/Anna Marg. Weisbeck; Joh. Georg Degnhard/Anna Cath. Funk; Joh. Carl Jungius/Maria Elisabeth Spenner; Joh. Heinrich Kumpf/Anna Eva Lorenz; Joh. Leonhardt Doebler/Maria Cath. Hirten; Joh. Adam Weisbeck/Christina Pfannmüller; Joh. Georg Wirth/Anna Barbara Riegelmann; Joh. Paul Eichmann/Anna Barbara Hohmeyer; Joh. August Philip Wolff/Gertrude Schwarz; Joh. Christian Thoet/Anna Maria Weber Mr. Le Chevalier Luis Stonised Aumal/Marianna Scharpel; Johann Schmalz/Juliana Sartorin Joh. Conrad Schmidt/Anna Kath. Zeiler; Jean Francois Obry/Anna Elisa. Becker Joh. Friedrich Weber/Anna Marg. Heyl; Joh. Conrad Sippel/Anna Cath. Zimmer Joh. Adam Wenzel/Anna Maria Fischer; Johannes Geis/Anna Catherina Schmidt Joh. Jacob Hmz/Anna Margareta Ettling; Joh. Freiderich Heyl/Anna Eva Haber Joh. Georg Fischer/Anna Elisa. Siebert; Lorenz Becker/Anna Elisabeth Dickert Joh. Heinrich Lerch/Maria Philippina Funk; Joh. Daniel Endters/Anna Elis. Fiedler Joh. Philipp Pfanmüller/Anna Barbara Mann; Andreas Ahe/Anna Herrmann

23 affairs and also meaningful occurences of a more general nature. "The following entry can be read: "On the 8th of April, the first group of people left from Queck and Rimbach in the Schlitzerland for Russia. The man received 15 Kreuzers and his wife 10 Kreuzers daily stipend. This stipend was supplied by the Russian Commisars who had established recruitment stations throughout all of Germany and more specifically in Hesse." If the writer of the daybook reports that at that time the first people emigrated from our immediate area and refers specifically to Queck and Rimbach, it can be assumed that others also followed them. Unfortunately more detailed information which would be of interest to us is missing as to the numbers and names of the emigrants. - Only in one instance do we find in the daybook an entry concerning two Schlitz families, which states tersely: "on the 7th of June 1766, two men Georg Henkel and Valentin Sieppel left with wives and children for Russia." Interesting entries made by Weissbeck during the same month tell of caravans of Hessian Emigrants who had gathered at Buedingen, the principal gathering place, and enroute to Luebeck or Hamburg from where they would be transported to their new homeland, left their effect on the Schlitzerlands. He writes in detail, "Well, I intend to list daily, every caravan of people passing through this district intent on leaving Germany for Russia with the reasons, for otherwise, no one can understand or comprehend why the people are leaving for a foreign land. The treks are composed of German people who gathered at Buedingen under the Russian Commission and have been accepted as immigrants to Russia. On the 13th of May, the first transport moved through Schlitz. Also farmers from the Schlitz area secretly joined the treks leaving their possessions and stating that those in authority were too demanding and the work too oppressive. Within the 7 caravans through Schlitz, an estimated 500 people per trek are happily looking forward to finding a better land than this. In reality, they are no better than swindlers. Mostly such, along with some who are leaving with heavy hearts because of their burdensome debts. The children no longer mind their parents but want to emigrate for Russia. Even the farmers no longer want to work. The cost of living continues to rise, also the money is stolen out of one's purse due to the money devaluation. On the 22nd of July, seven couples of the Russians were married. Katharina Eydemin who works as a maid for the black shoemaker, Johannes Mueller, also wanted to leave and desired to get married ~ she even had found a bridegroom. But the Lord Counsel and Magistrate drove away her desire to marry — he allowed her to be placed in the town jail for two days until the Russians were gone, in this way she was saved." From these descriptions it is evident that the emigrants were of substantial number. That the majority were "Spitzbuben" (Swindlers) as Weissbeck wrote, can only be judged by the truth of the existing conditions. No, it was the terrible economic distress which at that time drove the people from their beloved Hessian homeland. The Seven Years War, 1756-1763, brought with itself unusually difficult conditions into the Upper Hesse and Schlitzerland. — during the course of this war, 160,000 troops were quartered in Schlitz. - Weissbeck wrote, "Here is great distress with bread and money. On the 12th of April, bread was requested from Fulda and an entire wagonload of bread came from there." - Along with this was the critical inflation of 1765." (End of translation of first article.)

25 (Translations.) "The Russian Ambassador at Regensburg, Johann Simohn, furthered the recruitment efforts by the employment of two Agents, of which the one, Johann Facius, was originally stationed at Frankfurt a. M., but was soon dispersed by the local magistrate. He found friendly acceptance at Buedingen from the Graf (Count) of Issenburg, and in spite of all hindrances was able to send a large number of willing Emigrants from this area to Russia. In February 1766, the Elector of Mainz brought to the attention of the Hessian government the promotional activities of the agents. - This overwhelming emigration would result in a depopulation of the area. - Thus, he pleaded for the checking of this imminent danger. - A certain Russian Counsel General, von Stein, who shamefully encouraged the Mainz subjects to emigrate to Russia, was apprehended and jailed for a period of time. The government of Giessen, in which area the emigration movement had reached threatening proportions, produced a detailed statement dated March 7, 1766. Through reference to ordinances of 1630, 1658, and 1697, secret emigrations were threatened with a punishment of confiscation of all possessions. - On the basis of this survey, a statement was sent to all courts, dated April 11, 1766, covering the following provisions: Emigration without specific approval would be punishable by confiscation of property. Those eager for emigration are to be under surveillance. Proceeds from previous sale of goods will be seized. Lazy and indolent subjects may, with rare exception, be permitted to leave after fulfillment of all obligations and payments of outstanding taxes, must however, forego any thought of possible return and acceptance. Borders would be carefully watched to prevent anyone from secretly leaving or an agent from sneaking in. - Anyone observing a Russian Agent operating in the principality of Darmstadt and reporting him, would receive 12 Florins reward. Subjects who have made themselves indebted to the recruitment would be subject to imprisonment. A list of requests for departure lie among the articles of the State Archives. For instance, one Johann Adam Walther of Dauernheim wrote: "I have not so much property as 15 alb is worth, (Ed. note: Impossible to translate "alb". Conjecture; possible error in original transmittal, could mean 1 Kalb-1 calf.) - even if one should include his bed, to which all people hereabout will witness. Since I no longer can provide for my children with the day's wages, I am determined to migrate to Russia where I can find livelihood through my own efforts." Also Worms was a gathering place for large numbers of emigrants from Rhine Hesse and the Ried. At night they were brought by ship down the Rhine, travelled across Westphalia to Lubeck from where they went by sea to St. Petersburg. It is also known that emigrants from the various territories gathered at Friedberg, until pressure from the Administration of Giessen brought an end to the emigration activities of the agents. (End of Translation.) Pfarrer Schuize was very helpful in locating for us the villages from which the young couples who were married at Schlitz had emigrated. Most of these are detailed on the Hesse map detailed by Dr. Karl Stumpp. In the event the reader finds that one of the villages listed here does not appear on the Stumpp map or on a good map of German Hesse, the writer will pin-point the location for him. Those having come from the south of Schlitz, near Schluectern, listed villages as: Neuengronau, Elm, Seltersbach, Amt Brandenstein, Hutten, Breitenbach, Freyenstein (Freiensteinau) Utrichtshausen, Weisenich (Weisenbach) Schlitz and Sterbritz, Those from the west and north of Schlitz, in the Lauterbach area, listed villages as: Eichenhayn (Eichenhain), Thiriam (Dirlammen), Frischborn, Meiches, Walerode (Wallenrod), Repgeshayn (Rebgeshain), Herchenau (Horgenau), Engelroth (Engelrod) Lanzenhayn (Lanzenhain), Russbach (Rossbach).

