Preservings 11 (1997) - Plett Foundation

No. 11, December, 1997
Borosenk Borosenko Borosenk o Massacres, Massacres, 1919
1919
The Murder of Katharina Teichroeb Bergen (1872-1919), Ebenfeld, Borosenko, December 4, 1919: as compiled by
granddaughter Margaret Bergen, 405-246 Roslyn Road, Winnipeg, Manitoba, R3L 0H2.
This is the story of one family who experienced
this horror. The material for this story came from
two audio tapes, one by my father, Jakob Bergen,
who escaped from the Machnovcszy, and the other
by Mrs. Tina (Peters) Froese, who witnessed the
murder of my grandmother (Note One).
My grandfather, Jakob Bergen (1872-1941) of
Schönhorst, Old Colony, Ukraine, married
Katharina Teichroeb (1872-1919), from Ebenfeld,
Borosenko Colony. They first lived in Steinbach,
Borosenko. Here Johann (1895-1919) and Jakob
(1897-1991) were born. The Bergen family then
moved to Ebenfeld, onto the farm of great-grandfather,
Johann Teichroeb, as he was ready to retire.
Here the other children were born [Susanna (1898-
1987); Heinrich (1900-38); Abram (1905-38); Peter
(1907-38); Solomon (1913-22)].
The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917, brought with
it chaos and disorder. One aim of the revolutionaries
was to get rid of the rich people, and have a
working man’s paradise. Thus the bandit, Machnov,
and his followers (Machnovcszy) had the freedom
to plunder and murder the well-to-do Mennonites.
They were well armed. The people of Ebenfeld
also had guns, and did try to protect themselves.
These guns had been left behind when the White
Army retreated. My father’s family, the Jakob
Bergens, lived in Ebenfeld. Word reached them
that the Machnovcszy were going to shoot Jakob
Bergen, Sr. (I suppose this was because he owned
a lot of property in Ebenfeld and also a chuter (estate)
in Uralsk).
One day several drunk Machnovcszy came to
Ebenfeld and entered the Bergen home. Susanna
pushed them out and closed and locked the door.
Then the bandits started to shoot. Jakob Bergen,
Sr. and Jakob Jr. shot back. This continued for three
days and nights. Henry also eventually joined them.
(I didn’t hear of any one actually being killed or
even injured.) Johann was not in the house and did
not do any shooting.
The Bergens knew that they could no longer
stay in Ebenfeld. Johann drove his mother and
Solomon to Felsenbach. The others stayed another
day, but they knew that they could not keep this
up. So the next evening they drove the cowardly
bandits out of the village. The Bergens then quickly
drove to Felsenbach. Soon after, the terrible news
reached Felsenbach that all the families in Ebenfeld
and Steinbach had been slaughtered.
John and his fiancee had left Ebenfeld, because
they expected a massacre. But it was so cold outside,
so they returned, and hid in the home of some
Russian friends. They thought that they would be
safe there. But the Machnovcszy came there, and
took them both and murdered them in a neighbour’s
house. (Johann had a very good relationship with
the Russian workers and he had not been on the
hit list.) The Russians in the neighbouring villages
heard of the slaughter, so they soon came and plundered
the houses. They shook the feathers out of
the casings, and took the casings. They even took
the clothes off some of the corpses.
The Bergen family was the only family that
had fled from Ebenfeld before the massacre (Note
Two). Now the Machnovcszy bandits searched for
this family, as Jakob Bergen had defended himself
earlier in Ebenfeld. At this time Mrs. Bergen,
Jakob, Jr. and probably some of the younger siblings
were in Felsenbach. Mr. Bergen and Susanna
had gone to Nikolaithal. On a previous occasion
Mrs. Bergen had gone with her husband, but not
this time.
Mrs. Bergen and Jakob, Jr. were in the Peters
home in Felsenbach. Tina (Peters) Froese tells the
story: “Some Machnovcszy came to our place. The
first thing they asked for was food, so we gave
them Borscht in the Vorhaus (front room). Mrs.
