American Historical Society

Of Germans from Russia

Work Paper No. 10 December, 1972

Table of Contents Page

President's Letter i

From the Editor's Desk ii

How To Invite Your Relative From the USSR .David J. Miller 1

Monuments To Faith Margaret Hula Malsam 3

A Study of Two Minorities Minority Rights Group 5

Deportation of The Crimea Germans Translation by Armand and Elaine Bauer 13

Deportation of the Germans of South Cacausus Translation by Armand and Elaine Bauer 25

Deportation of the Volga Germans Translation by Nancy Holland 27

I Went To Russia - John E. Pfeiffer 29

Genealogy Report Gerda Walker 41

Russian Mennonite Anabaptist Sources Raymond F. Weibe 43

A Black Sea German Outline Arthur E. Flegel 47

Passenger Lists Gwen B. Pritzkau 51

Can You Help? 55

About the Cover: St. Basil's Cathedral In the Kremlin, Moscow

American Historical Society of Germans from Russia 1004A NINTH AVENUE . P.O. BOX 1424

TELEPHONE 208-382-0487 GREELEY. COLORADO 80691

PRESIDENT'S LETTER

Fellow Members: This Work Paper No. 10 and the last newsletter meets the board’s promise that all who have paid the 1972 dues would receive three work papers and three newsletters. The same promise is made for 1973. If you have missed any copy write us immediately and we will mail you the missing number. Be certain to give us all address corrections. Mrs. Miller and I wish for each of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. For that special gift which is so hard to find, send a gift subscription for AHSGR. Cut out the order below, attach you check and send it Air Mail. I shall write the person receiving the gift a special letter that it is from you.

1973 GIFT SUBSCRIPTION AHSGR

Name of Donor:

Address of Donor:

Name of New Member: Maiden Name (Wife)

Address of New Member: City State

Town of Origin of Family in Russia

Town of Origin of Family in Germany if known

If you wish brochures to mail with your remaining Christmas cards, write us immediately.

Cordially yours, (signed)

David J. Miller, President

From the editor's desk•••

This Issue of the Work Paper Series features the report on a

trip to Russia by John E. Pfeiffer. More and more of our members are finding that these trips are not as difficult as we had imagined, and each one has an experience to share with us. We are always glad to receive trip reports of this nature.

The translations in the series of deportation articles are taken from the Heimats Buch for 1966, prepared by Dr. Karl Stumpp.

Future issues will reflect the changes we plan In the makeup and layout of the Work Papers. We plan to gradually eliminate typewritten material to provide a more uniform inside appearance, and design an attractive standing cover design.

If you have suggestions as to cover art work, or for a more descriptive and appropriate title, please send them to the International Office in Greeley.

In our future issues, we plan to have translations of articles about our people in Central and South American States. If any such articles are now available, please send them in to us. We are also very interested in pictures of these areas.

As our society continues to grow in membership, we can grow in the number and quality of our publications. When our membership reaches a large enough number, we can issue the Work Paper series quarterly. If you would like to have more publications for your membership fees, encourage your friends, relatives and local libraries to join and support our programs,

Good Reading

HOW TO INVITE YOUR RELATIVES FROM THE USSR

The Leonhardt cousins and the Miller cousins enjoyed a visit from Alexander D. Leonhardt of Omsk, Siberia, USSR, in 1971. Members have inquired as to how to get this done.

The USSR is the only country that requires that the passport procedure be started by the person in the USA who wishes to extend the invitation. The invitation is a "Vyzov". We have the mimeographed procedure sheets and will mail one to you on request. Briefly stated, it is form V-14 5167, "Procedure for Obtaining Exit Documentation from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics." It is issued by the Consular Section, American Embassy Moscow, in care of the Department of State, Washington, D.C., 20521. Since the one I have is dated 1967, it would be preferable for you to write Consular Section as indicated.

Briefly stated, Vyzov is a notarized letter of invitation from a person in the United States. It is not a visa. The Vysov should be addressed to the person whom you are inviting, should be with one copy in Russian and one copy in English, both should be notarized. The County Clerk must certify that the Notary's appointment has been made. The District Judge should certify that the County Clerk is properly elected and the Secretary of State of the State in which you live should certify that the Judge is duly elected or appointed, that the County Clerk is duly elected or appointed and that the Notary is duly appointed.

These documents must then be sent to the Authentication Officer, Department of State, Washington, D.C., 20520, with a fee of $2.50 for the authentication service of the Department of State. After authentication, the document will be sent back to the sponsor. The entire document should then be sent by the sponsor to the relative he is inviting by registered air mail. The relative must then use the Vysov through USSR channels in the USSR. The Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C. has informed the Department of State that there is no requirement that the Vyzov be legalized by the Soviet Embassy.

Restrictions will appear in the documents issued by the USSR to your relative to the effect that he may travel only within twenty-five miles of his point of destination in the USA. This corresponds to a like requirement by the USSR to USA citizens. However, you may get permission for your relative after he arrives in the United States to your home by making that request to the Department of Immigration and Naturalization. In my own case, I did it by telephone and was asked to verify it by letter. The letter stated that Leonhardt would be taken care of by me, that he would travel to Lincoln, Nebraska; Scottsbluff, Nebraska; Riverton, Wyoming, and Portland, Oregon. No answer was ever received by me from the Immigration Office in Denver and all trips were regularly approved by all of the airlines and other modes of transportation. The letter which I wrote was directed to Leonhardt,

giving his correct address. It was labeled "VYSOV - INVITATION". It read as follows:

"Dear Cousin Alexander: I cordially invite you to visit us and your other relatives in the

United States of America. We will meet you in Denver, Colorado, U.S.A. We will provide for your support, housing, meals and transportation in the U.S.A. We will accompany you to Denver, Colorado for your return to the USSR.

I am willing, and financially and physically able to provide for your care and support during your visit to the U.S.A. I will satisfy the U.S.A. Department of State of my ability to do so. Your wife's father, John Miller, and my father, Jacob Miller, were brothers.

Sincerely,

/s/ David J. Miller David J. Miller"

Then followed the usual notarization which varies from state to state and can be copied from any printed deed form used in your state.

It was my experience that it took approximately thirty days to get Vyxov processed through the Department of State in Washington, Authentication Officer. Air mail to Russia is approximately ten days. The processing by Leonhardt was approximately thirty days.

Leonhardt was a former school teacher. When he received the Vysov from me, he went to the official of his local village and asked what should be done. That local official contacted his superior in Omsk, who in turn secured the name of the Omsk USSR official who processed passports and got him the address. The woman in charge of passports, in effect, told Leonhardt that he was wasting his time, but that he should come back in two weeks. When Leonhardt received his passport the woman said that he was the only one during a period of four years to receive a passport.

It appears to be rather easy to get an elderly person in. It is more difficult to get a younger person in. In any event, that is the procedure. The hard part is to get someone to write the Vysov, or type it in Russian. From all this, you will see that this is not easy. However, I urge that you do it if you really want to meet your brother, sister, or other relative,

We were fortunate in having a college professor at University of Northern Colorado type us up the Russian translation of the invitation which is the Vysov. There is no reason why you cannot find someone in your area who may be elderly, but is able to write Russian to give you the Vysov. It does not have to be typed. 2

Magnificent Gold-domed St Joseph' s Church in Hays, Kansas, built in 1904.

MONUMENTS to FAITH by MARGARET HULA MALSAM

EAUTIFUL native-stone ' churches rise majestically above

the flat, western Kansas plains as monuments to the faith of the early German-Russian settlers,

These magnificent churches with ornate interiors (many with imported German carvings and stained-glass windows) were built with much sacrifice by German-Russian immigrants in the late 1800s and early 1900s. These deeply-religious settlers of German descent immigrated from Russia to America and were not content to rest until their "House of God" was the finest thing in their community.

Mrs. Malsam if an occasional contributor to OSV. She received a B.A. in journalism from Oklahoma State University, and now lives in Denver, Colorado. Her articles have appeared in: Marriage. Lookout, St. Anthony Messenger, The Marian, and Empire magazines.

Even though their own homes were quite simple—many were made of sod—they took great pride in building beautiful stone churches, as their forefathers had done in the German colonies in Russia. These immigrant farmers hauled rocks from nearby river beds and did most of the construction work themselves.

In many of these early set-tlements, each adult male parishioner was asked to donate a day of labor or the equivalent in money to pay a laborer when his name came up alphabetically. Most of the farmers chose to donate their time, and many men worked extra days, weeks and months to construct these fine churches. When the church was finally finished, the whole community justly took pride in it. Establishment of a parish school soon followed the completion of the church in most of the settlements.

THESE German colonists came from along the Volga River in Russia. They were given special rights and privileges by Catherine the Great to encourage their immigration to Russia. Life on the Volga, how-ever, did not prove to be the "Land of Opportunity" as promised. By 1874 most of the concessions had been taken away by the Czars, and the German colonists suffered from drought, devastation, raids and disease.

Ten families from these German colonies left Russia in search of greater freedom and opportunity in America in 1874. The colonists had sent scouts ahead to select a suitable site for relocation, and they had recommended places in both Kansas and Nebraska. When the first families left Russia, they were not certain where they would settle. After arriving, they chose western Kansas, settling at first in Liebenthal and Catherine. Soon other

B

German-Russian immigrants settled Victoria, Hays, Pfeifer, Munjor, Schoenchen and Ellis.

The most important and largest German-Russian settlement in this area for many years was Victoria in Ellis County. The colony, known first as Herzog, was begun in 1876. The first church was a small building at-tached to a parishioner's home. In 1884 a church with a seating capacity of 600 was completed,

The present magnificent church known as "The Cathedral of the Plains" was started in 1907 and dedicated in 1911 in honor of St. Fidelis. The huge structure is 220 feet long and has twin towers 141 feet high. It is one of the outstanding church structures in America and one of the largest churches between the Mississippi River and the mountains.

The original cost of the structure was $132,000, a large sum for the early 1900s. Parishioners hauled about 125,000 cubic feet of native stone to build the church, but the construction was done commercially. The beautiful colored glass windows were made by one of the oldest glass firms in

unich, Germany, Mn 1876 German-Russian immigsettling

rants along the Smokey River at

Pfeifer, Kansas, erected a huge cross and gathered around the cross to say the rosary and read from their Bibles, which was a common custom in many of the early settlements.

The present church was dedicated as Holy Cross Shrine in 1918 in memory of this early custom. The limestone church in beautiful Gothic design has a cross atop a 165-foot steeple. Life-size statues carved of native wood were imported from Mu-nich, Germany in 1922. Ornate altars were constructed and carved by one of the parishioners. Beautiful stained-glass windows were added to enhance the beauty of the church in the ‘60s.

St. Mary's Parish in Ellis was first organized in 1886. The present romanesque style St. Mary's Church was built in 1909 and is one of the most beautiful edifices in the entire state.

One of the oldest churches in the area is St. Francis Church in Munjor, Kansas. The first church was built in 1877 and the present native stone church was begun in 1889 and dedicated in 1890.

"The little beautiful one" (German translation of the town's name: Schoenchen) describes this stone church completed in 1911 in honor of St. Anthony. The first church in this settlement was built in 1879. HE first church to be built by the German colonists from the Russian Volga district was at Liebenthal. The

HE parish began in 1876 and the first church was begun that year. In 1878 the Capuchin

Fathers came to the parish. The Capuchins pioneered in the founding of many parishes in this area. The present church in Liebenthal, St. Joseph's, was built in 1921.

St Catherine's in the settlement of Catherine was dedicated in 1892. The pariah began in 1875 with two secular priests and was ministered by Capuchin Fathers beginning in 1877. Catherine was noted as being the cleanest and most prosperous-looking of the German-Russian towns.