26

. 23. Hergert, from Nieder Seemen, Stollberg, Gedern Administration. 24. Hofmann, from Schotten. 25. Jungmann, from Wallernhausen near Nidda. 26. Kaiser, from Burkhards near Nidda. 27. Kniss, from Sinrod or Simrod. 28. Koch, from Eichelsdorf at Nidda. 29. Konschuh, from Ortenberg, Earldom Stollberg. 30. Kraft, from Ristedt. (none here, but 12 Werst So. at Neu Saratowka) 31. Kromm, from Schotten. 32. Langlitz, from Ober Seemen near Nidda, Stollberg, Gedernsch Administration. 33. Lahnert, from Offenbach or Erbach. 34. Lautenschläger, from Offenbach or Erbach, 35. Leinweber, from Offenbach or Kreuznach. 36. Lieder, from Fulda. 37. Litzenberger, from Offenbach. 38. Luft, from Hetzbach, Breuberg near Nidda (Ober-lais) 39. Lust, from Hochst, Ulmstadt, Earldom Breuberg near Nidda. 40. Schleiber or Schreiber (not to be identified, but Maibeer from Schmalkalden), 41. Macheleit, from Rudolstadt at Rohrbach, Schwartz-Rudolstadt Line. 42. Merkel, from Bobenhausen in the Hanau Administration. 43. Mohr, from Stollberg of the Principality Braunfels, town Muenzenberg. 44. Morasch, from Hochst, in the Earldom of Breuberg or Brunberg. 45. Muller, from Schwickhartshausen near Nidda. 46. Pfaffenroth, from Nidda, Berstadt. 47. Rausch, from Helpershain, Ulrichstein. 48. Reich, from Nidda (Glasshuetten). 49. Repp, from Schotten. 50. Rohn, from Nidda, Sellnrod, Ulrichstein. 51. Ruhl, from Oberlais near Nidda. 52. Schaefer, from Oberlais near Nidda (Krumbach?) 53. Scheuermann, from Oberlais near Nidda. 54. Schmidt, from Ulmstadt. 55. Schneider, from Schwickartshausen, Ortenberg or Limburg. 56. Schneidmueller, from Simrod or Sinrod, Bobenhausen or Bumbshausen. 57. Schuchart, from village Atzenhain in the Grunberg district (Nidda?) 58. Seifeld or Seibel, from Schotten. 59. Spangenberger, from Eichelsdorf near Nidda. 60. Stang, from Wallernhausen near Nidda. 61. Stopper, from Hollbach near Hanau. 62. Stuckart, from Stuttgart/Wurttemberg, later Bumbhausen, evidentally Bobenhausen. 63. Volker, from Erbach, Earldom Erbach, District Wildenstein, near Rohnstadt. 64. Weitz, from Nidda or Schotten. 65. Wuertz, from Buedingen or Eichelsdorf near Nidda. 66. Zürgiebel, from Heickelheim near Erbach, Earldom Erbach. Ferner sind auserdem in der voranstehenden Verzeignisse der erwahntlich geschrieben 80 Familien, nachfolgende Pamilien mit spaetteren Transporten hinzugekommen. (Translation.) In addition to the above stated listings of the 80 families, other families followed in later transports. 1. Arndt, from Klausthal at Hanover. 2. Barth, no place of origin listed. 3. Bolander, no record. 4. Bolinger, from the neighboring village, Neu Skatowka 5. Bräuning, from village Bomara, Lothringen (Lorraine), sent here 1812 Prisoner of War. 6. Brecht, village Redmur, Duchy Braunschweig (Brunswick) 1812 Prisoner of War. 7. Brunn, from Norka, 90 Worsts from here. 8. Diel, from Krasnojar on the Wiesenseite (none here, all emigrated to America.) 34 9. Geier, from Buedingen. 10. Gross, born on the transport enroute to Russia. 11. Hahnemann or Hannemann, from Schenkendorf, Saalfeld. 12. Helm, place of origin not listed. 13. Kämmerer, from Ober-Ulm at Mainz, 1812 Prisoner of War. 14. Klerona, from Swedish Pommerania, the town ofTruppen. 15. Kreibel, from Schwetzingen near Mannheim in Baden, he came here later. 16. Nebert, from Berlin. 17. Nagler, from the town Zeulenroda in the Earldom Reuss, came here later. 18. Nix, from Nidda. 19. Piek, from Allerbach at Birkenfeld in the Zweibrücken area. 20. Schaadt, from Ranstadt, Stollberg. 21. Schmück, from Büdingen, Earldom Isenburg. 22. Schorschelius, no record of origin. 23. Schreiner, Nidda and Hutten (Glasshütten?) 24. Schuhmacher, from Tomsk district at Langensalz near Hamburg. 25. Schweizer, from the Canton Aaran in Switzerland, 1812 sent here as Prisoner of War. 26. Schwindt, from Norka, 90 Worsts from here. 27. Streif, from Hollbach, Mosel District, Prov. Lorraine, 1812 Prisoner of War. 28. Walter, from Danram? (The place of origin poorly written, difficult to read.) 29. Weigandt, no record of origin listed. 30. Zentner, from the Canton Zug, Switzerland, came as Prisoner of War 1812. Pleased with our discovery at Schotten, but not realizing how tremendous it really was until some time later, we drove on in heavy rain to Eichelsdorfin the Nidda area from where so many people had reportedly emigrated. We found the old Church and parish house, but no pastor. Our next stop was Berstadt, still in the Nidda district. Here, we met a Pfarrer Becker who suggested we go into the Westerwald towards the north to search for the name, Burbach, as well as study the dialects. His grandmother had been a Burbach, born at Allendorf near Haiger and Dillenburg. He advised that the church at Burbach should contain many old records. Anxious to hurry there, we rapidly copied familiar names from records he possessed. Listed below, names from Berstadt, Nidda district: Schmidt, Schneider, Rath, Braefred, Wolf, Ruhlmann, Maurer, Bernhardt, Storgk, Scheib, Rau, Dill, Hartzberger, Doring, Asmuss, Scherer, Rühl. Burbach near Haiger in the Westerwald was a disappointing experience. The Pfarrer was in the hospital and his secretary was also away. We drove on to Haiger, where Pfarrer Becker of Berstadt had told us most of the records of the region were being stored. A very helpful Frau Schmidt, wife of the organist, showed us the records. Because of the lateness of the day, we dared not impose on Frau Schmidt too severely, and skimming through the lists, copied names of greatest familiarity. They follow; Stoll, Mueller, Schneider, Engelbardt, Weber, Michel, Koch, Stahl, Schmidt, Huck, Hoffman, Flick, Gerhard, Heinz, Pfeiffer, Krantz, Metz, Hartman, Frantz, Gross, Gress, Tielman, Another locality that had been mentioned by Pfarrer Becker was Donsbach, about ten curving miles through an attractive, hilly country distant from Haiger. It proved to be a resort-like community and we were able to find good accomodations. Several people with whom we had opportunity to speak, supplied some unusually interesting information. Three who spent considerable time with us were a Frau Moos, Frau Sanger, and a Heir Lang. Their Dialect was very nearly like that of the village Norka on the Volga. It was difficult for these people to associate our search as Americans with emigration from this area to Russia. During the conversation, to our comment that the dialect was similar to that from Norka, he interrupted with, "Well, why not? Norka is only 50 Kilometers (about 30 miles) from here. This was a surprise! It had most generally been accepted that the name for the village along the Volga was of Russian origin. Upon further inquiry, we learned that in actuality, the name given the German village in the Westerwald is "Norken," pronounced "Norke" or even "Norka" by dropping the "n" in the local dialect- Our first order of business the following morning, we resolved, would be to visit this Norken with the hope of gleaning some meaningful information. The ride through the hilly countryside from Donsbach west to Norken was pleasant but took longer than we anticipated. Norken, we found to be a village of some 200 inhabitants, nestled in the Westerwald foothills, but without an Ev. Luthern Church. Kirburg, about 3 Kilometers (less than 2 miles) to the east is

