Our Tribute To Herbert Enns MHSO CHARTER MEMBER MHSO Treasurer 1965 -1974 Ontario Vice President 1977 -1981 At the age of 12 years, Herbert Enns emigrated from Russia to Canada in 1924 Mennonite with his parents, sister and brother. Except for ten months in 1925 he resided in Waterloo. He became a charter History member of the Waterloo-Kitchener United Mennonite Church in 1931, and became active in the choir and in the Christian Education program of the congregation . In 1965 when Dr. J.W. Fretz, president THE of Conrad Grebel College, founded the Mennonite Historical Society of Ontario, NEWSLETTER Herbert Enns became a charter member. He was elected Treasurer and served in OF THE that capacity from 1965 - 1974. Herbert subscribed fully to the purpose MENNONITE of the Society to encourage and support research and publication of Ontario HISTORICAL Mennonite history and thus acquaint mem- bers and inquirers with the Mennonite mosaic found in the province of Ontario. SOCIETY OF ONTARIO The Society's first publication, an informational booklet on Mennonites Herbert Enns (1912-1999) and in Ontario written by Dr. Fretz. was Marie (Warkentin) Enns (1912-1992) printed in 1967. As a craftsman in the graphic arts ing Mennonites in Russia. Herbert gave valuable guidance in the He attended our November l Oth meet- VOLUME XVIII preparation of this popular booklet. ing program "Remembering the Arrival When Volume I of Mennonites in of Mennonite Refugeesfrom Russia in July NUMBER 1 Canada, written by Dr. Frank Epp was 1924 ". published in 1974 by the Joint Committee Herbert was one of that group of of provincial Mennonite Historical refugees . Their family was billeted at the JUNE 2000 Societies in Canada, Herbert Enns served farm home of Walter Snider, son of Bishop as treasurer for the project. Jonas Snider, north of Waterloo. Herbert Herbert served on our Newsletter had maintained a contact with members of ISSN 1192-5515 Committee until 1998 . He translated that family who provided his family's first letters/articles written in German regard- residence in Canada . Unimagined Tragedy: Sudden Hope The Background to the Erb Street meeting of 1924 by Leonard Friesen I begin with diary entries from the 23rd simply waiting for the executioner to and 24th of October 1919, written in the come. Those who are not sunk in apathy village of Khortitsa, which was the oldest are thinking of escape. But we have been Mennonite village in the former Russian notified that anyone caught three steps empire. I want to begin in this manner from his house will be shot without warn- because I believe that they powerfully ing. Actually, there are so many armed rid- describe the mood and circumstances that ers around that any attempt to escape were unfolding for almost all Mennonites would mean certain death. Besides, there in the empire at this time: are the families to consider. And where October 23: "We feel as if we have could one go? The only safe escape would been condemned to death and are now be across the border to another country"' October 24: "There has been a terrible sons became agriculturalists . (I also think further worked against Mennonites, whose massacre. It was rumored several days ago that this points at a significant difference Germanicized culture hid their Dutch ori- but we didn't believe it. Today the rumor with the history of Ontario, or Swiss gins . Restrictions on Mennonite land pur- was definitely confirmed. The village of Mennonites, and helps account for some chases were in place within the Russian Eichenfeld-Dubovka - only twenty miles of the dynamics and differences when they empire by 1914, despite Mennonite pleas north of here - no longer exists as of the first meet each other.) of complete loyalty to the Tsar and the eighteenth of October. Many of the people Russian Mennonite grain producers fatherland . here had relatives and friends there. benefitted from the landless in their own But the worst was yet to come. The On the evening of the 17th, mounted midst who developed thriving implement four years that followed the Revolutions bands suddenly surrounded the village in and milling industries. In fact, by 1860, of 1917 and the resulting Civil War were a carefully organized, surprise raid. They the vast majority of Mennonites were an especially dark time. For reasons of attacked all the farmsteads simultaneously, landless, and most of these had not pure physical geography, these once quiet so that the inhabitants could not warn each become wealthy in industry or commerce. Mennonite settlements suddenly found other. They proceeded to cut down in cold A stormy decade followed, as the landless themselves at the crossroads of national blood all the villagers over fifteen. Eighty- appealed to St. Petersburg. Eventually a armies and fierce local peasant move- four people lost their lives." compromise was achieved, whereby rich ments. The situation was chaotic in the and poor