The first church in Hays, the "Queen City of the Prairies." was built in 1886, and the present St. Joseph's Church was begun in 1901.

The spirit of sacrifice and cooperation, which was displayed by the German-Russian people of these settlements, enabled the completion of these churches in relatively short periods after the laying of the cornerstones. These churches stand today as living monuments. •

T

Reprinted with permission from Our Sunday Visitor, March 5,'72 I

“Cathedral of the Plains” a landmark in Victoria, Kansas

THE MINORITY RIGHTS GROUP Benjamin Franklin House 36 Craven Street London WC2N 5NG Telephone 01-930 6659

THE CRIMEAN TATARS

AND VOLGA GERMANS: Soviet treatment of

two national minorities

OBJECTS

MRG has three principal aims: • To secure justice for minority or majority groups suffering discrimination, by investigating their situation and

publicizing the facts internationally as widely as possible.

• To help prevent, through publicity about violations of human rights, such problems from developing into dangerous and destructive conflicts which, when polarized, are very difficult to resolve,

• To foster, by its research findings, international understanding of the factors which create prejudiced treatment and group tensions, and so to promote the growth of a world conscience regarding human rights.

The aims of MRG are thus remedial, preventive, and educative.

FINANCES MRG was funded initially through the generosity of a few private individuals of several nationalities. Then came a launching grant from the Ford Foundation which enabled MRG to set up its headquarters. Administrative overheads are intentionally as low as possible and will be kept to an absolute minimum. MRG's office is very small and its full time staff totals two. It has been calculated, however, that at this stage of its development MRG requires a minimum annual income of £25,000 in order to service its headquarters, hold meetings, conduct research, carry out the necessary fieldwork and publish its reports. Many minority problems throughout the world urgently require investigation, and MRG has no membership to support its work. MRG also needs money for a researcher/librarian so that it can build up a permanent library of international information concerning minority situations. Besides being of obvious educational and humanitarian value as a factual source for research, this would enable comparative analyses to be made about the roots of discrimination and prejudice, which could help to provide constructive solutions for potentially tragic human situations.

MRG thus urgently needs further funds to carry on its work and to extend its effectiveness. Please contribute what you can. Being a charity, MRG is eligible to receive a covenant if you prefer.

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PART TWO

THE VOLGA GERMANS

by Ann Sheehy

In discussing the deportations it is usual to speak of the Volga Germans, who were not only the largest and most compact group of Germans in the Soviet Union but also the only ones to have an autonomous republic. But in fact the whole German population of European Russia was deported, and strictly speaking this chapter should be called "The Soviet Germans" since the whole Soviet German population suffered the same disabilities and it is not possible to distinguish between the various groups today.

Most of the Germans living in Russia before the Revolution were peasant farmers descended from Germans who had come to the country when Catherine the Great invited foreigners to settle on the Volga in 1762 and 1763 and in the Black Sea area and the Crimea in the 1780s. German settlements were also set up in Siberia, Kazakhstan and Central Asia. Thanks to the generous help they were given and the fact that, unlike the other peasants, they were not serfs, the Germans prospered. In 1914 there were over 200 German villages on the Volga with a total population of over 500,000. During the First World War some anti-German measures were adopted, but a 1916 decree to expel the Germans from the Volga area in April 1917 was suspended after the February revolution and finally rescinded by the Bolsheviks.

Lenin (whose own mother had German blood) had high hopes of revolution in Germany at this time, 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 to be granted some kind of autonomy in the shape of an Autonomous Workers' Commune on 19th October 1918. This became the Volga German ASSR on 20 February 1924. A total of seventeen 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, one each in Georgia and Azerbaydzhan, and nine in the Ukraine. In 1926 there were 1,238,549 Germans in the Soviet Union, of whom 14.9 per cent lived in towns and 94. 9 per cent considered German to be their mother tongue. Approximately a quarter (380,000) lived in the Volga German ASSR. By 1939 the number of Germans in the Soviet Union had risen to 1,423,000. Like all the other peoples in the country the German population suffered during collectivisation and the various purges of the late 1920s and 1930s, but probably to no greater extent than the rest.

* The deportation of the Volga Germans took place in August 1941. The decree of 28 August 1941

(which announced their "transfer" to Novosibirsk and Omsk provinces, the Altay, Kazakhstan, and other neighbouring localities) said that it was a precautionary measure in view of the fact that none of the Germans in the Volga area had reported on the presence in their midst of tens of thousands of diversionists and spies ready to

6

engage in sabotage at a signal from Germany. The German population of the Crimea, Ukraine and Caucasus was also deported in the latter half of 1941, except from those areas of the Ukraine which had already been overrun by the Nazis, and all the German national districts were abolished. Those deported from the Volga republic were promised land and assistance in their new areas of settlement and theoretically each family was allowed to take a ton of luggage with them. They were also well treated by the local population at their destination, in spite of the latter's own poverty, but they nonetheless had to endure considerable privations. All the Germans were put under the same "special settlement" restrictions and disabilities as the other deported peoples had to endure; and the Germans in occupied territory, whom the Nazis evacuated to Germany on their withdrawal, were subsequently repatriated to the Soviet Union and likewise placed in "special settlement" conditions, mainly in Siberia and the Komi area. As with the Crimean Tatars, all mention of the existence of Soviet Germans disappeared from Soviet published material.

The Soviet Germans were released from the "special settlement" restrictions by a decree of 13 December 1955 in what was thought to be a gesture to mark the establishment of diplomatic relations between Moscow and Bonn. But the decree, like that concerning the Crimean Tatars, forbade them to return to the regions from which they had been deported. The political rehabilitation of the Soviet Germans is also thought to have been linked with efforts by Khrushchev to improve relations with West Germany. The decree, dated 29 August 1964, was very much less grudging than the one rehabilitating the 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 labor 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.

From 1955 there had been a gradual reintroduction on a limited scale of cultural facilities for the German population. In that year 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, started publication in Moscow. Moscow Radio started putting out programs for Soviet Germans in 1956, Kazakh Radio in 1957 and Kirgiz Radio in 1962. In 1957 and 1958 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 there were at least eight to ten German children in the school and qualified teachers were available. In 1960 a symposium of the works of thirty-one Soviet German writers was published by the "Progress" publishing house.

There was a further increase in cultural provisions, except for education, following rehabilitation. A third newspaper, Freundschaft, started up in Tselinograd for the Kazakhstan Germans; there were more radio programs and an occasional TV program. and a resolution of 23 July 1965 of the USSR State Committee for the Press on literature for the Soviet Germans led to a substantial improvement in the literary field. More books were published, a German section was set up in the "Kazakhstan" publishing

7

house, and there are now German sections in a number of writers' unions. All-Union seminars of German writers were held in Moscow in January 1968 and December 1970. A professional German variety ensemble, based on Karaganda in Kazakhstan, was also founded in 1968.

Since 1964 books and articles in the German press have appeared 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 linguistic studies, have been published. German representation in the local Soviets has also increased six fold since their rehabilitation and now approximates to their proportion in the total population. A German holds the post of USSR Minister of Food Industries, and another holds the same office in Kazakhstan. The Germans also appear to be at least as prosperous as the local population and, to judge by the number of outstanding farms where a high proportion of the workers have German names, they have not lost their farming skills. Their work records in industry also appear to be astonishingly good.

But from the cultural point of view the facilities enjoyed by the Soviet Germans today are nothing to what they had before their deportation or besides what other comparable nationalities of the Soviet Union enjoy today. Book publication has turned out to be disappointing — thin brochures and translations from the Russian instead of full-length original works — and there is no school in which the whole of the instruction is in German. 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 estimated to be in the region of a quarter of the total. In part this is due to a shortage of teachers, together with organizational and other problems, but the authorities could surely have overcome these by now if they really wanted to. On the other hand, the Soviet Germans do benefit from the fact that German is one of the most widely-taught foreign languages in Soviet schools and many German children learn it in this guise.

There is no evidence of any movement among the Soviet Germans to compare with that of the Crimean Tatars; but that their position is not as rosy as would appear from the Soviet German press and that they would like the restoration of their national autonomy is clear from very occasional references in samizdat material. Kosterin, for instance, agitated for the restoration of the national autonomy of the Volga Germans, and Grigorenko, in listing the papers confiscated from his flat in November 1968. refers to "documents concerning the popular movement of the Volga Germans campaigning for the restoration of their national equality". In the foreword to his compilation on Kosterin’s funeral Grigorenko also writes;

There were very few Volga Germans (at the funeral). But their conditions are even worse than those of the Crimean Tatars. Realizing this, we express our admiration of the courage of those who came to the funeral, but we are not giving either their names or the speech of their representative.

It appears that the Germans may either be seeking repatriation to the territory of the former Volga German ASSR (to which their historical claim is probably not very strong), or else some form of autonomy. It has been suggested that when the 1959 Soviet

8

census results, showing a total population of 1,620,000 Germans in the USSR, were published, the exact location of the Germans was deliberately omitted so as not to reveal that in certain areas they formed a sufficiently high percentage of the population to warrant the institution of some form of autonomy. Indeed in six of the existing autonomous territories of the Soviet Union the titular nationalities make up only between 8.8 and 15.1 per cent of the population. From piecemeal figures which subsequently became available, it emerged that the vast majority of the Germans remained in the Asiatic part of the Soviet Union and in particular in the areas of Siberia and Kazakhstan to which they had been deported. Of the 648,000 Germans in Kazakhstan, 334,000 were in the five northern provinces, where they made up 12.1 per cent of the total population, and a large number of the 820,000 Germans in the RSFSR were in the adjacent Altay region and Omsk and Novosibirsk provinces. Other big concentrations were in Krasnoyarsk region and the Karaganda province of Kazakhstan.

The recent improvement in Moscow's relations with Bonn does not seem to have led to any improvement in the situation of the Soviet Germans, and a continuing reluctance to treat them in the same way as the other nationalities was evident in the publication of the preliminary nationality breakdown of the 1970 Soviet census results in Pravda on 17 April 1971. The total number of Germans in the Soviet Union was given as 1,846,000, making them the fourteenth most numerous nationality, but they were not listed among the leading nationalities in the two republics where they mainly reside, namely the RSFSR and Kazakhstan, although many numerically smaller peoples were given. However the repub-lican results published in the local papers did disclose the number of Germans in the RSFSR (only 762,000 compared with 820,000 in 1959), in Kazakhstan (839,649) and some other republics. During the last 15 years some 22,000 Germans are reported to have left the Soviet Union (this figure may have included many former POWs), which probably accounts for the relatively small increase (12 per cent) in the size of the German population since 1959 in spite of its known high birth rate. But the drop in the number of Germans in the RSFSR may also be due partly to assimilation and partly to a drift to southern Kazakhstan and Kirgiziya where the German population has grown disproportionately fast in the last few years. Evidence of further linguistic assimilation can be seen in the same census results. By 1959 only 75 per cent of Soviet Germans regarded German as their mother tongue, and by 1970 this figure had dropped still further to 66.8 per cent.

In the case of the Soviet Germans, there would appear to have been no strategic consideration involved in the decision not to restore their national autonomy. One can only assume that the Soviet government was motivated by anti-German feelings and by their perennial fear of dual allegiances — which does not speak much for their faith in Communism since they plainly feared identification not with the DDR but with West Germany. It is also true that a restoration of some form of autonomy today — besides going against the general trend of the nationalities policy — might also meet opposition from the local population, as indeed the restoration of Crimean Tatar autonomy might be bitterly resented by the Ukrainians.

9

10

An additional note concerning minorities:

When the New York Times of Sunday, July l6, 1972, reported the outcome of the trial of four Tatars in Simferopol, capital of the Crimea, the story recalled that the German-Russians were not the only group persecuted and harassed by the Russians during and after World War 11.