35 the Parish Center and contains many old records. Although the marriage lists gave no indication of any emigration, the names did sound remarkably familiar. Also, several of the village names in this section of the Westerwald were unusually similar to those of the Volga. Those with the most marked resemblance are: On the Volga Bergseite, Norka (Norken/Westerwald), Kratzke (Kratzkahn/Westenvald), Merkel (Mer- kelbach/Westerwald), Walter (Waltershen/Altenkirchen/Westerwald). On the Wiesenseite, Mariental (Marien- thal/Westerwald), Rosenheim (Rosenheim/Westerwald) Urbach (Urbach/Westerwald), Stahl (Stahl- hofen/Westerwald). The lists also revealed names of villages in the surrounding regions, but at some distance from Kirburg. Since individuals or couples had travelled this far to be married, it leaves room for speculation that something unusual was the cause. The other villages were: Bretthausen, Budingen, (not to be confused with the Budingen near Frankfurt), Burbach (not the Burbach near Haiger and Dillenburg), Dernbach, Hohensayn, Kirburg, Korb, Langenbach, Lautzenbrücken, Mörlen, Marienberg, Nauroth, Neunkhausen, Nisterberg, Struthütten, Weitefeld and Wölferlingen. The couples married 1762-1767 from the villages listed above, were: Joh. Christoph Schumann/Elisabeth Marg. Engelhardt; Joh. Jacob Pfortz/Anna Maria Koch Joh. Martin Schnabel/Katharina Elisabeth Heldt; Joh. Wilhelm Nies/Maria Elis. Krieger Joh. Heinrich Schmidt/Elis. Maria Schmidt; Joh. Heinrich Just/Anna Maria Kle Joh. Heinrich Imhöuser/Anna Elisabeth Meyer; Joh. Nathaniel Kober/Anna Eva Meyer Joh. Christoph Rulsmann/Anna Marg. Späth; Joh. Daniel Weyand/Elis. Marg. Schutz Joh. Peter Krahn/Kath. Elis. Wentzelmann; Joh. Wilhelm Moog/Maria Elis, Becker Joh. Heinrich Spiess/Anna Maria Spaustgra; Joh. Christoph Maus/Elis. Kath. Weyand Joh. Gerlach Schumann/Anna Elis. Lichtentaeler; Joh. Peter Hoffman/Anna Kath. Meyer Joh. Heinrich Höltzermann/Eva Maria Muller; Joh. Ludwig Schnell/EUs. Mark. Hein. Joh. Dietrich Mockenhaupt/Anna Maria Fink; Joh. Peter Fischer/Anna Maria Bertz Heinrich Jacob Christian/Elis. Maria Nirchega; Joh. Denial Schmidt/Anna Maria Stein Joh. Christian Bender/Elis. Maria Eberhardt; Anton Philippi/Anna Kth. Schneider Joh. Gerhardt Buchner/Anna Katharina Niess; Joh. Adam Steiger/Anna Elis. Brenner Joh. Christian Schnell/Elis. Maria Kolb; Joh. Daniel Meyer/Anna Maria Schmitt Joh. Antonius Schneider/Ann a Elisabeth Klein; Joh. Heinrich Koch/Anna Maria Pfautz Joh. Christian Uhr/Anna Marg. Imheuser; Franz Meyer/Anna Maria Kober Joh. Philip Leonhardt/Anna Marg. Schnabel; Jost Peter Held/Anna Maria Meyer Joh. Christian Weinbrenner/Anna Kath. Hoffman; Joh. Daniel Müller/Maria Elis. Giel Joh. Georg Strunk/Anna Maria Habel; Joh. Peter Hein/Anna Elisabeth Held Joh. Jacob Hem/Maria Christina Becker; Joh. Jacob Blaser/Anna Barbara Schuster Joh. Peter Rinfurt/Elisabeth Maria Held; Joh. Antonius Giel/Anna Maria Kolb Before we left Kirburg, the Pfarrer Stephan related an incident which had taken place in this community during 1890. A sizable number of the Kirburg parish members decided to emigrate to Russia at that time for religious principles. After less than a decade in Russia, the Germans, terribly disillusioned, returned almost en masse to the Westerwald. The records he possessed disclosed the Pastor's admonition to his parishoners counseling them not to leave-evidentally, much the same as had taken place a century earlier. From Kirburg we drove west 20 Km to Kroppach, a community known for the prevalence of the family name Burbach. The village, Burbach, referred to in the previous passage, lies only a few kilometers to the north of Kroppach. The general area is known as the Kroppacher Schweiz, which translated is Swiss or Switzerland. Since a number of "Schweiz" regions may be found in the Hessen territory, some people who had considered the country, Switzerland, as their ancestral home, should in reality have been searching in these locations. The Pfarrer Fisher from Saxony was only remotely interested in our project, but since it was approaching the noon hour and to get rid of us in a hurry, his wife was great help in reading the following marriage lists, Towns associated with the marriages are: Burbach, Kroppach, Sellbach, Luckenbach, Marzhausen, Giesenhausen, Limbach, Altstad, Mudenbach, Brach, Dernbach, Ober Ingelbach, Nister. Only a few couples names had a very familiar ring, they are: Joh. Jacob Burbach/Anna Marg Eichelhardt; Gerog Schmidt/Anna Burbach Joh. Wilhelm Becker/Anna Marie Kahlhaus; Gerhard Müller/Anna Marie Weber Joh. Peter Schumacher/Elis. Marie AIhausen; Bernhard Schafer/ Johanna Kath. Weiss

36 Joh. Martin Jung/Christina Kath. Muller; Johann Kuntz/Anna Maria Saimisch Joh. Hendrich Schneider/Anna Marie Schneider; Joh. Peter Burbach/Veronika Marie Fuchs Joh. Heinrich Burbach/Anna Katharina Bert; Johann Lenhard/Elsa Katharina Gross Joh. Wilhelm Schäfer/Anna Kath. Schneider; Adam Niess/Anna Katharina Arndt Joh. Peter Müller/Anna Katharina Bohlen; Joh. Gerhard Fuchs/Anna Kath. Meyer Joh. Sebastian Heyn (Hein)/Anna Maria Klept; Joh. Peter Krumbach/Anna Kath. Theiss Joh. Heinrich Schneider/Elisabetha Christina Burbach. Retracing our route on Highway 414, we stopped at Hachenburg, one of the larger parishes. After a lengthy search, we located the parish house, but it was Saturday afternoon, and no one who could help us was to be found. Continuing east, we came to Herborn, a city in the vicinity of Giessen. Here we hoped to find information on the names "Heiser" or "Heuser." The lists were very extensive and worthy of further study. However, that must be reserved for another time. Skimming over the names, the villages and towns most common to the family names we copied were: Amdorf, Braunfelz, Herborn and Hobach. A few of the marriages 1762-1767, follow: Joh. Friedrich Haubach/Maria Margareta Schumann; Kaspar Haller/Esther Weidenbach Joh. Peter Kuntz/Anna Margareta Hartmann; Johann Muller/Anna Elisabetha Kolb Heinrich Hoffman/Maria Katharina Koch; Johann Koch/Anna Elis. Hoffman Joh. Kaspar Hoffman/Anna Kath. Frank; Johann Heuser/Christina Elis, Schaaf Joh. Jost Muller/Margareta Gorlingshausen; Joh. Georg Wilhelm/Maria Henrietta B.- Joh. Adam Walther/Maria Elisa. Hoffman; Joh. Georg Ebert/Anna Marg, Hoffman Joh. Jacob Clauss/Anna Katharina Weber; Gottfried Weber/Anna Elisabeth Clauss Joh. Philip Bender/Anna Dorothea Hoffman; Georg Philip Paul/Marg. Juliana Müller Ludwig August Schneider/Kath. Marg. Schwartz; Martin Seibel/Anna Kath. Scheldt Joh. Jacob Weber/Christina Elis. Jung; Joh. Bernhard/Anna Philippina Weyel Jost Heinrich Frey/Anna Marg. Müller; Joh. Franz Hoffman/Marg. Elis. Moritz Joh. Michel Morgenstern/Magdelena Pistor; Joh. Peter Moritz/Maria Elis. Schaab Heinrich Kaspar Hoffman/Kath. Marg. Theis; Joh. Heinrich Scheldt/Eva Keller Joh. Conrad Benner/Christina Wilh. Reichardt; Joh. Anton Jung/Anna Marg. Jung Joh. Christoph Fuhrman/Maria Kath. Eisenkramer; Joh. Heinrich Hild/Anna Kath. Frank Joh. Gottfried Müller/Maria Kath. Gunther; Joh. Peter Schultz/Marg. Elis. Nies. Georg Philip Metzler/Anna Marg. Jaeger; Joh. Jacob Schuh/Marg. Susanna Hoff Joh. Christoph Weller/Anna Marg. Schmidt; Job. Peter Lang/ Kath. Elis. Schaaf Joh. Jost Reuter/Maria Kath. Piscator; Joh. Jacob Ebert/Anna Kath. Moritz Philip Jacob Nicodemus/Maria Christina; Johann Grün/Anna Margaretha Metzler. Joh. Heinrich Amdt/Christina Fried. Bauman; Christian Petri/Esther Schneider; Philip Peter Schreiner/Maria Kath. Stuhl; Joh. Heinrich Reich/Wilhelmina Kraft.

