Preservings $20 Issue No. 26, 2006 - Home at Plett Foundation

with behind-the-scenes repatriation
after the War. Walters was pleased
however to quote from Solzhenytsin
who knew, from his own experience
in the Gulag, that the Germans could
adjust in Siberia and make a life
anywhere (304-305).
The neglect shows up in the two
editions of picture histories produced
by Gerhard Lohrenz. Unlike
the Quiring volume, the first has no
photos from Siberia, and only about
fifteen pages from Sagradowka. The
Table of Contents of the second edition
indicates a section on Siberia,
but really there is only a map and
then a reversion to the more familiar
Ukraine. There are several pages
devoted to Siberia, more to Karaganda.
Siberia was either a closed
land to those from the south, or a
land not worth bothering about, as
no one from the south, not even from
Siberia, had ventured to make such
a collection of pictures.
I myself, for some years, wrestled
with a measure of low self-esteem
because I came from there. I
will not belabor that point here, but
I come from the landless, those who
moved to new and difficult locations
because they had no prospect of advancement or
status without property.
Our own mapmakers and atlas producers
have been slow to venture into the north and east,
though the second edition of Huebert and Schroeder
did include a map and some explanation.
We know from various sources that many more
maps of other areas could have been developed
and included.
Once you have been able to exploit the
interest in the original colonies and their immediate
offshoots in the Ukrainian context to
the extent of having a research center in the
former Molotschna, a revived church center, can
appeal to humanitarian and financial resources
on behalf of the Ukrainian Christians, and can
combine that with an annual tour of interested
North Americans, it is hard to lift the interest to
Siberia. No doubt Paul Toews was substantially
correct to justify, in the pages of the Mennonite
Weekly Review, the strong focus on the Ukraine
as the “crucible for the development of many
religious and cultural values that to this day still
flavor Mennonites of NA.” His view was that we
owe much to the Ukraine and should be willing
now to ‘enter the open door to a new “unparalleled”
mission and service opportunity.’ The
annual Mennonite Heritage and Memorial Tour,
a wonderful thing in itself, came to solidify the
focus on the Ukraine both as tourist and mission
gratification. On the other hand, someone has
called this a strange mixture of business and the
exploitation of Mennonite sentiments (email,
24 March 2001).
Much has been realized there that is not begrudged.
All of this is legitimate if disinterested
and if the promoters are prepared to face the
facts, such as the anomalies mentioned above,
Baptist Church in Barmaul.
and all those contradictions that are coming to
light in the story of the Ruszlanddeutsche. Actually,
from what I have read about Mennonites
in the works by the Russian historians, they
are being quite generous to Mennonites in their
sympathies and their coverage.
Equal Gratification
Having been north and east, I came to the
conviction that it is time and that it can be equally
gratifying to give some serious attention to the
history of the Kulundasteppe and its colony as
well as those settlements closer to Omsk. After
all, one of the cardinal rules on research is this:
when you know of research material or publications
that fall into the category of your subject,
you cannot ignore them in your reading. From
now on, given the wealth of materials available
in the recently opened archives: Omsk, Novosibirsk,
Tomsk, Barnaul, and perhaps other smaller
cities, and the multitude of books and articles
emanating from Siberia, there is no longer any
excuse in not including the Mennonites of Siberia,
even if we have to work with the Russians
to get at the story.
Also, these voluntary settlements in Siberia
have been there half as long as the first settlements
on and near the Dneiper. This alone is
justification enough. In fact, the Siberian settlements
are going to be the longest continuous
settlements of Ruszlanddeutsche. They never
totally ceased operation, even though stressed
beyond measure by inefficient socialist planning
and tyranny based on the world’s most
frightening example of paranoia. True, many of
the original villages are gone, but Protassowo,
where I stayed for five days, was enlarged on
the collapse of a number of smaller villages on
the east end in order to create a more
efficient kolkhoz – though that has
been disputed. What Quiring/Bartel
seemed to predict forty years ago,
that there would be (was) an influx
of strangers, is now coming true, but
not all Ruszlanddeutsche will return
to Germany before 2005 (if that is
the cut-off date!)
Now the Story is Told by Russian
Historians
When I got to Barnaul, I discovered
that Russians seemed to
have a head start on telling the story
of the Stalin Terror. Many articles
and books have been written during
the last 15 years in Siberia. In fact,
when I met Johannes Schellenberg
in early October last year, and we
talked about this, he thought so much
had been written about the “Reprassalien”
[repressive measures] that
little more needed to be done. Had
I been able to carry home all of the
books I was actually given, most of
them in Russian, of course, and had
I been able easily to read them, we
would have some better impression
of the validity of his perception. [I
just could not carry home two feet
of books!]
When my (our) friend James Urry heard
I was going to Siberia, he began to send me
copies of certain articles from a journal entitled
Forschungen zur Geschichte u. Kultur der
Ruszlanddeutschen. This is the work of Detlef
Brandes and others in Essen, and is published by
Klartext Verlag. Brandes has seen to the translation
and publication of many Russian articles
on the Ruszlanddeutsche in this Journal. This is
where I discovered the work of Andrej Savin and
Larisa Belkovec before I met them personally in
Novosibirsk. I consider myself very fortunate to
have been able to make those contacts in a totally
unexpected way.
Russians of course have told the story without
isolating the Mennonites, as we have largely
been doing in the south. What is necessary in true
historical research is context and comparison
for understanding. Whereas Walters isolated the
Volga Germans, Manfred Klaube has dealt with
all of the Germans (as did Adam Giesinger, Winnipeg,
in his From Catharine to Khrushchev),
though naturally focussing on certain villages
which were predominantly Lutheran
What is that story?
As stated, the western Altai region contains
the Mennonite colonies with a continuous
life since 1908. The people were not deported en
masse from the Altai as were the Volgadeutsch
in 1941-42 from their home of more than 150
years. Even then, none of us could have wished
to live in those villages through various aspects
of the Leninist and even less the Stalin years.
Their gratifying earlier life was weakened, distorted,
their religious and social habits totally
threatened, so that nearly everyone wanted to
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