The Tatars, according to the Times, were being tried for allegedly having helped the Germans during World War II. The case, which convicted the four, was heard before a military tribunal and was given all the trappings of a typical Russian show trial. All four were sentenced to death for the offenses said to have been committed thirty years ago. Also on trial were two Ukrainians. One received the death sentence and the other a 15-year prison term.

The trial also recalls the work of one Robert Conquest whose book, titled "The Nation Killers-The Soviet Deportations of Nationalities" the MacMillan Company, in which he recounts the systematic destruction of seven minority nations by Stalin and the diets issued in his name by the Presidium.

Mr. Conquest had written the same story earlier in a book, now out of print, titled: "The Soviet Deportation of Nationalities" in 1960. In the later work, he reports further, up to 1970, of efforts by various groups to reassemble in their native states or to regain their independence with little or no success.

According to Conquest, the seven nations (we call them states) destroyed by Stalin were: The Chechens, the Ingushi, the Karachai, the Balkars, the Kalmyks, the Volga Germans and the Crimean Tatars. All of these groups, before the war had been autonomous "states" which were to some extent, self-governed, and of course, had all their own customs, dress and language or dialect.

Conquest also gives figures on the number of people involved in the deportation as a part of the destruction of these nation-states. His figures come close with those found in encyclopedias and other standard reference works. He does not touch on the Crimean Germans who had not enjoyed the status of a separate state (but had formed districts) at the time of deportation. The basic figure for each of these nations is based on 1939 Russian Census. In none of these cases were any people permitted to remain, so that the expulsion could be said to have total as follows: Checkens, 407,690; Ingushi, 92,074; Karachai, 75,737; Balkars, 42,666; Kalmyks, 134,271; Volga Germans, 382,000 and Crimean Tatars, 202,000.

Counting others, such as the Meskhetia "Turks", the author arrives at a deportation figure of around 1,650,000. This does not include an estimated one million Germans from other than the Volga regions who were either evacuated by the Germans or deported to Asia by the Russians.

The fight continues by all of these groups to have their nations restored. The dissolution of many of the states was never made public. Often it was only discovered when departmental regulations were issued or when new maps were printed. Some of the states have been restored but as in the Volga-German case, few of the expellees have been permitted to return. Some few now have newspapers in their dialect, just as the German papers have been making their appearance but they are not autonomous, naturally.

11

One of the major problems that remains for our society or researchers in general is to determine how many people were involved in the evacuations and also where they might be found now. From most recent figures of survivors, it would appear the reports on the number of people killed by these various pogroms are wildly exaggerated. The total could not have been as great as it would appear from the various statistics available now.

On the eve of the war, the Russians estimated there were 1,423,000 Germans in Russia, including those already settled in villages in Siberia. Stumpp estimated that as early as 1897 there were 1,790,589. While considerable numbers migrated to the various American countries after that date, the major part of the migration was, however, over by then and even if large numbers had left by 1939, the natural growth would have brought the figure higher than the one and a half million the Russians showed in their 1939 census,

In fact, the "numbers" game becomes endless unless someone makes a serious study. But it is good to have Mr. Conquests book and his figures. Much more research needs to be done. Until, however, Russia opens its borders and archives and its former German territories to researchers, many facts will never be known and this will remain especially true as far as statistics are concerned.

Victor C. Leiker

ERRATA NOTATION Please insert this correction in Page 11

of Workpaper #9:

"A German Catholic Church Somewhere in Central Asia" The church is

officially registered, and meetings are not held secretly. Neither Rev.

Zwecker nor Mrs. Haynes, who re-wrote the article for publication, is

responsible for this error.

12

DIE AUSSIEDLUNG DER KRIMDEUTSCHEN 1941

Nach Berichten von The odor Eisenbraun Vberarbeitet von Gertrud Braun

Heimatbuch der Deutschen Aus Russland 1966.

THE DEPORTATION OF THE CRIMEAN GERMANS 1941.

Based On A Report By Theodor Eisenbraun, Prepared by Gertrud Braun

A Translation by Armand and Elaine Bauer

In the 1960 Heimatbuch appeared a very interesting, detailed narrative by Theodor

Eisenbraun from Bulatschi in the Crimea. In it he presented a good over-view of the

economic and cultural circumstances that were the lot of the Crimean Germans. The

narrative closed with an account of his family's experiences in a Siberian concentration

camp and of the so-called "volunteer" settling of the Ural District.

He was not able to complete a second article, this one dealing with the evacuation of the

Germans from the Crimea in August, 1941. However, through the support of the survivors

(family) as well as notes from a recording he made, those among the living could complete a

closing narrative about his life during the evacuation in August, 1941, in which it was possible

to employ his own words. (The following are his words).

"Actually in 1941 there weren't any more German farmers in the Crimea. All so-called

land owners had disappeared from the village community. Many had been forcibly transported

with their families to the European north. A large number—branded as Kulaks—were in

Siberian concentration camps, and again others—most of them older people—had left house and

home to move to a city like Simpferopol, Eupatoria, Sevastopol and others to seek lower class

employment. Only the young, married sons of farmers remained in their own or a strange village

as a worker in the collective.

13

When any German succeeded to escape from the Siberian prison or from the far

north the risk was not taken to return to the home village. They disappeared into the cities

and changed their vocation.

Inter-mixing of the ethnic groups was the arrangement of the day. Only the Tatars avoided

intermarriages. '

This was the situation in the year 1941; the majority of Crimean Germans were uprooted and

through frequent changes of residences they became homeless. There wasn't any exclusive German

community as such that could be spoken of, but all collectives were international, meaning that

these were an amalgamation of German, Russian, and Tatar workers.

We had for a long time followed with great interest the political events taking place in

Germany, and hoped that we would be freed of communism by Hitler. How disillusioned we were

when the German Foreign Minister Ribbentrop agreed to a non-aggression pact with our dictator.

But, this pact was of short duration. Already on June 21, 1941, the first German bombs fell on

Sevastopol. Every day we read in the Russian newspapers of the great heroic deeds of the

Soviet Army. But also every day the names of Russian towns were mentioned that lay east of the

previously indicated front line. Of course not all of these reports were necessarily joyous messages

because we knew, that we as Germans would have to atone for the failures of the Soviet Armies.

At this time I was living—after I had been freed from a Siberian prison in 1934—in the small

city of Karassubazar, in which the Tatars were in majority. Here the colloquial language was Tatar.

Actually, most of the men spoke Russian, but the women could not handle the Russian language

very well. We Germans did not know each other very well. Only those living in close proximity to

each other came together with any kind of frequency. When two or three of us were

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together we enthusiastically talked about the incomprehensible advance of the German Army and

time and again someone would say: "They are coming, yes they are coming soon!" That there was a

possibility that we Germans would be subject to evacuation we did not suspect. We were of the

opinion that the dictators in Moscow had other concerns.

We German workers in the city had to report each evening at our places of work and often

stayed together into the night.

So came August 17, 1941. I was just getting some water from our artesian well when a young

Tatar asked me: "Have you heard, that all Germans are to be taken out of the Crimea?" No, I hadn't

heard anything, but 1 wasn't very greatly disturbed by this news. At noon this question had been the

main theme of our discussion, but I could not detect that my comrades displayed any nervousness

about it.

On Monday, the 18th August we went to work as usual. The Russian co-workers looked at us

differently. We felt something was in the air.

In every workshop, as in a collective, there was a political leader, referred to as a "Politruk."

He said to us: "It is not out of the realm of possibility that the front may be in the Crimea one of

these days and then you could suffer as prisoners of war. Therefore the Soviet Government wants

to spare you this disagreeable possibility and has decided to bring you to an inland province. Get

yourselves prepared to travel to the Caucasus. You can take along as much as you can carry. There

is the possibility that parts of the trip will have to be made on foot. The things that you won't be

able to take with you, you can give to your good friends or your landlord. There is a chance too that

you may be able to come back in two to three weeks. Before the trip you will be given three months

wages in advance. Get your money from the pay-office and go immediately to your house and

prepare for the journey.

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Today or tomorrow transportation is coming from the nearby Sowchos. They will take you to the

nearest railroad station. And so good luck on the journey and luck until we meet again." The same

message was given by the collective administration.

The money we gladly took. The willingness of the bank, to be separated from their money

soon waned in our Tatar town, and many people received their money only shortly before the

journey began. In other respects however we were all deeply moved by the overwhelming concern

of the government for our precious lives!!!

As poor as we were, it didn't take long to fill up two bags and two trunks with bedding,

patched-up laundry, clothes and foodstuff. The best pieces of clothing were put on. My son-in-

law and my nephew each slaughtered a hog and placed the meat into the lard.

And then it meant waiting, because the transports did not come this day, not tomorrow, but

first on the third day.

On August 20 was then the day to get underway. At sundown all wagons were assembled

within the town. When all the wagons were loaded the trip began in a northwesterly direction,

toward the railroad station, Sarabus. We traveled the whole night. By sunrise we were near

Kajosta. Here the horses had to be fed and watered. The Tatars surrounded us: "Where are you

going?" I answered jokingly: "I want to drive to Germany! But only as is God's will!" Here, in

farewell, I purchased the last pound of Crimean tobacco.

During the noon hour we drove through the German colony Karatscha-Kangil. The small

village was deserted. Dogs wandered about and barked at us. Chickens scratched about, doors and

windows were open. But there wasn't a trace of people.

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Then we went through the Mennonite colony Spat. The same thing was the case here

too. Both the people of Kangil and Spat were already gone.

When we got to Sarabus the orders were to unload. Six or seven railroad luggage vans

stood in readiness. In addition to the baggage, 40 persons had to squeeze into each van.

About 240 to 280 Germans came out of the Tatar village.

At the station Kurman-Kemeltschi we were placed on a siding and then joined together

with other vans loaded with Germans, in preparation for the journey. There I saw a railroad

car loaded with furniture and other household supplies, and with it men that were well

dressed. These were Jews that were being evacuated voluntarily. What we looked upon as

misfortune was considered by them to be luck.

On August 22 the journey began in earnest. Already by afternoon we were in

Melitopol. And from a siding, to which we had been shuttled, we observed that behind and

near us were vans similar to the one we were on. Yes, yes these too were Germans, our

people!

Divine ordinance sometimes permits wonderful moments to occur in our lives: here I

met all of my relatives! How much there was to talk about! And at the same time we ate

heartily.

Again the rumor was circulating, that the German front was on the right bank of the

Dnjepr and that the train would be under sharp attack. On this basis the railroad station

master held up the train and telegraphed Moscow for permission to direct the train with the

Germans from Feodorowka station to an easterly direction. Apparently he received a

negative reply. Because on the next day the train went in the same northerly direction as it

had before.

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By sundown we arrived in Kangrin, the last large station before Saporoshje. Here we

were called together. The train conductor had something important to tell us: "Comrades", he

said, "we are going to pass through a desolate region where you won’t find anything to buy.

Therefore, you will have to help each other out with food supplies. If someone of the group

should happen to stay behind, then he should know that we are going to the North Caucasus in

the Ordshonikidse District. That is the place to which he must direct himself!"

To stay back?! Oh, that we wanted to do, gladly. But how could this come to reality?—

I slept fitfully the whole night. Before the sun rose, I was up on my feet. Then my daughter

came out and said, "I have to go to the village and get some milk for Alfred." The youngster

was five months old. Another woman joined her. I walked with the two women a short dis-

tance and, after I reminded them not to linger too long because the train would likely be

leaving soon, I returned to the station. Sure enough! Before the two women had come back

came the command "All aboard." There was no delay. Together with my son-in-law I threw

our baggage from the van. The train slowly got underway—without us. We waved at it.