At 4 PM on Saturday afternoon, when most of Germany had long since taken off for the week-end, it was necessary for us also to end our week's research in Hesse at Herbom. Hanover, where we would spend the night, was still some 350 Kilometers (210 miles) distant. The previously detailed marriage lists are being submitted expressly for the information they provide. It is not be construed that all or any of the couples actually emigrated, although that is a strong possibility. Admittedly, coincidences are possible. Every one must draw his own conclusions. It is our sincere hope that the readers of the foregoing will find it as interesting as we found it exciting in collecting the materials. It is our firm belief, following this limited research in the Hessen Region, that only the surface has been scratched. We suggest, with some confidence, that anyone with the inclination and willingness to take the time, may successfully uncover considerable history covering the ancestry of Volga Germans.

37 STATE OF KANSAS PROCLAIMS TURKEY RED WHEAT CENTENNIAL 1874-1974 The story of winter wheat raising in Kansas is older than statehood itself. The Shawnee Indian Mission, in Johnson County, reported sowing 100 acres of winter wheat in 1839. A Sac and Fox Indian fanner sowed 40 acres in 1850 and members of the Osage Tribe were reportedly sowing wheat in 1851. The early white settlers raised both spring and winter wheat of the softer types, together with a greater acreage of corn. Wheat production statistics were separated into the spring or winter types for the first time in 1870. That year spring wheat production was larger than that for winter wheat. But by 1872, twice as much winter wheat was raised while spring wheat had declined. This trend continued so that by 1886 winter wheat was harvested from 982,000 acres, and spring wheat was harvested from 83,500 acres. Eight vanguard Mennonite families from the Crimea and Molotschna areas of South Russia settled in Marion County during the summer and fall of 1873. They were: Peter Funk, Jacob Funk, Abraham Quiring, Johann Fast, Heinrich Flaming, Rudolf Riesen, J.J. Funk, and Henry Unruh. In addition, Bernhard Warkentin (a single man) and Peter Wiebe, together with German Mennonites from Summerfield, Illinois, reserved land near Halstead in Harvey County during late 1873. These small groups of immigrants were reinforced by hundreds of Mennonite families from South Russia during the late summer and fall months of 1874. These 1874 immigrants brought small amounts of many agricultural seeds with them including some Turkey Hard Red Winter Wheat. They settled on Santa Fe Railroad land in Marion, McPherson, Harvey and Reno Counties. A resolution proclaiming the year 1974 as the year for celebrating the centennial of the introduction of Turkey red hard winter wheat into Kansas and the beginning of the great wheat industry in Kansas was passed by the Kansas House in February, 1973 and by the Kansas Senate in March, 1973. The Act imposes duties upon certain state agencies and encourages all cities, communities and citizens to participate in the celebration. The resolution follows: WHEREAS, The State of Kansas is known as "the wheat state," having gained that title from its great rolling fields of hard winter wheat, which have provided a strong agricultural economy and the basis for its growth and development; and WHEREAS, Turkey Wheat changed Kansas from a prairie to the breadbasket of the world; and WHEREAS, The hard wheat industry of Kansas, which ultimately spread throughout the midwestern states of the United States from Kansas, was begun in 1874 with the introduction of the first substantial amounts of Turkey red hard winter wheat to the Arkansas river valley area of central Kansas, primarily in the counties of Harvey, Reno, Sedgwick, McPherson and Marion, by the immigration of some ten thousand (10,000) Mennonites from the Crimea of Russia; and WHEREAS, The great hard wheat industry in Kansas was initiated and encouraged by Bernard Warkentin, a Mennonite miller, whose father had successfully produced Turkey red hard winter wheat in the Ukraine and Molotshna area of Russia, and nurtured by the first contingent of Mennonite immigrants from twenty (20) to thirty (30) bushels of Turkey red hard winter wheat they carried with them among their belongings to central Kansas. It was through the efforts of Warkentin, an envoy sent in search of an ideal place of settlement for the religiously oppressed German-Russian Mennonites, and C.B. Schmidt, immigration agent for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railroad company, which had completed its line through Kansas about 1872, that the Mennonites settled with their prized Turkey red hard winter wheat in Kansas. Warkentin had visited areas of the midwestern United States from Manitoba, Canada, to Mexico, before selecting central Kansas as the immigration site. He settled in Halstead, built a grist mill on the banks of the Little Arkansas river in 1874, and began experimenting with the growing of hard winter wheat in Kansas in preparation for the immigration of his fellow Mennonites. After arrival of the immigrating Mennonites, about 1885 or 1886, Warkentin imported the first large shipments of Turkey red hard winter wheat for expansion of the early hard winter wheat industry in Kansas; and WHEREAS, The waving fields of hard winter wheat continue to contribute substantially to the economy, growth and heritage of the state of Kansas: Now, therefore, Be it resolved by the House of Representatives of the State of Kansas, the Senate concurring therein: That the year 1974 is hereby proclaimed the year of centennial celebration of the introduction of Turkey red hard winter wheat into Kansas and the beginning of the great wheat industry in Kansas; and 38 Be it further resolved: That the Kansas Legislature instruct the Kansas wheat commission, the state board of agriculture, Kansas state university of agriculture and applied science, Kansas Association of Wheat Growers, Mennonite General Conference, and the Kansas department of economic development to work jointly in coordination and promotion of appropriate activities for the enlightenment, enjoyment and benefit of the citizens of Kansas and interested persons in other states of the United States or other nations; and Be it further resolved: The Kansas legislature encourage each and every Kansas city or community and citizen to participate in the planning and commission of appropriate wheat centennial celebrations and activities during the year 1974.