Bergen and my mother sat in the Eckstube (corner
room). Jakob, Jr., slept on the schlopbank (sleeping
bench). My brother Heinrich, Gretchen and I
were in another room.
Jakob Bergen (1872-1941) and Katharina Teichroeb
Bergen (1872-1919) with the older two children
Johann (1895-1919) and Jakob (1897-1991), both of
whom were born in Steinbach, Borosenko. Jakob Jr.
was the father of Margaret Bergen. Katharina
Teichroeb Bergen was horribly murdered on December
4, 1919. Photo courtesy of Margaret Bergen, Winnipeg,
Manitoba.
In the evening another band of Machnovcszy
came. One of them came immediately to me,
pulled out his sabre and spoke to me in Russian.
I did not answer. I just looked at him. I
thought he would hack me up. Then another
Machnovcszy came and said that they were
looking for Susanna. (They would have been
able to get her when they had come a previous
time. Then she was lying in bed, ill, probably
typhoid fever. A Machnovcszy sat beside her
and protected her.) The Machno-vcszy who was
standing in front of me did not hack me. He
went on to Gretchen, and she went with him.
41
He said something to her in Russian. Then they
went into the Eskstube (corner room) where
Mrs. Bergen and Jakob were. They came for
Jakob, but when he gave his mother a goodbye
kiss, which identified her, they grabbed
them both, and led them out to the barn. As
they were being led past an open door, Mrs.
Bergen told Jakob (in Low German) to flee.
The Mahnovcszy would not have understood
this. Jakob managed to escape through the open
door into the dark night. No one expected that
the Machnovcszy would harm Mrs. Bergen.
Then those Machnovcszy who had been eating
in the Vorhaus (front room), came out and told us
that if they had known that the Bergens were hiding
in this house, they would have warned us, that
this other band of Machnovcszy was looking for
them. But how could we have trusted them with
this information. These Machnovcszy knew that
the other Machnovcszy were searching for the
Bergens in Felsenbach.
My brother, Heinrich, and I left and went to a
Russian home—they had been our servants and
were our friends. Soon Gretchen, and her husband
and child, Lena, came here, too. They told us that
Mrs. Bergen had come back. Her hands were
chopped off or her arms chopped up.
They did this, hoping she would tell them where
her husband was, but she didn’t tell them. She had
wrapped her arms in an apron. She said that the
Machnovcszy would return. Gretchen told her to
hide behind the pig sty. She would look for some
linen to bind her hands. I followed Gretchen back,
but when we got there, Mrs. Bergen was gone.
She had already run to the Wielers. Mrs. Wieler
had put her in the Kleine Stov (small room). Mrs.
Bergen was holding her arms in a basin of water.
All night long, two Machnovcszy stood in the
kitchen at a window, keeping an eye on her. She
lay there until morning with her arms in the water.
Wielers couldn’t do anything.
In the morning several Machnovcszy came to
our house and asked, “Where is the woman we
took yesterday?” We said that we didn’t know
where she was. Then they immediately went to
the Wielers, and found her there. They dragged
her behind a straw pile and shot her. There she lay.
As the Machnovcszy were still here, we couldn’t
remove the body.
Frank Froese, my fiancee, went by there and
saw some dogs gnawing on her feet. He investigated,
and found a woman lying there. He covered
her with straw. When the Machnovcszy left, we
got the body. It was all bloody. The Machnovcszy
had hacked her across her head, breasts, and arms.
We wrapped the body in a cover-all apron, as all
our linen had been stolen by the Machnovcszy. We
buried her in the cemetery in a common grave with
two other murder victims, Froese and Liese Funk.
Only Froese had a coffin. There just weren’t enough
coffins. We said a prayer and filled in the grave.”
A band of Machnovcszy had wanted to murder
all of Felsenbach too, but one of the Machnovcszy