As we later learned, a shoemaker from Karassubazar by the name of Keller that we

knew, followed our example at the first station beyond Saporoshje.

Finally the two women came with the milk. The family of the other woman had stayed

on the departed train. This gave rise to a lament!!! She turned herself over to the station

master. He consoled her and opined that the train was parked about 3 kilometers away. "I will

telephone and ask them to wait for you. But you will have to hurry."

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We were urged by the station master to board a motor-lorry to continue our trip. We

were furnished an open truck, loaded with loose wheat and equipped with an iron ladder on

which to climb up and down. We put the women and four children aboard with the bags and

trunks and then climbed in behind them. I settled down on one of our bags and enjoyed the

beautiful view. Then we were off for Saporoshje. Near the town the road was uphill. The

locomotive groaned and snorted so as to arouse compassion.

Suddenly a flash of light arose from our tracks. This was followed almost at the same

moment by the appearance of a column of smoke and an earth-shaking explosion. To me it

seemed as if God had said "To this point and no further.'" Bags and trunks flew off to the left

side of the track embankment, then I got off and my son-in-law stayed on the ladder to hand

the children down to me. The last to get off were the women. The train continued to move

slowly forward. After all of us were already disembarked, it halted about 10 meters from us.

A grenade struck the van that had been in front of ours.

For further observation we didn't have any more time. We had to gather together our

things. My son-in-law and my daughter went with the children into the brush thicket while

my wife and I stayed with our baggage. I rolled myself a cigarette and said, "This is some

kind of business!"

The sun began its descent. Where should we now find a place to spend the night? We

had no time to waste. Not far away was a large Russian village. We had to make several

trips back and forth until we had all of the baggage in the alley.

The sun had set. It was beginning to get dusky. A Russian came by, a man in his

fifties, "Where are you on your way to?" One word led to

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another, until at last he said: "Here in this neighborhood near by my cottage is empty. My

wife has fled to the village. If you wish, you can stay in the cottage overnight." Now don't

anyone tell me that there isn't a God who looks after us !

In the village Balabino we stayed several weeks. Time and again we saw trains pass by

loaded with Crimean Germans. We alone could remain. But we were not spared pain: my son-

in-law was drafted into a workers army. He never again came back!!!

On October 5, the German front passed over us—and we were free!

But what happened to the other Crimean Germans?

From Saporoshje there was a branch line off of the Sevastopol main line—Kursk with a

direct angle to the east, direction of the Don. That is the route the transports took and then over

the Don further to the south into the Ordshenokidse Region. There the Crimean Germans were

required to help the people in the region with the threshing, and in October, 1941, the families of

strictly German blood were again loaded and evacuated to Siberia. The inter-married (mixed)

families remained at Ordshenokidse.

The Crimean Germans were scattered in Asiatic Russia. The largest group of them was

brought to Kasachstan. They obtained their first shelter with Russian families. In 1942 an

indescribable wretchedness was imposed on all Germans: all men of military age were drafted

into the work army (Trudarmia) and very few of them ever came back. These poor, God-

forsaken people began to die in large numbers. The dead were buried in pairs in one grave,

without a ceremony. Large numbers of children also died. In their distress the German people

cried to heaven, but their Heavenly Father remained silent.

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As the Soviet Government relaxed its ban against the Germans on movement within

Russia, many moved to the cities. The great physical distress they were able to withstand, but

the spiritual distress is great. Most of the children have no knowledge of an Evangelical

Lutheran heritage. The first generation of Evangelicals from the Crimea can still speak

German, read German and also write German. The second generation can still speak German,

but can neither read nor write letters in German. The third generation can neither speak nor

write German.

So the German influence in Russia will be carried to the grave, if our dear Heavenly

Father will not interpose and speak about their destruction."

Deportation Route Of The Crimea Germans 1941. (After Dr. Karl Stumpp).

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DIE AUSSIEDLUNG DER WOLGA DEUTSCHEN

Von Gertrud Braun Translated by Nancy Bernhardt Holland

"We were on the way to Katharinenstadt," a woman recalls, "when the police stopped us and

sent us back to our home villages. We had no idea what was happening and naturally we were upset.

Various rumors buzzed through the villages. On September 1, 1941 the edict of deportation was

published in the Russian newspaper, Bolshevik, and in the German language newspaper, Nachrichten,

and was prominently affixed to official buildings in the villages."

According to another report, "it was harvest time and the crops had to be gathered at once. Then in

the middle of the work, in broad daylight, a bomb exploded—-the edict concerning the deportation of the

Volga Germans. We wandered around like living corpses. It was said, to pacify us, that we would be

resettled village by village on collective farms. Moreover, the harsh edict decreed that all were required to

follow the evacuation orders.

"On the same day all German villages were occupied by troops under the command of an

officer. The Germans had to stay in their houses; the Russians put their heads together. Agitated

conversations posed the same question: ‘Why? What wrong have you done? We have always lived

well together and in peace.

"Meanwhile two soldiers and an officer registered al1 the Germans. The tension grew immeasurably from day to day. The Volga German administration was deposed and replaced by the Soviet secret police. On September 13, 1941 the evacuation began with wagons or tractors bringing deportees to a nearby railroad station or from other areas to Katharinenstadt (Marxstadt) where the journey on the Volga from Schleppkahnen (Barschen) to Engels (Pokrowsk) began. Many Russians and Kirghiz turned up at the departure. There were moving scenes of parting, tears, and waving handkerchiefs. On the ship or in the railroad cars a brass band played. It was said everyone should bring along provisions sufficient for a month and a half. The people provided themselves with flour, rusk (suchariki), sausage, salt meats, chickens, lard.

"On the evening of the l4th, the transport from Kathariensbadt arrived at Engels. Here the

people were loaded into cattle cars—

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from 40-60 persons per car. In each train there were two passenger cars for the military escort, the

sick and expectant mother.

"Russians who were married to German women were allowed to remain behind; however,

Russian women who were married to German men were also exiled. Even the German Communist

officials, including the members of the government of the German Soviet Republic were banished.

Then began the difficult journey on the great detour--for the line to Novosibirsk served only military

transports--to the destination. One part of the transport traveled through Aktjubinsk--Ksyl-Orda--

Taschkent--Alma-Ata--Semipalatinsk--Barnaul--Novosibirsk--Tatarsk--Kulunda steppe. The

extremely nerve-wracking trip took from the 15th to the 27th of September to reach Biisk; from the

15th to the 29th of September to reach Kulunda. There were no sleeping accommodations in the

over-crowded cattle cars. Especially oppressive was the lack of drinking water in the great heat of

central Asia and the bad air since there were no toilet facilities. Many died, especially old people and

children. The dead could be given only makeshift burials during the brief stops.

"Only rarely on the journey was hot soup dispensed. Having arrived at the destination, the

deportees had to remain in the cattle cars during the freezing night. As hot as it was by day (l08

degrees Fahrenheit) it could be dreadfully cold at night. Only the sick, very old persons and small

children were taken to hospitals. On the next morning representatives of the surrounding collective

farms came with trucks, wagons, and tractors to claim their assigned 12-15 families. The

accommodations were extremely crude. Six to eight persons were often cooped up in one tiny room.

There was no rest after the fatiguing journey of over 3000 miles. It was war time and the crops had to

be harvested,

"As early as October and November all men from the ages of 18 to 65 were drafted into the

"Trudarmia" and were sent to distant areas of Asiatic and European Russia to serve as industrial

laborers on railroads, road construction, in coal mining and in war-support industries. Frequently

these men were quartered in great labor camps where many died of malnutrition and disease.

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"In the morning we received 9 1/2 ounces of bread and coffee; at noon another 9 1/2 ounces

of bread and a whack of soup and some gruel; evenings at 9:00, a dish of soup. So nourished we

were required to work from 6:30 a.m. until 12 midnight. In the mess hall the mottoes stared at us:

'Sa rodinu’ (For the Fatherland), ' Sa Stalina’ (For Stalin), 'Sa pobetu' (For Victory). Near

Sverdlovsk was a labor camp with 100,000 inmates; near Novosibirsk a similar one with 1500

inmates who had to work at building a factory."

At the end of 1941 husbands and sons were separated from their families never to be seen

again, perishing, weak, exhausted, somewhere far away. In the spring of 1942 women between the

ages of 18 and 60 were impressed into the labor camps as well. Only mothers with children under

two years of age were not taken into the "Trudarmia". On the other hand, mothers with children

over two years old were also drafted and their children were kept in children’s homes. How often it

happened that such a mother never again found her child. The Russians --so our countrymen report-

--were good to them during these years; the Kasachstani, however, were not. They saw the

Germans as intruders into their territory,

Refugees poured into the deserted German villages—Russians, Jews, and others who came

from the western areas. In many cases our people maintained correspondence with their earlier

neighbors on the Volga with whom they had lived together in friendship;

in this way they were kept informed of how things were going in their villages and in their homes

and yards.

24

DIE AUSSIEDLUNG DERDEUTSCHEN DEM SUDKAUKASAS

Von Frau K

(1966 Heimatbuch der Deutschen aus Russland)

THE DEPORTATION OF THE GERMANS FROM THE SOUTH CAUCASUS

A Translation by ARMAND and ELAINE BAUER

"October 22/23, 1941 were the black days of the South Caucasus Germans," it says in a letter. Already on October 15, 1941, the village of Helenendorf was surrounded by the militia and all people who wanted to go to work were sent back to their homes. Then three men from the NKVD went from house to house and dispensed the news that all Germans were to be deported. They gave the advice that a month's food supplies and the most necessary clothing and bedding were to be taken along. Then all had to sign a statement that they understood what was expected of them; then each was handed a receipt which indicated that the house and yard were transferred to the communal administration. In three days the trek was to begin. However, it was seven days, October 22, before we were on the move. The people were brought to the railway station in trucks, where they spent the night in the open in a large yard. Then all were loaded by groups on the train; the train arrived in Baku on October 25, and all were then loaded on a ship. The ship left Baku in the evening of October 26 and arrived in Krasnowodsk on October 27. Here there wasn't any drinking water. The children cried for water. But water could not be obtained for any kind of money. The people wanted to go back aboard ship to get water from there. But boarding the ship was forbidden. A great tumult arose within the ranks of the people.

The departure from Tiflis was described by a German prisoner-of-war as it was reported to him. "The railroad yard was decorated. Friends of the Germans were dressed in their holiday finery to bid farewell—Georgian, Armenian, Tatar, Greek, Kurd and Persian. Men of the NKVD, all seeing and all hearing, silently frowned upon the proceedings. The first German families arrived; they were escorted by their Caucasus friends who carried their baggage and stowed it on the railroad car. The ceremony of farewell began. Only those with non-German wives were permitted to remain behind. Women who were married to Russians were required to go along, to be deported. Also Armenian and Grusiner women married to Germans were deported, because they did not want to separate themselves from their husbands and children. Notwithstanding their worth to the state and cities all engineers, doctors, professors, teachers, lawyers, salespeople and public offi-cials had to leave their homes. It is true that people with these professions were permitted to return to their families after two to three years. The people of Tiflis knew and felt at this moment what they would lose by the deportation of these Germans. People put their arms around each other, kissed each other according to the custom of the land, and wiped the tears from their eyes. People clasped hands for a long time and promised true friendship. Women fell crying into the arms of friends, caressed and comforted pale faces, took precious jewels (ornaments) from their clothes and gave them to the friends of their youth. Loud, firm voices were heard to

25

say: "All of us departing Germans who up to now have been your neighbors want to thank you once more for your true friendship that was demonstrated to us and we express the hope that after the soon to come victory of justice we will all be permitted to return to the home that has become dear and precious to us". - "You will never be forgotten, you will always be welcome, come back soon." responded the leader of the employment bureau, a Tatar. Then the station master, with a superior attitude, summoned them to board the train. The Germans boarded the luggage van prepared for them, the NKVD in their separate van. A whistle—then the train rolled slowly out of the railway yards toward the south. From all houses, left and right, crying people waved to those, who with heavy hearts, were taking farewell of their homes, until the train disappeared in the steppe. Yes, this is how it was in Tiflis!"