39 SEVENTY CENTS FOR A LIFETIME OF FREEDOM By Mela Meisner Lindsay Just 70 cents separated our family of four from hunger the day we came ashore in New York. Father used the few coins he had left to buy the food that would be all we would eat during a four-day, 2,000-mile train trip to a country somebody called Kansas. Papa shrugged his shoulders. "What is a bit of hunger against a whole lifetime of freedom!" he said... . It was on a chill, blustery morning in the spring of 1905 that our ship, a steamer of the German Bremen Line, drew into New York harbor and, as an immigrant child, I saw the Statue of Liberty for the first time. Our fearful flight from Russian turmoil and uncertainty had ended! No other event leaves so great an impression in the hearts of most American immigrants as the first view of the very door that leads to a new life. Even now, after 68 years, I will never forget the day I first felt able to call myself an American. Soon I would begin the overland trip west where I would call Kansas, and eventually Colorado, my home. We had tossed and rolled in the discomforts of overcrowded third-class passage, endured smallpox vaccination and suffered sea-sickness for eleven days and nights. Now we learned that the big vessel was to lie at anchor another day and night. A view of the statue would have to wait! Here at anchor, a scant mile off America's shore, inspections had become more rigid. It was soon apparent that not all our fellow immigrants would enter the dreamed-of land. Diseases that had broken out almost equaled the number of nationalities among our companions. Among those who fled Old World strife with us were Jews, Ungars, Serbians, Ukrainians, Poles, Germans, Austrians and Russian-Germans, my nationality. The latter were not Russian but Germans who populated the Volga and Don regions, descendants of the first German colonists who came into Russia in 1762, during Catherine the Great's reign. The young Polish woman mama had befriended could no longer deceive the inspectors about her dead baby. For the past day and night she had sat dry-eyed, filled with an agonizing sorrow, rocking and humming softly over her tightly wrapped bundle, determined to save the body of her child from a grave at sea. But now, as the officials took the baby from her, the pent-up torment burst forth, shattering and terrible. "There, there, Freundin," mama soothed in German, tears streaming down her own face and falling on the woman's head. "Still, nur, still," she coaxed, her arms about the sobbing form. After a long while, the hunched shoulders and the kerchiefed head buried tight in the folds of mama's shirt relaxed, exhausted with the violence of her grief. Other unfortunates who had contracted an undiagnosed eye disease learned their entry was barred. Inspectors told them they must return to their homelands but the uninfected members of their families were free to stay. Most families lacked the fare for their return passage and were torn apart when the disease denied entry to some of their members. Such a group huddled at our feet. The mother hugged her small daughter whose eyes were infected, screaming pitifully, knowing that she and her husband lacked the money to make the return trip with the child. Her pleading eyes fell on the faces of her fellow passengers, seeking aid where none was to be found. They turned helplessly away, deserting her in her dilemma. Later, papa learned, the woman was permitted to return without paying the child's passage, because of its tender age. Finally those of us who were hardy were allowed topside. Papa, shaken by the misfortune of those about us, brought mama, my older sister Lydia and me up out of the deep well of the third-class steerage into the daylight of a new world. It was then that the Statue Lady looked down on me, a small, golden-haired girl, My eyes grew big with wonder as papa picked me up and held me over the heads of the crowd on deck. I knew at once that she had recognized us, had even waited for us! "Oh papa," I cried, pointing into the swirling mist blowing up from the sea, "the Goddess has waded into the water to meet us!" While I pointed at her mighty form the blustering wind tore at my tight braids and

40 chilled me to the bone, for I had no covering for my head. My dress was thin and I had no coat of my own. A peasant shawl was drawn over my thin shoulders. "Ja, ja," papa spoke with a choked voice, holding me close against his tear-stained cheek," Ja, Liebchen, in her land we hope to find a new life." He swallowed abruptly and his voice left him completely. When he spoke again I knew the pain was still there. "See," he said, "how even now she holds high the torch and brings the book . . . surely this is the beauty of freedom and knowledge!" Suddenly he turned his face toward mama and my sister, reaching out his free arm and pressing them forward. "Look my family," he cried, "so that you will see and always remember." As we stood silent, with papa's strong arms around us, the morning sun broke through and washed the sails of countless small ships with silver light. Sea gulls flew over the harbor, their wings like banners, glinting narrow and white in the sun, dipping, soaring, dipping again and screaming like shrill gusts of wind. We weren't the only ones moved by a new joy. All about us people thrilled to the long awaited sight. Some sang songs of praise in strange tongues. Some wept with joy. Others remained silent, their eyes glinting with a fierce hope. Papa put me down and stood at the ship's rail, lost in his own feelings. He recited, barely audibly but from the depths of his soul, the poem he knew was inscribed at the base of the statue. He had learned it in German nearly three years before, when he first decided to come to America. Although I couldn't grasp what he was saying then, I learned the words later in my Kansas schoolroom:

Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

At dawn the second day we entered a small ship that brought us to the immigrant station, which papa called Castle Garden. Inside, hundreds of people entered ramps enclosed in wire mesh, swarming with homeless immigrants, like bewildered cattle. They pressed forward and spilled into the large waiting room, urged on by curt commands, "This way, folks, this way. Come on, step it up.” Men dressed in black, rabbis, priests and ministers of all denominations went among the new arrivals, explaining how to reach their destinations in the new land. We soon learned our trip was far from finished. The Lutheran minister who counseled papa in German spoke of WaKeeney, Trego County, Kansas, a town indicated on our through tickets. It lay nearly 2,000 miles inland. Though papa nodded readily, having already known something, about its location, it came as a complete surprise to us children. Mama was dismayed to leam of the long journey still ahead. When changed into United States coins, our remaining foreign money amounted to exactly 70 cents. We had to buy food to last us nearly four days. We faced changes of trains in cities named Chicago and Kansas City. Papa did the best he could. For a moment he weighed the coins in his hand, then sighed, leading us to the large tables in the center of the room where new arrivals bought food. Some were piled high with loaves of bread. Others held cheeses and round, long sausages called by the strange name "bologna." He bought what was to be our only food on our trip across half of this great, wonderful new land of ours-my own America! Reprint by permission from Empire, the Sunday Magazine of The Denver Post.