Mennonites jointly founded new extreme, as political control in many of So it was with the people that we know "daughter" settlements for the previously their settlements changed upwards to as Russian Mennonites. More than a landless. twenty times in a four year span - some- 100,000 strong in 1917, they had first The middle decades of the nineteenth times only days apart - and each new mas- entered the Russian empire more than a century also saw a major religious divi- ter became increasingly desperate, hundred years earlier during the reign of sion, as some Mennonites were influenced demanding, and bloody. Catherine the Great. In doing so, they had by German pietism, and from this the Imagine a world in which your loyalty managed to escape the swirl of events that Mennonite Brethren movement was born. is utterly required of you by the Imperial had seen Prussia take over their previous Finally, Mennonites were effected by Russian state, the Provisional refuge in Poland. Under the cirCUm- military reforms which threatened their Government, the newly formed Ukrainian stances, Catherine's invitation policy had exemption on grounds of pacifism . state, the German army, the White loyalist been too good to turn down. Eventually (in 1874) a compromise was army, a gigantic regional peasant move- It allowed for Mennonite settlement in reached, but not before a third of the ment, and a fledgling Bolshevik govern- a vast prairie just north of the Black Sea. empire's Mennonites had emigrated to ment? And not all in turn, but all at once? The land was barely populated, and the North America. No wonder the Mennonites felt as though under governed nature of the Russian Their success in overcoming each of this was the end for them on this earth. empire meant that they could freely estab- these crises resulted in a period of stabili- Sadly, as the diary entry from the outset lish their settlements. The first years were ty, if not prosperity, for Mennonites in the suggests, for countless thousands it was difficult ones, and these Mennonites soon last quarter of the nineteenth century. the end, as massacres in 1918 and 1919 learned that they needed to adjust to their Their influence went well beyond their were followed by a typhus epidemic in new horneland. Yet, in time, they pros- settlements, as was evident in the wide- 1920, and widespread starvation in 1921 . pered, though historians have disagreed as spread use of Mennonite-manufactured How does one respond to this tragedy? to why. The generous terms of settlement implements among the region's peasants . Like Job's so-called friends, many have were clearly a factor, though even peasants At the same time, Mennonites adopted been tempted to say that Mennonites in this region before 1830 had more land many local customs, especially in the somehow deserved their fate as payment than they could possibly work. introduction of Paskha, borshch, and other for their supposed sins before the revolu- Instead, their success was more likely food dishes . tion. And while this might make sense in found in the diversity of their communi- isolated cases, it is utterly unable to ties. Many Mennonites who arrived from Life Overturned : Mennonites and account for the scale of what transpired Poland had not been farmers, but artisans the Soviet Era among these Mennonites. Instead, it is and shopkeepers. Not all wanted to farm If the crises of the mid-nineteenth more accurate to see these as tragedies that now. At the same time, the government century emerged from within Mennonite were empire-wide in scale, if not continent- did not permit Mennonites to divide their settlements, the same cannot be said for wide, in which Mennonites played but a holdings among all heirs. Instead, only one the period after 1900, when Mennonites small part. child received the land; the rest became found themselves under siege from all Mennonites who survived these terrible landless, and had to look elsewhere for sides. First, Russian nobles and adminis- years were keenly aware that life under the other livelihoods. Thus, Mennonite trators became captive to a nationalist new Soviet regime was going to be match- villages were more diverse than were ideology that made them suspicious of all lessly different from before. The giant neighbouring peasant villages where all "outsiders" . The emergence of Germany estates and industrial enterprises were now Ontario Mennonite History is published semi-annually by the Mennonite Historical Society of Ontario, Conrad Grebel College, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G6, and distributed to all members of the Society. It is distributed free of charge to public libraries and school libraries in Ontario, upon request. Editor: Brent Bauman Editorial Committee: Linda Huebert Hecht, Lorraine Roth, Sam Steiner, Marlene Epp Financial assistance from the Ontario Ministry of Citizenship and Culture is gratefully acknowledged .