This train went to Baku and from there the people went by ship (across the Caspian Sea) to Krasnowodsk. Krasnowodsk was the starting point for a train trip taken by all Caucasus Germans through a hot, desert region. Because the people were crammed together and there wasn't any water, the trip was a "descent into hell." Many older people and physically weak people did not survive the trip and were buried in the desert wasteland. Only after the arrival at Samarkand* was drinking water to be had.

The first groups were settled at Alma-Ata, specifically on both sides of the Illi River that flows into the Balchasch Sea. Since there weren't any dwellings in the area to be settled some of the men were separated from their families at Krasnowodsk and sent on ahead so they could erect emergency housing in the desert. The families came about 8 to 14 days later, part of the trip being made on foot and the nights being spent in the open. After the region around Alma-Ata was filled, groups that followed were brought north of the Balchasch Sea past Karaganda to Zelinograd Pawlodar and Semipalatinsk. Here they were divided among the Kasachstan (Russian) families and required to help with the harvest. The living conditions were conceivably primitive. Often seven Kasachstan persons were housed in one room. Hogs and chickens often were brought into the residence. The support (food and care) was bad, but the work demand was great. Also the sick were ruthlessly driven to work, so that many died of debility. After the 1941 harvest all men 14 to 40 years old were drafted into the workers army ("Trudarmia"); in 1942 the women of this same age were also drafted. Draftees were taken to Karaganda, Tula, Orsk to Perm, even some of them to Archangelsk, where they were put into camps and forced to labor in coal mines. Each month everyone had to report to the police. Especially bad conditions existed in Karaganda which at that time was a small place with miserable huts. Here the labor and food conditions were especially difficult. Without any consideration for the children that needed care, the mothers also had to labor in the mines. Neither resistance nor pleading did any good. Frequently a mother came home, exhausted from the labor, to be informed that her child had died of starvation, and is some cases, also was informed that the child had already been buried. The number that starved to death in Karaganda alone is very large. "This town rests on our bones”* is stated in one letter. Today Karaganda is a large nice, modern city.

* The distance from Krasnowodsk to Smarkand was at least 1400 kilometer or 850 miles.

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After this dismal description, those returning from the area (see map) nevertheless report that conditions have improved for their country people, indeed that things are going very well. Most of them have nice houses well arranged inside, with tapestries on the walls, good heating units, and frequently even television (Fernsehapparate) and grand pianos. Also many already have their own autos and motorcycles. One sad aspect, however, is the language in common usage, the children speak Russian altogether. Only when there is a Grandmother around will German be spoken occasionally. A Volga-German married a Mennonite. They could not understand each others language (dialect) so they speak Russian. The parents speak German to their children, the children respond in Russian.

27

I WENT TO RUSSIA

By John E. Pfeiffer

Not even in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine that I could or would go to Russia. The desire to visit the land where my forefathers had lived for a century had always been deep in my subconscious, but the possibility of ever doing so never seemed to be more than wishful thinking.

Several months ago, when Aberdak Travel Service of Aberdeen, South Dakota began to advertise a Russian Adventure Tour, which included Odessa, I immediately inquired as to the possibility of visiting the nearby area which my great-great grandfather had helped to colonize in 1808, and from which my grandfather had emigrated first to Petropavlovsk, Kazakhstan, in 1898, and then to America in 1900.

On being assured that my request would be given consideration, I dazedly went through the process of obtaining a passport, making payment for the tour, applying for a Russian visa, and getting a smallpox vacination. It all seemed unreal, and as the date of departure neared, a lifetime of negative conditioning made me apprehensive about going to the secluded land, and I could easily have been persuaded not to go except that forfeiting 25% of the payment as a cancellation penalty seemed in-tolerable .

And so, at 9:25 on the rainy morning of Wednesday, May 24, 1972, with remarks like "What do you want to go there for?", "What if they don't let you come back?", "What if they send you to Siberia?", still ringing in my ears, I found myself uneasily boarding a North Central Airlines jet, along with nine other tour members from the area, at Saunders Field for the first flight of what was still an unreal venture into the unknown.

At Minneapolis, we were joined by two more tour members, and, shortly after noon, we boarded a huge Northwest Orient 747. Dinner was served immediately upon being airborne and an hour and a half later, after a spectacular view of New York City, we landed at John F. Kennedy International Airport. There, three more members joined the tour, and we were soon met by a representative of Russian Adventure Tours who presented us with our passports which now included our Russian visas. Upon examination of the visa, I suddenly found myself illiterate for I could not even read my name which was written in Cyrillic script.

About 8:00 P.M. (CDT), after a tumultuous rush for seat assignments, and after filing through a metallic detector and a search of flight bags by U.S. Customs officers, we boarded a Soviet Airlines (Aeroflot) jet. We were greeted by English-speaking Russian stewardesses in brilliant uniforms and what was to become the distinct scent of all Russian planes— something which smelled like an early morning meadowland in full bloom. After what seemed to be utter confusion resulting from rearranged seating, we were airborne at 9:15 P.M. (CDT). The stewardesses, in colorful pinafores, passed trays of hard candies and glasses of mineral water. A tasty

29

supper was served at 11:20 P.M. (CDT), and, shortly thereafter, we were amazed to see the sun rising over the Atlantic Ocean. At 3:30 A.M. (CDT) we had a magnificent view of London, England, where we landed at Heathrow Airport for an hour. It was then 9:30 A.M., Thursday, May 25, London time, and the Queen's Building Terminal was hushed but crowded with very proper Englishmen.

At 4:45 A.M. (CDT), we were again airborne for Moscow, where we landed at Sheremetyevo Airport at 8:00 A.M. (CDT). However, we had passed through eight time zones since our departure from Aberdeen so it was already 4:00 P.M., Moscow time. Thursday, May 25, was a short day. Inside a sterile, colorless depot, we passed through a passport check, where one copy of each visa was removed, and were then met by Alia Malvinsky, who would be our Intourist guide for our entire tour of the U.S.S.R. She arranged a quick passage through Customs, where only our written declara-tions of currency brought into the country was required; there was no Custom's check of baggage.

Soon we were aboard a bus for the fifteen mile ride into Mockva (Moscow), the capital of the entire Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (CCCP) as well as the capital of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. It was raining. We passed many picturesque wooden houses along the way only to learn that they are a stereotype of old Russia that modern Russia is rapidly replacing by high rise apartment buildings. Cranes and construction were evident everywhere. We were told that nobody in Moscow, a city of more than seven million, lives in a private home.

We were soon in the heart of Moscow, passing that part of the Kremlin where President Nixon was then staying. Not far away, on the granite-faced banks of the Moscow River, we surrendered our passports for registration and room assignment in the skyscraper Ukraina Hotel. Keys for the rooms had to be obtained from the "key lady" on each floor and returned to her before leaving the floor. From our sixth floor room, we could see the domes and turrets of the Kremlin, and the hustle and bustle of the big, modern city. During supper—steaks and what would become the ever-present unusually flavored carbonated beverage—in the crystal chandeliered dining room, we were entertained by, of all things, an amplified combo playing American jazz. Afterwards we shopped in the Beryoska kiosk (store) in the hotel where foreign currencies only can be used. There were many interesting and beautiful items and I bought a few—matryoskas, which are nests of colorfully painted wooden dolls, and a black and white Uzbek cap, which represents one of the 130 nationality groups living in the Soviet Union.

I was up bright and early the next morning and went for a stroll around the block-square, 30-story hotel. Women were hosing down and scrubbing the sidewalks and streets while several men, stripped to the waist, were doing calisthenics in a park across the street. Women's Lib has long been a reality in the Soviet Union and we eventually saw women laying bricks; driving busses, trucks, and streetcars; and working on road construction and in the fields. After breakfast, we spent the morning sightseeing

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by bus. From the hotel, we proceeded along the banks of the Moscow River to Krasnaya or Red Square (krasnaya means red or beautiful). Undoubtedly the most eye-catching structure in this beautiful, cobble stoned square is the multi-domed, multi-colored St. Basil's Cathedral. Now a museum of history, it dates back to the 15th century. Our tour of the city took us down wide streets past many monuments, fountains, tree-studded parks, beautiful old buildings and modern new ones, and gorgeous flower beds everywhere. Then to Lenin Hills, where the gigantic 45,000 roomed struc-ture of Moscow University stands; past the huge, modern Luzhniki Sports Complex; and the 16th century Kovodevichy Convent where many famous Russians, including Khrushchev, are buried. In the afternoon, we rode the fantastic Metro (subway), which carries four million passengers daily. Eighty-seven miles of track with eighty-nine underground stations, each one of which is meticulously clean and a work of art unique from each other, are some 200 feet underground and are reached by speedy escalators which seem to go straight down. To ride the Metro costs five Kopeks (about seven cents) and one can ride all day from 6:00 A.M. to 1:00 A.M. without paying another fare. The trains of eight cars each run on absolute schedule at speeds of around 50 M.P.H. That evening, we attended a magnificent performance of "Gizelle" by the world-renowned Bolshoi Ballet in the Bolshoi Theater. A German tourist, in the same box I was in, recognizing me as an American, asked, in English, if I had come to Russia with my President.

Early the next morning, Saturday, May 27, we were bussed to the Kremlin's Corner Arsenal Tower, opposite the turreted, red-brick Museum of History, and in view of the eternal flame of the grave of the Unknown Soldier, where a group of Pioneers (Communist Youth Organization) were placing flowers, we were given preference in an endless line for the trek across Red Square to view the body of Lenin lying in state in his red granite mausoleum. The hushed orderliness of the crowd, which was scrutinized by intermittent policemen and soldiers, was incredible, as was the solemn precision of the changing of the guard within the tomb just as we passed through. In the well-kept and carefully guarded cemetery garden along the Kremlin wall behind the mausoleum, we viewed the burial places of such notable Communists as Josef Stalin, cosmonaut Yuri Gargarin, and John Reed, an American. From there we walked across Red Square, opposite the Kremlin walls, to the huge State Department Store (GUM), where we mingled with the hurried crowds in a bazaar-like atmosphere. We returned to the bus, warily crossing the street since we had already quickly learned that vehicles have the right-of-way in Russia. The afternoon was spent at the National Economic Exhibition, which covers 550 acres, and has 300 structures and 78 pavilions with some 100,000 exhibits on the industry, agriculture, transport, science, and culture of the U.S.S.R. After a thorough tour of the Space Pavilion, I drifted off by myself to an outdoor stage opposite the beautiful Stone Flower Fountain where I finally heard an excellent balalaika orchestra play Russian folk melodies. That evening, we went to the immense, very modern Arbat Restaurant (PECTOPAH) for a gala, evening of food, drink, and entertainment. Our meals had always been very good in quality and quantity, but this was a banquet fit for a king. The

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musical accompaniment was again amplified American jazz, The next morning, Sunday, May 28, arrangements having been made the night before for a cab

to take me to the American Embassy, I paid the driver seventy-six kopeks for fare—tipping is frowned upon in Russia, and more often than not is refused—and thought I could just walk in. But two Russian policemen, standing guard at the entrance, asked to see my passport. Upon producing it, they saluted and permitted me to pass through the arched entrance. Two little American girls showed me the way to the Community room, where I attended the 9:00 o'clock Mass. Father Richard, the American Chaplain for the Catholics of the Foreign Diplomatic Corps in Russia, and about twenty-four persons celebrated the Eucharistic Banquet. I had a lengthy conversation with Father afterwards and learned that there is a Roman Catholic Church—St. Louis—in operation in Moscow. I then went to the switchboard operator, a very pleasant, very pretty Russian girl, to call a cab for me; instead she had an Embassy car take me back to the hotel. I was very grateful for this because it was pouring rain outside.