41 GENEALOGY REPORT Dear Fellow Researchers; We've traveled many miles since my last report. At present we are waiting in McAIlen, Texas, making last- minute arrangements before heading south again. We left Denver July 28th on the first leg of our plan to travel the entire length of the Pan American Highway. Our trip was delayed ten days because of the death of Mildred Modar's mother. While we waited for the Modars to be able to join us, we visited our brothers and their families in Scottsbluff and Lincoln. Dan was born in the North Platte Valley and his brother, Arthur, still operates the old family farm. Years ago many of our Germans from Russia came to this "Nile Valley of the Platte" to work in the sugar beet fields. Many remained to rent land and farm and eventually to own most of the farms in the Valley. Now sugar beets are no longer the major crop as beans, corn, and wheat have steadily increased in acreage. The second generation has entered the business world and many have gone out to other parts of the country. We drove to Lincoln across a beautiful land of green corn, golden wheat stubble, fresh cut alfalfa, and fat cattle in the pastures. My first glimpse of the blue and gold dome on the tall state capitol building is always a thrill - for me it means that I'm home because Lincoln is where I was reared. One of the pleasures of being in Lincoln was visiting cousins and old friends again. Another was the opportunity to meet with our new president of AHSGR, Miss Ruth Amen, and to be given a tour of the little white frame house which is now our headquarters. The grey painted steps leading up to the broad front porch are typical of the houses of our parents in this part of the country. All that was missing was the porch swing (Editor's note: One has been installed since Gerda's visit.) and a rocking chair, both carefully covered with their own spread and pillows, a pot or two of flowers on the railing, and a rag rug at the door! Ruth said the Lincoln Chapter had some great ideas for furnishing the house, using some of the old furniture and accessories donated by their members. Already a beige carpet was being put down, painting and papering had started, and furniture was being refinished. If you are going anywhere near Lincoln, be sure to stop and pay our staff at headquarters a visit. On the 5th of August our Tulsa friends arrived and my sister-in-law treated us all to a "kaffee-kuche and wurst" brunch before we headed north up Highway 28. I had planned to visit Reuben Goertz at Freeman, South Dakota, and hoped to locate one of the old Hutterite farm houses he had told us about, but now the men were worrying about winter setting in at the Arctic Circle before we got there. My hopes of seeing Alice and Walter Essig in Bismarck also were dashed. We hurried up the highway, taking time out only for lunch and a few slides of the lush fields we passed. I had never seen safflower in bloom or the sky-blue flowers of the flax plants. The wheat in the Dakotas was still green but looked good. At Velva, North Dakota, we picked up Fred and Martha Walker in their bright new Red Dale motor home. They had come to their farm to do some needed remodeling and were now eagerly awaiting our arrival. We helped pick their ripe tomatoes, beans, carrots, and beets, and after a good night's rest we were ready to begin our great adventure. Fred was elected Wagon Master of the day as he "knew the territory." I stationed myself down the long driveway to take a movie of our little caravan of two motor homes and a camper beginning to roll. The men strapped themselves into their seats and "gunned" their motors waiting for our leader to move, but nothing happened. We waited and looked and finally went to see what the delay was about. Mart met me at the door of her house and said, "Don't go in there right now, the air is pretty blue." It seems that when Fred put his foot down on the accelerator nothing happened. It developed the accelerator cable was broken, so the men decided Mart had to kneel by the open "dog house" and hold the two ends together until we could get to the International Motors Garage in Minot for repairs. It was a bit hysterical thinking of my sister-in-law kneeling by the open "dog house" of the engine in the front of their motor home and controlling the speed of the vehicle by holding the two ends together! In Minot a makeshift cable was made by splicing two regular ones together and we were finally on our way to Canada. We entered at Portal and drove for miles through the devastation of an old strip-mining operation. It was a relief to come to green fields of wheat. Every little town seems to have at least three to five big square grain elevators, the monotony of their design broken by the gay colors they were painted. A tall, slender, white church steeple rose from many of the little towns we passed. There was the sign pointing to Balgonie that Dr. A. Becker had talked about in Portland. I wished we could have driven over to see it but decided that traveling in a group was not the way to follow one's own interests. There are many words written about the wonders of Canada - the beauty of its fields and lakes, its mountains, and its bigness. Dan and I have always loved camping in Alberta and British Columbia and now

42 found that Saskatchewan also had much to offer. On this trip we could not take time to fish or hike — we had to get to Circle, Alaska, before it got snowed in! I began to have the feeling the pioneers must have had, rushing to cross the mountains before winter set in. It did seem a bit odd to be talking about snow and ice when we often had to turn on the air conditioner to cool off. At Dawson Creek, where the Alaska Highway begins, we stopped to take pictures and buy post cards. Everyone posed and snapped and enjoyed the cool breeze and sunshine. Then Dan said he would show them the marker in town where the actual "Mile 1" started, down the street and over. When we got there wer waited for the other two to follow and finally decided they were not coming, so started up and circled back. Our friends were nowhere in sight. So we circled back around several blocks, and still not finding them, made the trip once more. How can one lose two vehicles in such a small place! Once more we went back to our starting point and this time found our friends waiting for us. They had not gotten started immediately because of a traffic stall, and by the time they got to the center of town and the marker, we had moved on, so they followed, never able to catch up. After a good laugh at the thought of our three vehicles playing ring-around the rosie, we headed north again on the famed road. The first fifty miles are paved, the rest gravel. When it is very dry, water trucks wet down the grey dust so that roadgraders and construction work is made easier. In a very short time the cars are covered with a grey mud layer. This is better than the dust which can get pretty bad at times. To make up for the ugly road, the scenery becomes more soothing. There are miles of dark pines, the fireweed blossoms along the roadside where no fence or even telephone poles can be seen. There are many lakes and streams and sometimes distant mountains still capped with last year's snows. There are some farms and ranches to be seen too. The crops were hay, wheat or barley, all green in late August. Sometimes we passed an area where bulldozers had piled huge rows of pine trees and brush in long dark rows, ready to be burned during the winter months. It would still take much work before this cleared land would be ready to be farmed, but it was interesting to learn that there is still much virgin forest land being cleared in Canada. The names of towns now were mainly English and Scotch - Ft. Nelson, Prince George, Ft. St. John, Fraser, Bums. In the Yukon Territory more French and Indian names appear. Heading for Dawson City, scene of the 1849 Klondike gold rush, we were reminded of all the exciting and breathtaking stories we had read as kids about the Yukon Territory when the dauntless Mounties always got their man. Looking back, it seems those tales were about as stereotyped as stories of the cowboys and Indians of the "Wild West." The redcoated Mountie always had a name such as Sgt. Stewart or McDonald, who with his faithful lead dog, raced his sled dogs across frozen wastes or paddled through boiling rapids and dark forest streams to bring back a renegade Indian or a murderous half- breed French trapper! We spent a day at Dawson City sightseeing and replenishing supplies. Dan had to have a tire fixed too, but by early evening we caught the last ferry across the Yukon River. The ferry was a raft large enough to hold about six cars. The light railing around it didn't add much of a feeling of security! Our camp that evening was high up on the pass leading to the Customs House at the border between the Yukon and Alaska. The wind was raw and gusty across the barren rocks and alpine growth. We awoke to about an inch of powdery snow frosting the late flowers and grasses. At Customs the inspector said to look for a big bull moose around the bend, but we were all disappointed not to see him when we did get to that spot. Not seeing many wild animals was one of the disappointments of our trip. We realized that the area around a busy highway would not be an ideal spot for game, but we kept hoping for a bear or moose to amble across the road! On August 15th we arrived in Fairbanks and camped in the parking area of Alaskaland, the site of the 1972 centennial celebration. A replica of how Fairbanks may have appeared one hundred years ago is still a big tourist attraction. The log houses have different crafts for sale, the "saloons" sell soft drinks, the dance hall dispenses beer and live music for dancing, and a miniature placer mine demonstrates gold mining. We enjoyed our visit to the University of Fairbanks museum to view the native arts and crafts and to see their collection of animals such as the musk ox and caribou. These two animals are an important source of food and clothing to the Indians and Eskimos. Scientists at the university are working on improving the herds. We were impressed with the size and color of the flowers in Fairbanks and all of the Far North. Because of the long daylight hours, plants grow rapidly during the summer months. Lemon-yellow French marigolds, the size of saucers, looked especially gay and bright against the grey alluvial soil. After our sightseeing we prepared for the last 160 miles of the road to Circle, Alaska. Dan had won the toss of a coin to see who would drive to Circle and back. We had decided to start early with only one motor home as we planned to return in one day. Our gravel road was fairly good the first few miles, but as soon as

43 the last houses were passed, the road narrowed and became rough. We had to cross a long section of construction work and grading. The day was crisp and cool but the sun shone warmly and we took time out to take some pictures of the alpine meadows. When we arrived at Circle Hot Springs, we were delighted to find a clean, new swimming pool and spent a pleasant hour in the warm waters soaking our travel weary bones just like the old miners used to do when they passed the hot spring. The water comes out of the spring at 135˚and is used to heat the dressing rooms, the hotel and cabins, and then warms the garden where giant cabbages were still growing. Unlike many natural hot springs, the water here is free of any mineral smell or taste. Years ago it was thought this hot spring was on the Arctic Circle, but it was determined to be several miles too far south. After our refreshing hour in the pool, we were hungry enough for an early lunch and then drove the rest of the way into the little village of Circle, Alaska. We were the only tourists to come that day but were told that one or two cars usually arrive every day. The little store does a thriving business in selling post cards to send back home and in selling stickers of all kinds to let the world know you have been to Circle, Alaska, the northernmost road in North America. There are about twenty white people and fifty Indian natives living around the cluster of the general store and post office, a filling station, and an elementary school. The men are mostly guides for hunting and fishing parties along the Yukon River. The husband of the pretty postmistress and general store operator was the helicopter pilot who takes one the last thirty miles over the rugged terrain to the actual Arctic Circle. The fee was only twenty-five dollars a round trip and included a stopover in a large Indian village. After posing in front of the big sign which proclaimed we had finally reached the very end of our road and snapping numerous pictures to prove we had accomplished one half of our goal, we turned around and headed back to Fairbanks. The sun had been out in Circle but the air was cold. Yellow birch trees on the slopes around the village were evidence that winter would soon be here. We found our way back was much different than our sunny morning trip. Heavy clouds rolled in and a light rain began to fall. Everyone fell silent. Fred carefully maneuvered the big motor home over the slick muck on the freshly graded sections of the road. We were all very thankful and happy to have made it back safely. That evening we broke the bottle of champagne we had brought along for the occasion and celebrated the completion of one of our goals. From now on we were heading south and for the Antarctic, the other goal we hope to reach. With best wishes,

