Preservings $20 No. 25, December, 2005 - Plett Foundation

Siberian Diary: Aron P. Toews (1897– 1941?)
An abridgement from the book Einer von Vielen
by Peter Pauls, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Siberian Diary of Aron Toews was translated
by Esther Klaassen Bergen from the original
Einer von Vielen (CMBC Publications, 1979), 201
pages, a biography of Aron Toews written in German
by his daughter, Olga Rempel. The translated
version was edited by Lawrence Klippenstein and
published by CMBC Publications in 1984.
What follows is an abridgement of this translation
by Peter Pauls, University of Winnipeg. Brief
italicized comments have been inserted wherever
necessary to link the excerpted passages.
______
In the editor’s “Foreword,” Lawrence Klippenstein
states:
A diary kept during 1936-1938, the years
of exile in Goltjavino and elsewhere in Siberia,
provides the centerpiece for this portrait of “Aron
Petrovich,” as he was affectionately called. This
document has a story and a significance all its
own. Written in solitude, and often after long
hours of toil, its entries set forth the deep feelings
of a father and husband separated from his loved
ones, but also [note] the daily happenings and the
struggle to “keep the faith” and carry on.
In her “Preface,” the author, Olga Rempel, daughter
of Aron Toews, writes in part as follows:
It makes me happy to know that young people
are asking about their forefathers; in order to understand
ourselves as Mennonites among fellow
Mennonites, we must know our origins. Only
when we know about the past and apply this
knowledge in the present do we receive strength
to build for the future.... Solzhenitsyn presents an
old truth: “Let us not forget that the blood of the
martyrs is the seed of the church” (The Gulag Archipelago:
Paris, YMCA Press, 1975, p.263). The
call to live to the glory of God is valid whatever the
times we live in.... May the following pages and
the diary of my father be a blessing to many.
In her account of her father’s life, Olga Rempel
says relatively little about Toews’ childhood and
early youth except to point out that he “made
many friends at the High School in Halbstadt”
and “spoke highly....of his teachers.”
Toews originally chose the teaching profession
as his life’s work: “After completing his
pedagogical studies he went to Simferopol where
he took his state examinations....
He was now ready to look for a teaching
position. He found one on the David Sudermann
estate at Alexeevka in Ukraine” (Rempel, p.7).
This estate was approximately 25 kilometers from
the town of Nikopol (Rempel, p.10).
Later he held two other teaching positions,
one at Neuendorf, Old Colony and his last at
Niederchortitza.
With the outbreak of World War I, Toews’ life
took the first of many unexpected turns. In 1915 he
joined the Sanitataetsdienst [medical corps] along
with approximately 3000 other Mennonite young
men (Rempel, p.17). Olga Rempel recalls a story
her father shared with the family at this time:
On a cold day in December we received
orders to go quite close to the battlefield in order
to rescue the wounded. During the day we heard
loud artillery fire interrupted by the thunder of
cannons. We waited till dark and slowly went
closer to the battlefield.
Everything was ready in the train: a dressing
room with all the necessary equipment for
operations such as removing bullets. All the
lights had to be extinguished on the train. We
disembarked and made our way to the battlefield
with stretchers. Such a scene was heart-rending.
The icy north wind whistled over the scattered
bodies. Children, do you know what I thought of
when I knelt beside a man to [see] whether he was
alive or dead? I thought that he too has a mother
somewhere who is praying for him and hoping
that he will come home safely and well. There
they lie and we don’t know where to begin. I hear
a groan and we hurry over to see that someone is
still alive. Thank God!
That evening we found a good number of
wounded who all had the same kind of abdominal
wound. They had been standing, weapons in hand,
ready to make a charge, when they were all hit
from the side with shrapnel. Some were dead;
others unconscious and half frozen. They had lain
there many hours. The blood was frozen onto their
torn clothes. It took hours of labor to bandage the
injured and bring them to the train. The wounds
had to be cleansed later inside the train. Only
after we had removed the clothes and cleaned up
did we see how serious the wounds were. There
was something else that made the work more difficult.
That was the unbearable stench of filth and
excrement. Many of our medical personnel who
ordinarily didn’t smoke reached for a cigarette,
and I did too.
Among the wounded on this particular day
was a big, strong man who had a severe head
wound. He was lying on the operating table after
the bullet had been removed and the wound was
ready to be sewn up. The doctor wanted to give
him chloroform, but the man gritted his teeth and
said, “Do your work doctor, I can stand it. I am a
blacksmith” (Rempel, p. 19).
The period immediately following the war was
a time of anarchy. The Mennonite colonies were
often raided by Machno’s bandits. Olga Rempel
remembers her father’s response to several incidents
at this time:
One day when Father came home from
work he saw a man lying on the path, a man
later identified as one of Machno’s gang. He was
unconscious. Father carried him to a house and
laid him on a bench. That same evening he found
lice in his shirt. After a few days Father developed
spotted typhoid. One night when the fever was at
its height we thought he would die. Unexpectedly
the [local] Jewish doctor knocked on our window
[and asked] about Father’s well being. When he
saw how seriously ill he was, he ran to get some
coffee beans for Mother to make into a strong cup
of coffee. This was to stimulate the heart.
I would like to mention another unforgettable
event. Someone knocked on our door one winter
evening. As Father opened up we saw Grandmother
standing there in only her petticoat, a vest
and a kerchief. We could hardly believe what we
saw. Her face was bloody with many round marks
caused by being hit with a pistol. She stammered
two words, the names of her two daughters. They
had become the prey of the bandits while she had
tried to protect them. After that Grandmother and
the aunts moved in with us. Now all the women
Aron Toews, teacher on an estate, 1909.
and children slept in one room. Father literally
slept on the doorstep since bandits were continually
coming around to demand things. Women
and girls were in constant danger.
Naturally under these circumstances mail service
was irregular. One day Father received a letter
with the news of the death of his brother Gerhard.
At the last minute he had joined the self-defense
units (the “Home Guard” set up to protect Mennonite
villages from Machno’s bandits) and had
been murdered by the bandits on his first scouting
sortie. His wife had waited for him at home. His
son Gerhard was born after his death. He is still
living in Russia today (Rempel, p. 27).
Another encounter with bandits took place in the
village of Friedensfeld:
It was Christmas Day, 1920. Many people had
gathered in church for the service, among them
Father, Mother and the two smallest children. My
little brother Kolya, who was already four but
still couldn’t walk, sat as usual on Father’s knee.
The choir had just begun the first song when the
people heard the sound of horses’ hooves outside;
through the window appeared several riders stopping
in front of the school. Then the church door
was flung open and several armed men rushed
in, their guns pointed at the people. They shouted
that the singing should stop immediately and
Preservings No. 25, December 2005 - 73