We left the hotel at 11:45 for the airport. On the way, we passed a couple walking down the highway in the rain; he was wearing a raincoat and holding an umbrella overhead while she walked unprotected a few feet behind him. The countryside was very green and wooded. Inside a small depot, which reeked of the bitter smell of Russian cigarettes, we waited with ordinary Soviet citizens and a number of soldiers for the flight to Leningrad some 400 miles northward. We were airborne at 12:25 and landed at the very clean and attractive Leningrad Air Terminal at 2:00 P.M. On the short drive into the city of three and a half million, we again saw cranes and construction everywhere. Once in this beautiful city, which is built on 101 islands where the Neva River flows into the Gulf of Finland, gorgeous beds of tulips were abloom everywhere. Nina Olehova, who met us at the airport, was our special Intourist guide for our stay in Leningrad. She soon had us registered and dining in the beautiful Hotel Leningrad on the stone-faced banks of the Neva opposite the Naval Academy and the historic museum-battleship "Aurora." For two centuries after its founding by Peter the Great, until the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, Leningrad, known first as St. Petersburg and then Petrograd, was the capital of Tzarist Russia, and its imperial elegance is still very evident, as we saw during a late afternoon bus tour. We could have toured all night for we were in Leningrad during the eerie "White Nights," when the sun never quite sets and it is light all night long.

The next morning (Monday, May 29), we ascended the magnificent Jordan Staircase of the Hermitage Museum to view its fabulous treasures. This huge palace was the winter residence of the imperial family. It has 300 gorgeous rooms and more than two million exhibits, including 8,000 priceless paintings. I was particularly impressed by Murillo's "Immaculate Conception", because it is reproduced here in St. Mary's Church. An interesting episode took place upon entering the Hermitage: it was a cool, breezy morning so I had worn the Uzbek cap which I had bought in Moscow into the entrance; another member of our group had on an ordinary cap; he was asked to remove his headgear, but nothing was said to me, which demon-

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strates the high regard held for this particular nationality of the U.S.S.R. It is said that an Uzbek never removes his cap except to go to bed. In the center of the immense Palace Square stands the Alexandrovskaya monument, a 154 foot high solid granite column commemorating Tzar Alexander I's victory over Napoleon in 1812. Alexander I was the Tzar who invited my people to establish agricultural colonies in the Odessa region in 1804.

The afternoon was spent on the island fortress of Peter and Paul, which was planned by Peter the Great himself, and was the first structure to be erected in the city in 1703. On entering the fortress via the Ioannovsky Vorota (St. John's Gate), two well-mannered, well-dressed teenage boys who obviously wanted to show off their knowledge of English, walked along with me. One was very intent on making a trade for my K of C button, and only relented when I told him it meant much to me. Once inside the fortress walls, we passed through the mammoth Petrovskie Vorota, which has the imperial coat-of-arms carved high above its stone archway. Then by the arsenal, the engineers building, the guardhouse, the commandant's building, Peter the Great's boathouse, and then into the Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral, where all the Tzars and Tzarinas from Peter the Great on are buried. Asked why the last Tzar, Nicholas II, is not buried there, our guide said, "He did not deserve it".

On Tuesday morning (May 30) , we boarded a Hydrofoil (a large enclosed boat, which seats about a hundred passengers, and which travels at such great speed that it hardly touches the water) for a twenty-five minute cruise on the Gulf of Finland to Petrodvorets. Among the passengers was a large group of children on an end-of-school-year holiday. Petrodvorets (Peter's Palace) was originally conceived by Peter the Great as the imperial retreat. His palace, on the Gulf, is modest in comparison to the Great Palace and the score of other palaces and pavilions which now make up one huge landscaped holiday park. The grounds were swarming with vacationers. We arrived just as the 161 fountains and three waterfalls leading to the Great Palace began their daily spouting and flowing of water. One fountain was particularly ingenious; called the "Dubok" (Oak-tree), it did indeed look like a tree, but was made of metal, leaves and all, which periodically sprayed forth a fine mist. It was a very popular place for children who squealed with delight when it happened to go off as they stood beneath it. Our guide told us that this paradise had been severely damaged by the "fascist barbarian invaders" during World War II. Leningrad itself had been under siege for 900 days, during which 600,000 of its inhabitants died of starvation. We returned to the city, eighteen miles distant, by bus in sudden downpour. In the afternoon, we visited the very interesting Museum of Ethnography of the peoples of the U.S.S.R. We also went into a large department store, but like Moscow's GUM, everything was delightful confusion. Several of us returned to the hotel by a mini-bus which carries about ten or as many passengers as can get in, at a cost of two kopeks each; everybody but the driver seems to give out the receipt for the fare. That evening was spent at the Kirov Academic Theater of Opera and Ballet for a fine performance of the ballet "Cinderella". A New Yorker present was wearing a "McGovern for President" button.

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The next morning (Wednesday, May 31), we went twelve miles by bus to Pavlovsk to visit the horseshoe-shaped palace and grounds given to Paul I by his mother, Catherine the Great. ("They hated each other," our guide told us.) From there, we went to nearby Tzarskoye Selo (now called Pushkin Village in honor of the famed writer who attended the institute there), where the elegant Bolshoi Dvorets stands. This huge, blue palace, with its beautiful gardens, was where Catherine the Great spent her last days; it was also the permanent residence of the last Tzar, Nicholas II, and his ill-fated family. Both palaces were badly destroyed by the Germans during World War II, but have now been completely restored. Back at the hotel, another member of the group and I went on an excursion of the Leningrad Metro. It is as efficient, though not as elaborate, as the Moscow Metro. The supporting columns of the Avtova station were covered with decorative glass, and one wall was covered by a huge, beautiful mosaic dedicated to world peace. The evening was spent at Sadko's, an internationally famous restaurant, for what was probably the most enjoyable evening of the entire tour. There was champagne, vodka, Georgian wine, caviar. After several courses of delicious appetizers, came a delicious borsch, followed by the biggest and tastiest piece of meat I have ever eaten—shashlyk (each individual piece was served from the sword on which it had been roasted over hot coals). A talented group of singers, dancers, and authentic balalaika orchestra, all in folk costumes, presented a most enjoyable and memorable evening of magnificent Russian entertainment. We were all sorry to have this evening of pleasure come to an end.

On Thursday morning (June 1), we viewed one of the best collections of Russian art (some 250,000 works are on exhibit) in the whole country at the Russky Musee (formerly the Mikhailovsky Palace). I was particularly entranced by the icon section for I had hopes of being able to buy at least one in a Beryoska store, but none were ever for sale. We then went to the third largest church structure in the world—St. Isaac's Cathedral (Isaakievsky Sobor) which was built by some 440,000 workers between 1815-1858. Suspended from the interior of its central dome is a 98 meter Foucault pendulum which demonstrates the motion of the earth's rotation on its axis. Though few churches in Russia are used for religious services, most of those that we saw were, nevertheless, preserved as churches. That afternoon being free, I took a mini-bus to and from a point nearby the Kazansky Sobor (Cathedral of the Holy Virgin of Kazan), now the museum of the History of Religion and Atheism. I spent several hours examining thousands of exhibits pertaining to the history of all religions from primitive times to the present; whatever was atheistic about the displays must have been contained in the printed Russian explanations, which I unfortunately could not read. I bought some postcards at a sidewalk stand. The attendant did not have a one kopek coin for change due, so gave me a small chocolate bar instead.

After supper, we went to the airport to fly some 500 miles southwest to Minsk. After getting up above the clouds, we witnessed the spectacular sunlight of "White Nights". It was then 10:00 P.M. At 11:50, we arrived in Minsk, the capital of Byelorussia, one of the fifteen republics. It

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had just rained and was cool, but our bus ride through the city gave us a good view of a well-lighted, very tidy city, which, it was hard to believe, had been 86% destroyed during World War II. We were registered at the very new and very modern thirteen-storied Jubileinaya Hotel on the northwest edge of the city near a huge Sports Palace, and opposite a quaint village. From the picture window of our fifth-floor room, we had a fine view of the city and especially the 17th century cathedral, one of the few relics of the past to survive the destruction of war.

The next day (Friday, June 2), our local Intourist guide, Irene, who had a charming sense of humor, told us that Minsk is now larger (over a million) in population than ever before in its 900 year history, and that it is now a city of young people since a fourth of the population of Byelorussia was killed off during the war. She also described Byelorussia as a heavily wooded plain dotted with many lakes, and she proudly pointed out that it is a land of powerful industry as well. Our subsequent tour of the city took us past a computer plant, a high-powered tractor plant, a watch factory, a ball-bearing plant, and a motor plant. Nevertheless Minsk can boast of clean air and an abundance of greenery; the wide embankments of the Svisloch River, which flows through it, are carpeted with colorful flower-beds. A tour of the Byelorussian Museum portrayed the past and present of the Byelorussian (White Russian) people. At supper that evening, in the land noted for its distinctive music and cymbalist virtuosos, we were entertained (?) by an electrified, amplified combo, dressed in Byelorussian costumes, playing American jazz. That evening, too, a couple of our tour members were met by relatives from a nearby village. I gave the man a pouch of American tobacco, and was surprised when he later presented me with a pack of Russian cigarettes; it seems that it is customary to reciprocate a gift in Russia.

Saturday morning (June 3) was spent at what was one of the most impressive events of the entire tour. Irene, having obtained complimentary tickets for us in a reserved section of the viewing stand in the city's Central Square, we walked about a mile and a half from the hotel (vehicular traffic had been halted for the event) to witness 15,000 youngsters—ages 7 to 17—marching smartly to a military band accompaniment in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Byelorussian Pioneers (Communist Youth Organization). Neatly and colorfully dressed, well-groomed and well-ordered, this spectacular performance evoked much admiration from our tour group. We were invited to be special guests at the afternoon festivities—gymnastics; folk dancing, singing, and music; poetic renditions; etc.—but we regretfully had to decline because of a mid-afternoon flight to Odessa. At 4:00 P.M., we left the hotel for the airport, where we picked up much free literature (books, maps, newspapers-all in English) in a very pleasant and comfortable waiting room for tourists. We were airborne at 5:45, and, as we neared Odessa, some 600 miles south of Minsk, we flew over a checkerboard of grain fields, vineyards, and orchards, as well as several limans (the long and wide lagoons formed by the rivers which drain into the Black Sea). We landed at Odessa at 7:00 P.M.; I had "come home" to my historical origins. The neatness and cleanliness of the airport terminal, with its well-tended trees, lawns and

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flower-beds, was reminiscent of the early memories I had of my people who had emigrated from this area to "Little Odessa" in Aberdeen, South Dakota. The Black Sea climate was balmy, and its effect was evident in the dress and relaxed attitude of the people (a contrast to the feverish activity of the Moscovites). The short drive into the city was a complete surprise for I had never seen such tree-shaded streets anywhere. Many of the acacia trees, of which I had heard my grandparents speak so often, were just then in full bloom with clusters of white, fragrant flowers. Odessa is a strikingly beautiful city with many historic old buildings and monuments, and shady parks and gorgeous flowerbeds everywhere. We registered at the old, elaborate Hotel Odessa, overlooking the Black Sea. Across the street (Primorsky Boulevard) was a long, tree-lined strip of park with flower-beds stretching along both sides of the center walk. The park is on the cliff overlooking the harbor, docks, and very modern sea terminal of the port of Odessa, which was founded as such in 1794 by decree of Catherine the Great under the supervision of General Count Suvorov-Rimnikski. We entered the Victorian-styled dining room of the hotel for supper, where a wedding party was in progress and a band was playing "Yes sir, she's my baby". Afterwards we went for a stroll down Primorsky Boulevard to the "Sea Gateway", in the center of which is a bronze statue of the Duke of Richelieu, the French emigre' nobleman, who, as Governor-General of Novorossia (New or South Russia) from 1803 to 1814, had done so much for the welfare of my people who had been invited to establish agricultural colonies in the area at that time. On the seaside of the monument was the famed Potyomkin Stairway which was constructed in 1841. This broad stairway, which was well known to my grandparents, goes down 191 steps to the seaport. From above, it appears to be a series of plat-forms; from below, all one sees are steps. There were many ships docked in the spectacularly lighted harbor, and the sounds of loading and unloading could be heard all night. Ships from more than 70 countries call at Odessa.