44 GENEALOGICAL RESEARCH IN CANADA FOR G R ANCESTORS By Paul A. Giesinger So you have been thinking about researching your family tree! Presumably you will be interested in obtaining more than a list of names and how these are inter-related; you will, no doubt, wish to obtain as much information as possible about your ancestors. Perhaps you will want to research the origin or derivation and meaning of your family name. You may also wish to establish if your family has a coat of arms or family crest. You may wish to collect historical material about the life style and communities of your ancestors, their migrations and, where possible, also biographical material about as many of them as you can. All of this adds up to a formidable challenge which requires a good measure of initiative, patience and perseverance, but can be very rewarding and fascinating. At times, too, it will prove disappointing when your inquiring letters do not produce the information you required. You will probably be writing scores of letters, with return postage and self-addressed envelopes enclosed, but you won't always obtain the information requested, sometimes because it is unavailable and sometimes due to a lack of interest. But perseverance will pay off! Since the Germans from Russia did not migrate to Canada until 1873 and thereafter, much information can be obtained from living descendants of these pioneers. In many cases, children of the pioneer immigrants are still living. Even some of the older grandchildren could supply much of the desired information. It would be of help to the researcher to know that the first Germans from Russia were Mennonites who settled in Manitoba initially in 1873 and many others followed in subsequent years. In 1885 Baptists and, later on, Lutherans came to the area which is now Edenwald. In 1886 Catholics arrived and settled near Balgonie, just east of Regina. This was the beginning of the migration of Germans from Russia. The rate of immigration increased and reached its height between 1900 to 1910. Immigration ceased in 1914 and only a relatively small number of immigrants arrived since the Revolution of 1917. To achieve maximum success with the least effort and expense, it should be borne in mind that the researcher should have some basic information about the ancestor being researched. Such information would include the ancestor's approximate year of birth and death, the place of residence, religious affiliation and approximate year of immigration. The more information the inquirer has about the subject ancestor, the better. It would be advantageous to know if the ancestor was a homesteader, and, if so, the legal description of the homestead should be established. If not a homesteader, it would be desirable to know what his trade or business was and the name of the firm or business in which he was employed. The more details that the inquirer can supply, the narrower will the search become. The most ancient members of the relevant family are the best source for the information suggested above. You should endeavour to obtain such information as soon as possible, while grandparents or elderly uncles and aunts are still living. Any delay could mean that the elderly relative who had the information has passed away before you make your inquiry. It is also strongly urged that you check with as many elderly relatives as possible. Each will be able to add to your data and confirm what others have provided. Wherever possible, you should double and triple check the information you have received, because the memories of the very elderly are sometimes no longer too reliable. Don't count on their data too much! Use the information thus obtained to direct your search for accurate information. Armed with all the information that the older members of the group can provide and what may have been gleaned from old family records found in family Bibles, perhaps other books that have been handed down from grandparents or even great-grandparents, the inquirer is now in a position to search archives and other public records to add information to his family history, to fill in details unavailable from relatives, and further to confirm what has already been received. Perhaps we should detail here exactly what we mean by family records. Besides entries in family Bibles and other old family books, you might check through the collection of family photographs, on the backs of which you may find names and dates. Old letters, old newspaper clippings (public libraries & the libraries of your daily newspapers have back issues on microfilm), school year books, school diplomas and certificates, baptismal certificates, birth date books, birth, wedding and obituary announcements, birth, marriage and death certificates, land deeds, military service records, memorial cards, diaries, naturalization and citizenship certificates and family histories, all are included under the classification of family records. These records, along with the information obtained from elderly members of your family, are your first source of information as you search for names, dates and places.

45 Before you seek information from public records, analyze the information you already have, organize it and complete your family group sheets as far as possible. Now it will be apparent what further information you should endeavour to obtain from various public sources. The most important public sources of information for the genealogical researcher in Canada are - 1. The Public Archives of Canada. 2. The census records. 3. The Department of Vital Statistics of the province you are interested in, 4. Church records. 5. Land Records. 6. Assessment Rolls, 7. Military Records. 8. Immigration Records. 9. Records of Naturalization and Citizenship.

The Manuscript Division, The Public Archives of Canada, 395 Wellington Street, Ottawa, Ontario, K1A ON3, may be able to provide information regarding your immigrant ancestor. It is important to bear in mind that success will be more likely if the inquirer can supply some details that will narrow the search, such as approximate year of arrival, the full name of the ancestor, the various possible forms of spelling of the last name and the full or abbreviated form of the given name. The Archives cannot establish family relationships not clearly stated in the documents. Much of the material in the Archives is available on microfilm and these microfilms may be borrowed on behalf of the inquirer by any library possessing a microfilm reader and participating in the interlibrary loan arrangement. Requests for loans must be made by the borrowing institution rather than by the researcher. For a reasonable sum, Xerox, photostat or microfilm copies of the documents will be made available, depending upon the nature of the material. The Archives can recommend researchers to you who will perform genealogical searches for a fee if the staff of the Archives feels that the research you require is too extensive for the staff to undertake. Census records are also available at the Public Archives. The type of census records which list all members of the households are known as the nominal type, and are a valuable genealogical source. However, the researcher must know the approximate locality, that is the county, city, town, village or township, The Registrar, Department of Vital Statistics, Department of Public Health, of the province you are interested in, can supply records of births, marriages and deaths. Since most Germans from Russia settled in the western provinces, information relative to the four provinces is most useful. In Manitoba, The Recorder, Division of Vital Statistics, Department of Health and Social Development, Winnipeg, has complete records from 1882, together with some incomplete church records. For the latter, the denomination must be given. In Saskatchewan, complete records date from 1920, with incomplete registration dating back to 1878. The records are in the custody of the Director of Vital Statistics, Department of Public Health, Regina. In the Province of Alberta complete records date from 1898 with some records of births as early as 1853 and deaths from 1893. Inquiries should be addressed to the Director of Vital Statistics, Department of Health and Social Development, Edmonton. Few, if any, of the early German immigrants from Russia, settled in British Columbia, but many of them retired there. Also, many descendants of the Germans from Russia have migrated from the Prairies to British Columbia during the past 40 or more years. This is also true, to a lesser extent, with reference to Ontario and other parts of Canada. In British Columbia, records of births, marriages and deaths date from 1872. These records are in the custody of the Division of Vital Statistics, Department of Health Services and Hospital Insurance, Victoria. For information from the other six provinces, address your letter to The Registrar, Department of Vital Statistics, Department of Health, located in the capital city of the province you are interested in, The services provided for genealogists by these offices vary considerably. Some will conduct a search for a fee, while others discourage this type of inquiry. In all cases, copies of records can be obtained by individuals immediately concerned, or by their next of kin. The fee charged for a copy of a document varies from one to two dollars, Church records are a most useful source of information for the genealogist who knows the name of the denomination and parish of the ancestor being researched. Inquirers should write to the Pastor of the parish

46 in which they are interested. In parish registers such details as dates of birth, baptism, marriage and burial, as well as names of parents and god-parents are recorded. If the place of burial is known, the inscriptions on headstones offer a valuable source of information. Land Records provide information such as dates of application for a homestead, description of property, acreage, the date of the Letters Patent confirming title, the improvements made, the name of the owner and the names of all the members of the family. In this respect we are primarily concerned with Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta where most, if not all, Germans from Russia homesteaded. In the Province of Manitoba, original land grants are recorded in the Lands Section, Department of Mines, Resources and Environmental Management, Winnipeg, and subsequent transactions in the local land titles offices of which there are seven, located in Winnipeg, Portage la Prairie, Brandon, Morden, Boissevain, Neepawa and Dauphin. In Saskatchewan the Lands Branch, Department of Agriculture, Regina has copies of land grants. To locate a specific record, it is necessary to provide a fairly accurate description of the location of the land. Where the inquirer lacks fairly accurate information as to the district, the Saskatchewan Archives Division of the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon has the old alphabetical indexes as well as the land files for which Letters Patent or transfers have been issued. The province is divided into eight registration districts, with district offices in Swift Current, Moose Jaw, Regina, Yorkton, Humboldt, Saskatoon, Prince Albert and North Battleford. The land registration office in each of these cities has on file the original crown grants relating to its district. In Alberta inquiries for information on original crown grants should be addressed to the Registrar, Department of Lands and Forests, Edmonton. Records of subsequent transactions are held by the Registrar, Northern Alberta Land Registration District, Edmonton, or the corresponding official for southern Alberta in Calgary, depending on the location of the land in question. Since the Alberta Department of Lands and Forests does not have a list of grants arranged alphabetically, inquirers must supply the land title description before the record can be traced. Assessment Rolls can be of assistance to the genealogist only when locality of residence is known. Assessment rolls are kept by local tax offices for the residents within their jurisdiction. The procedure and information contained varies from one province to another. Information which may be given in these records includes the name of the owner or tenant of a particular property, year of birth, religious persuasion, occupation and the number of people resident. These records are open to the public, when available. Military records are not a very useful source for information regarding German immigrants from Russia, although a few sons of the immigrant families served in the Canadian Military Forces during World War I. During World War II, numerous sons and daughters and grandchildren of immigrants served in the Military Forces. The paylists and muster rolls are arranged by Regimental Unit, which must be known to conduct a search. The information given consists of details of military service, citations, pay, etc. The medal registers record name of unit, rank, specific service and name of commanding officer. The Public Archives has microfilm copies of the manifests of ships arriving at Quebec City (1865-1900) and Halifax (1881-1899). These manifests contain much genealogical information such as name, age, occupation and intended destination of passengers. However, the information needed to locate a record of arrival includes the name of the passenger at the time of arrival and the exact month, year and port of arrival. The Department of Manpower and Immigration has comprehensive records of immigrants arriving at Canadian ports since 1900. In addition, beginning in 1905, the department has records of those immigrants who landed at eastern United States ports destined for Canada. Unfortunately, these records are open only to persons seeking confirmation of their own arrival. In this case, we suggest that you write to the National Archives, Washington, D.C. where the manifests of ships arriving at eastern United States ports are kept. If you can supply the name of the ancestor and the year of arrival, the National Archives will search their records and locate the required information. For the price of $1.00 U.S. you can obtain a Xerox or photo-copy of the portion of the manifest pertaining to your ancestors. The more information you can supply to the Archives, the greater your chance of success. Therefore give the year, and, if possible, also the month of arrival. Give the names of all members of the group — that is — names of parents and children and the approximate age of each. The Citizenship Registration Branch of the Department of the Secretary of State has records of naturalization and citizenship going back to 1865-eight years before the first Germans from Russia arrived. 47 The original records which were created prior to 1917 have been destroyed, but an index to these records is maintained. This index contains information such as name, residence, court of certification, occupation, etc. Only the name of the head of the family is recorded in these records. Unfortunately, in order to find a record of naturalization prior to 1917 it is necessary to know the full name, occupation, year of naturalization, place of residence or land description of homestead. For those records which were created after 1917, the Branch has microfilm copies. These records contain much more information including date and place of birth, date and place of entry into Canada, occupation, places of former residence, names of members of the family, etc. In order to locate a record after 1917, the full name, and date and place of birth of the person must be noted. Unfortunately, this information would be useful for only a very small number of German immigrants from Russia, since not many Germans managed to emigrate or otherwise leave Russia after 1917. There are two other sources of information which may prove very useful to the researcher. Histories of many parishes have been written. These histories usually include the names of pioneers and their families as well as the story of the founding and growth of the parish and community and the achievements of the members. All researchers should read carefully, the comprehensive articles which have been written by Mrs. Gerda S. Walker, Mr. T. J. Schmierer, Mr. Raymond F. Wiebe, Dr. Solomon L. Loewen and any others which may have appeared in AHSGR workpapers; also the AHSGR publication entitled CLUES and dated January, 1973 should be read by every researcher. It would be advisable for the researcher to check with the Humanities Department in his nearest city public library and University library, where he will probably find books on genealogy, books on family crests and probably leaflets and pamphlets giving detailed instructions on research procedures. While this article is primarily dealing with tracing your ancestors in Canada, the researcher may wish to research his ancestors in Europe. He may write to The Research Dept., L.D.S. Church Genealogical Society*, Salt Lake City, Utah, for their booklet entitled "Major Genealogical Record Sources in (country you are searching)", (50 cents - Ck. with library in Denver as to price. G.S.W.) For 25 cents per reprint and stamped self-addressed envelope, the researcher can obtain a very interesting and useful article on "How to Start Your Family Tree," from Chatelaine Family Tree, 481 University Avenue, Toronto. M5W 1A7. For 25 cents the researcher can obtain a pamphlet entitled "Tracing Your Ancestors in Canada" from the Public Archives of Canada, Ottowa, 1972. Any information contained in this pamphlet which could be of value to the researcher of Germans from Russia has been extracted and included in this article.

*50 East North Temple; Salt Lake City, Utah

48 CAN YOU HELP? By Phil B. Legler Queries are accepted from members for publication at a charge of 5* per word. Do not count your name and complete address. Make checks payable to AHSGR and mail with your query to Mr. Phil B. Legler, c/o Windsor Gardens, 680 South Alton Way, Denver, Colorado 80231. The Genealogy Committee reserves the right to edit. Include at least one date and one location. Answers should be directed to the inquirer, but it is suggested that copies of unusual problems solved should be sent to the Committee also, to be published for the benefit of others. Remember, long and involved queries loose their effectiveness. Be specific! For abbreviation key, please see Page 62 of Work Paper No. 7. Don't forget to courteously acknowledge any replies. An asterisk before the surname indicates the query is appearing for the first time in the work paper.

49 PASSENGER LISTS Gwen B. Pritzkau (Continued from Work Paper No. 12, dated August 1973, Page 64) Note: Number appearing after Christian name indicates individual's age.

50

Genealogy Committee's Note: The information shown in passenger lists is copied from the original manifests and no changes have been made by the Committee. If difficulty was experienced in reading the manifests, notations will appear in parenthesis stating the problem encountered, or a question mark will appear, indicating that some doubt exists as to the accuracy in reading the information shown. If any researchers feel that the information shown on these passenger lists is erroneous, the Committee would be glad to hear about it and disseminate the information. In submitting your corrections, be sure that your line of reasoning is absolutely proven. If you can not prove it, from a genealogical standpoint, it is better not to change the information shown on these passenger lists. To be continued in the next work paper.

53 END OF WORKPAPER 13 December 1973