Breakfast next morning (Sunday, June 4) was served at 8:30 with an American flag on our table. Since I had asked Alia Tashchenko, our Odessa Intourist guide about going to Mass that morning, she had obtained the time and directions to the Roman Catholic Church for me. On my way, one of several young fellows standing on a street corner asked me if I were from the United States. He couldn't quite understand that I should be walking the streets of a Russian city without being able to speak Russian, and then commented: "If I visited your country, I would speak English". When he noted the American Legion button in my lapel, he regarded me as some kind of a hero, and had to explain to his companions that I was an Amerikansky Legionaire. His hint that he collected such items met with my "But, it means much too much to me to give it away". The church was only several blocks from the hotel, and the beautiful mosaic above its entrance was inscribed with "Sanctus Petrus". The interior was not large and there were no pews, but it was, nevertheless, crowded, mostly with women. It seemed very cluttered with holy pictures, statues, candlesticks, flowers, and three high altars. The priest, vested in a gold, Roman-style chasuble, said Mass according to the old Latin ritual, and was assisted by four men

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wearing long surplices and yellow capes. After Mass, he preached in Russian, followed by benediction with a ciborium containing the Blessed Sacrament. I sang "0 Salutaris" with the people.

On the way back to the hotel, as I was walking in front of the circular landmark—the Odessa Academic Theater of Opera and Ballet, I heard a chorus of voices calling my name. It was my fellow tourists who had just begun a bus tour of the city. I was very grateful that they had spotted me for I would otherwise have missed seeing some of the sights of the city, such as the beautiful park and monument to the Unknown Sailor, where the Pioneer honor guard changes every quarter hour; as well as the excursion to "Arkadia", one of the many sanatoria-resorts in the area for which Odessa has become famous as a medical, health, and holiday center

It may be of interest to note here that Soviet citizens receive fully paid vacations to these facilities. It is also interesting to note that 80% of the doctors in the Soviet Union are women, and that medical attention and hospitalization is free to all Soviet citizens. This also applies to tourists, a fact which was realized by an Englishman sitting next to me on the flight home from Moscow to London. He had been on a cruise of the Black Sea and had contracted pneumonia aboard ship. Put ashore at Sotchi in the Crimea, where he was hospitalized for four weeks until cured, he was sent to Moscow by jet and then put aboard the same flight that we were on. He was as amazed as I was that he was not charged one kopek for medical treatment, hospitalization, or even the plane fare home,

That afternoon, we visited the Picture Gallery (the former Pototsky Palace, built in 1803). I was surprised to learn that Taras Shevchenko was not only the great national poet of the Ukraine, but an artist as well. In the evening, we enjoyed an outstanding performance of orchestral, vocal, folk song and dance, and the ever popular American jazz so dear to Russian hearts, at the Palace of Pioneers, a few steps from the hotel. This magnificent structure was formerly the palace of the Governors-General of Novo-rossia, and until the Russo-Turkish War of 1787-91, had been the site of the Turkish Fortress of Khadzhibei.

I woke up very early on Monday morning (June 5) in anticipation of the trip I had been given permission to make to Tiraspol, some 70 miles northwest of Odessa. I had requested to go to the villages along the Kutschurgan Liman in particular, for I especially wanted to pay my respects to the graves of several generations of my ancestors who lie buried in the cemetery at Blagodatnoje (Baden). However, "for reasons", which were not specified, this request was not granted. But, from information I had of the area, I was under the impression that the highway to Tiraspol would take me through two of the villages (Mannheim and Strasburg), which are located about half-way between Odessa and Tiraspol, so I was content just to be able to see the area of my origins. Others in the group wanted to go also, but, for whatever reason, I was the only one allowed to do so.

Before going to Tiraspol, however, we spent the morning in what was probably the most impressive event of our Russian adventure. We visited a neighborhood kindergarten, where four and five year old children, boys and girls, entertained us with an impressive program of song, dance, and poetic recitations. The poise and confidence and mannerliness of these youngsters

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was incredible, and the presentation of a freshly-picked flower to each of the ladies in our group, evoked a warm emotional response. We learned that since most women in Russia work (the male population of Russia suffered a great loss during World War II), pre-school age children spend much of their time in nurseries and kindergartens, where for a few rubles (100 kopeks in a ruble amounts to $1.22 in American money) a month, they are well-cared for. A tour of the building and grounds revealed very clean bright, cheerful dormitories, dining rooms, play rooms, and class rooms; as well as pleasant, tree-shaded play grounds with an abundance of grass and flower-beds. As we left, these lovable children gathered around us to shake our hands and bid us "dosveedenya" (good-bye).

At noon, I met my driver at the hotel for the afternoon trip to Tiraspol. The car (a Volga) looked and smelled brand new. There was quite a bit of traffic, especially trucks and busses, on the black-topped highway, which was lined almost all the way with trees. The countryside was lush with thick fields of headed grain and well-tended orchards and vineyards as far as the eye could see. Water was spouting from irrigation pipes everywhere, and in one place a helicopter flew overhead spraying the orchards and vineyards. Modern farm machinery was in operation along side of horses and many people (mostly gaily clad women and girls) working in the fields. The highway took us through Vasilievka, where the church in excellent condition, appeared to be operational; then through Kamenka, where the church, its spire removed, seemed abandoned. Next came Kutschurgan, with its trim bus station on the highway and the railroad station not far behind. The villages I had hoped to visit were just a few miles south of here; but since we had gone by a different route than I had an-ticipated, we had not gone through Mannheim. The Kutschurgan Liman at this point is a wide, reed-covered valley; looking southward, I could see a high bridge over the liman (probably the highway through Mannheim and Strasburg) and three tall smokestacks (probably at Selz). The afternoon was warm and breezy, and the lay of the steppeland was slightly rolling and with more trees than I had expected to see--I could very well have been in my native Brown County, South Dakota. I was soon returned to reality, however, by the striking monument signifying entrance into the Tiraspol city limits. Instead of the shabby, remote village which I had expected to see, I saw instead a very clean and rather large modern city with much construction going on. Since my driver could not speak English, and I could speak even less Russian, and since I had not eaten since breakfast (it was now about 2:00 P.M.), I made eating motions. He asked a policeman where there was a restaurant, and we were soon in an immaculate hotel dining room. He did the ordering for both of us since the Cyrillic-typed menu was meaningless to me. We soon had a bottle of mineral water, bread and butter, and slices of cold ham with horse-radish. This was followed by a bowl of home-made chicken-noodle soup, and then a plate of chicken, french fries, and peas. Then came a dish of ice-cream and coffee-expresso. I paid the bill for both of us; it amounted to 2 rubles 46 kopeks (less than $3.00), a contrast to the $2.15 I had paid for a plate of spaghetti (no meat balls) and a cup of coffee at JFK in New York.

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Tiraspol is on the Dniester River, which I had heard so much about from my grandparents; the river is the boundary line of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic. We drove around the city, then to the river, and finally returned to Odessa by the same route we had come. It was then about 5:00 P.M., and the others had also just returned from an excursion to the Dneister Liman, closer to Odessa. That night we again had a gala dinner party in the beautiful passenger terminal on the sea. There was an excellent variety show of acrobatics, juggling, folk song and music by performers in native costumes, and the interminable electrified jazz. Since everything seems to come to an end about 11:00 P.M. in Russia, several of us returned to the hotel by walking up the 191 steps of the Potymkin Stairway. The park in front of the hotel was still filled with people, but there was no disorder or noise whatever—a trait which seems typical of the crowds of Russian people we encountered everywhere we went.

After breakfast the next morning (Tuesday, June 6), we left the hotel for the airport to fly some 900 miles to Moscow. High above the puffs of clouds, we could clearly see the Russian landscape, including the Dnieper River, below. We landed at Vnukova Airport (the same terminal where President Nixon had been received), and by 3:00 P.M. we were registered at the 20-story Intourist Hotel on wide and busy Gorky Street. We immediately set out for a tour of the Kremlin (the walled fortress of ancient Moscow), and entered through the Kutafya Tower, crossed the Troitsky Bridge, and then through the Troitsky Tower, where the first building to meet the eye was the very modern, glass, aluminum, and marble structure of the Palace of Congresses. We then visited the ancient palace of the Patriarch; the 15th century Uspensky (Assumption) Cathedral, in whose splendor the Tzars of Russia were crowned; the ten year younger Blagoveshchensky (Annunciation) Cathedral, the private chapel of the Tzars, with its magnificent iconostasis; and Cathedral Square, where one gets a fantastic view of all the cathedrals (we did not enter Archangel or Twelve Apostles Cathedrals) as well as the Belfry of Ivan the Great. From there, we walked through the meticulously clean and manicured Kremlin grounds past Tzar Koiokol (King of Bells), a 20 foot high, 200 ton bell, which never rang; Tzar Pushka (King of Cannons), a 17 foot long, 40 ton cannon, which was never fired; and atop Kremlin Hill, a statue of Lenin. Several of us exited the Kremlin walls via the Spassky Tower gate to Red Square where we hoped to view the interior of Vasily Blazhenny (St. Basil's) Cathedral, but it had already closed for the day. Walking through the under-street passageways, we finally emerged on the corner of Karl Marx Prospekt and Gorky Street near our hotel.

The next morning (Wednesday, June 7), after descending the hotel's polished, brass-plated Grand Staircase, we left for the airport at 9:45. Our new "Declarations of Currency" were collected (you cannot take more money out of Russia than you took in, nor can paper rubles be taken out), the second copy of our visas were removed from our passports, and we regretfully said "dosveedenya" to Alia Malvinsky, who had made our Russian tour such an enjoyable adventure. My last act in Russia was to purchase

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a balalaika in the airport's Beryoska store; carrying this instrument caused much interest all the way to Aberdeen, South Dakota. We boarded our Aeroflot jet for London-New York at 12:45 Moscow time, and arrived in London at 4:15 P.M. (2:15 London time). An hour later, we were over the Atlantic, where we could see an occasional ship below as well as the jet stream of another aircraft flying parallel to ours some miles distant. At 11:30 P.M., Moscow time, we flew over the coast of Canada's Maritime Provinces. We landed at JFK, New York, at 1:30 A.M. (Thursday, June 8), Moscow time; but it was only 5:30 P.M., EDT, which made Wednesday, June 7, a considerably longer day for us. As our plane taxied to its gate, we noticed several police cars, with lights flashing, closing in on us. Then we noticed two black limousines and a welcoming party. Soon we saw the Russian Ambassador to the United States being greeted by the party; he evidentially had been aboard our plane.

Inside the terminal, our passports were checked, and our baggage perfunctorily examined by U.S. Customs officers. Soon the manager of the Skyway Hotel near La Guardia Field met us with transportation, and, after a short drive, we were registered at the hotel. Several of us went to a nearby Holiday Inn for a hamburger and coffee; then to bed.

After coffee and rolls the next morning (Thursday, June 8), we drove to La Guardia, from which we departed on Northwest Airlines for Minneapolis at noon (EDT). It was very hazy as we flew over Buffalo, New York, and London, Ontario, but we got a panoramic view of the entire peninsula as we flew over Green Bay, Wisconsin. We landed at Minneapolis at 1:35 P.M. (CDT). The six hour layover was pleasantly relieved when my niece and her two children came and took me to nearby Mariott inn for lunch. At 8:15 P.M. (CDT), we were airborne on a North Central jet, the 10th and last flight of our Russian adventure, for Aberdeen, where we returned to our waiting relatives and friends, and reality, at 9:19 P.M.

Without a doubt, I have to consider my trip to Russia as the most unusual, the most interesting, and the most educational experience of my life. The history of Russia has always been of particular interest to me, and I thought myself knowledgeable on the subject of Communism. After years of study on both subjects, I suppose I thought I knew exactly what to expect behind the "Iron Curtain."

However, a tour of five widely separated cities in three different republics of the U.S.S.R. certainly doesn't qualify me to speak with authority on life behind the "Iron Curtain". And so, without pretending to be an expert on Russia or Communism, I can only say that I was greatly impressed by what I saw and heard, and the courtesy I was shown, during my two weeks in the Soviet Union. It was not at all what I had expected.

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Genealogy Report

Dear Fellow Researchers

In this issue of the Workpaper we include the convention talk given at the Genealogy Symposium by Prof. Raymond F. Wiebe of Wichita, Kansas, on the Russian Mennonite Anabaptist Genealogical Sources and an outline of the presentation given by Mr. Arthur E. Flegel of Menlo Park, California, on the records of the Black Sea Germans. Both of these papers list where to write for information. Be sure to enclose self-addressed, stamped envelopes when asking for help from any of the persons listed. The list of microfilm records of the Bessarabian colonies mentioned by Mr. Flegel are given in Workpaper No. 8, Page 56. Instructions on how to order these microfilms are given in that article also.

Our second series of passenger lists contain the names of persons who went to Brazil in 1878. At the same time that our ancestors were immigrating to Canada and the United States, some of their families were sailing to South America. Many chose Brazil or Argentina because delegates sent to inspect the land. for suitability for wheat growing had come back with good reports. Sometimes a family decided on South America because one or more members were not allowed into the United States because of health reasons and chose to stay together by taking advantage of South America's more lenient health laws. Even today, some of our older members still have a brother or sister in Brazil, Argentina, or one of the other South American countries. Those of you with cousins in these countries ought to send them a membership to our Society and begin to build a bridge for mutual research and friendship. Several good books have been written concerning our cousins to the south. Our library loan collection has: Die Russlanddeutschen, insbesonders die Volgadeutschen am La Plata (Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay) 1878-1929, by Rev. Jakob Riffel (GR #32); Das Russlanddeutschtum in Uruguay by Wilhelm Nelke (GR #41); Jahrbuch der Mennoniten in Südamerika 1961 by H. Ens and G. E. Reimer (GR #19); Die niemandsleute von Inqules by Louise Gross (GR #159); and Zur volksunde die Russlanddeutschen in Argentinien by Iris Barbara Graefe (GR #190).

There have been several additions to our loan collection at the Greeley Public Library which could prove helpful to some of you,

1. Dr. Joseph S. Height has placed a copy of his book. Paradise on the Steppes, in our library. For those of you with ancestral roots in the Catholic colonies of the Black Sea area, this book is a "must." Dr. Height says, "The book is a cultural history of the Russian German in the Kutscnugan, Beresan, and. Labental colonies . . . besides providing historical data and statistics, it lists the names and origins of 1,560 pioneer settlers to Russia and includes biographies of outstanding per-sonalities.” It has many illustrations and maps, church and school information. Order direct from Dr. Jos. S. Height, 1221 E. Adams Drive, Franklin, Indiana 46131, price $6.90 postpaid.

2. Another recent addition to our library is a copy of the little book published by the "North. Dakota Herold" in 1922 entitled, Deutsctie Kolonien in Südrussland, hauptachich in Gouv. Cherson, by an anonymous editor. It is printed in the old "fraktur" type. It is a collection of the histories of the Landau, Speier, Sulz, Karlsruhe, Katharinental, Rastadt, and München colonies. Here again is a list of the founders, together with maiden names of wives and names of children. At the end of the book is a list of persons who immigrated to America grouped under the heading of each colony. This list might be helpful if you do not know where in America your ancestors first located

3. Mrs. Betty Ohlhauser of 4328. Brisebois Drive K.W., Calgary 48, Alberta, Canada, has sent us a copy of a lovely 50th Anniversary (1910-1960) booklet of the Carbon Baptist Church of Carbon, Alberta. The roots of this congregation were in a little settlement in South Russia called "Freudental"

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or Valley of Happiness. About the turn of the century, a large number of families from this colony in Russia immigrated, to the United States. A small number settled in North Dakota, but most of them settled in McPherson County in South Dakota. Due to the need for more land some of the families left South Dakota in 1909 to settle in the Carbon, Alberta area. Family names mentioned are: Bits, Nether, Ohlhauser, Schell, Ziegler, Ehnisz, Harsch, Buyer, Bertsch, Krantzler, Becker, Eslinger, Huff, Reich, Schmidt, Brost, Schultz, Weigum, Gieck, Heinrich, Martin, Forsch, Freitag, Scholer, Schacker, Bettcher, Jankowski, Sailor, Kappes, Saylor, Hein, Beebrick, Wolf, Metzger, Rieger, Grose, Grenze, and Diede. Many good photos and some pedigree charts.

4. The big new 80th Anniversary book of the Lutheran Cross Church in Fresno, California, is now on sale. Previous anniversary books by this pioneer congregation have become collector's items. Much background history of the Volga Germans is given as the founders of this congregation were from Straub, Stahl, Warenburg, Reinwald, Lauwe, Bangert, and Dinkel. Lists of immigrant members and their ages and origins are also given. There are many good pictures taken in Russia in this issue that I have not seen before. Our own Emma Schwabenland Haynes (whose family was among the founders of this church) has contributed an article on The Russian German History after 1917_ and a summary of Dr. Karl Stumpp's 1971 address also appears. Books may be ordered from: Central California Chapter P.O. Box 5756 Fresno, California 93755

Price of book: $3.75 postpaid (Make checks payable to the Central California Chapter of AHSGR.

5. A family genealogy just off the press is The Heinrich Leppke Family, 1812-1972. It is a book of 136 pages with a number of pictures and charts. It covers seven generations and over 1,400 names. This fine work is by Dr. Solomon L. Loewen of 517 South Lincoln, Hillsboro, Kansas 67063. Order direct from Dr. Loewen. Cost - $7.00 per copy.

6. Donald L. Collins, 120 South Houser Drive, Covina, California 91722, will make copies of your old photographs for members of the Society for a nominal charge. Please write first for his estimate.

The popular Surname Exchange has been omitted from this issue of the Workpaper. The big SURNAME EDITION will be available for mailing by the end of December and a small fee will be charged to cover printing and mailing costs. In addition to the usual Surname Exchange, this special SURNAME EDITION will contain many aids for G-R research. If you wish to be placed on the mailing list of this valuable research tool, please drop me a card. or a line.

Gerda S. Walker

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RUSSIAN MENNONITE; ANABAPTIST GENEALOGICAL SOURCES By Raymond. F. Wiebe Hillsboro, Kansas 67603

The serious student of Russian Mennonite Anabaptist genealogy and family history must have a knowledge and understanding of the historical and religious development of this radical branch of the Protestant Reformation. The peace-loving Mennonite Anabaptists have migrated four to five times since 1530 and this makes the gathering of genealogical material rather difficult. The three important centers of Anabaptist religious revivals between 1525 and 1550 were the birthplaces of the three distinct ethnic-religious groups which later established colonies in the Russian Empire. The three distinct ethnic groups which are included in the Russian Mennonite movements are the Swiss-South Germans, the Austrian Tyrolian Hutterites, and the Dutch-Low Germans.

Mennonite Anabaptist faith and life is based on the following Christian principles. (1) The Bible is the inspired and complete Revelation of God to sinful man. (2) Sinful man is responsible, individually and personally, for his acts and must consciously accept God's plan of salvation and life as revealed in the Bible, especially the New Testaments (3) God's people shall not conform to the values of this world. This includes the complete separation of Church and State and results in an emphasis on peace and Christian love to friends and enemies. (4) God's plan and direction for the believer's daily life is found in the wisdom, love and friendship of the brotherhood as they interpret the sense of the Bible writings. (5) The spreading of God's Plan of Salvation to all men and the winning of believers from all races and nationalities is the final duty of believers.

The Mennonite Anabaptist settlements in the Russian Empire began during the last third of the eighteenth century (1762 through 1800). Certain Swiss-South Germans began to migrate east to Austrian Galatia in 1784. Although they were promised a measure of religious freedom including exemption from military service, a group of these settlers moved on into Volhynia province, Russia. They were reinforced by a number of Swiss Mennonite families from Montebiard, France, in 1791. Some contact occurred with the Hutterites in South Russia but these Swiss-South Germans finally settled in four congregations. These four congregations were: Sahorez, Horodischt, Waldheim, and Kotosufka. They increased to one hundred-fifty families and about 800 souls in 1874. All but seven to ten families left Volhynia during that year and migrated to America. The first three congregations settled in Hutchinson and Turner counties, South Dakota. The largest congregation (Kotosufka) purchased land and homes from the Santa Fe Railroad in McPherson county, Kansas. Economic reverses and. the colder climate influenced a good share of the South Dakota Swiss Mennonite settlers to move to Reno and Kingman counties in Kansas during 1882 to 1884. These Swiss-South German ethnic groups have prospered and maintain a strong identity. Common family names in this group are; Albrecht, Graber, Gehring, Goering, Krehbiel, Kaufman, Miller, Ortman, Grundeman, Nichel, Schmitt, Berthold, Hubin, Roth, Rupp, Flickinger, Preheim, Schrag, Stucky, Sutter, Senner, Schwarz, Strausz, Voran, Zerger, and Zuck.

A number of family genealogies have been written by members of these families. The following men could be contacted by persons desiring assistance in family research: Jacob L. Goering, Kingman., Kansas; Menno S. Schrag, Newton, Kansas; Delbert Goering, Rt. 2, Moundridge, Kansas; and Rev. Waldo Kaufman, Freeman, South Dakota 57029. The Bethel College Historical Library, North Newton, Kansas, has a number of genealogy books printed about these families and also houses some of the early church records which were handwritten in the German language.,

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Persons interested in these families could start by purchasing the book, "A Short History of the Swiss Mennonites (Schweitzer-Mennoniten) Who Migrated From Volhynia, Russia to America" by Benjamin. B. J. Goering, second, printing, 1970, 108 pages. It may be ordered by writing to Delbert Goering at the address listed above, The Austrian Tyrolian Anabaptists were joined by Jacob Hutter in 1529 and his name has been associated with these High German people since that time. This group has suffered more religious persecution and martyrdom than the two other Mennonite ethnic groups. They wandered and temporarily settled in various locations between 1529 and 1770 including Galacia, Wallachia, Bohemia, and Moravia. Upon invitation from a Russian general, 123 Hutterites (about 20 families) settled in the Ukraine in 1770. Communal ownership of property was practiced in South Russia up to 1818. Internal leadership struggles plus economic reverses resulted in the abandonment of Christian communism for the period up to 1842. Johann Cornies, the founder and chairman of the Molotchna Mennonite Agricultural Society, gathered the Hutterite families and settled them on estates in the province of Taurida, South Russia.

Cornies assisted with their gaining official recognition from the Russian government as independent German colonists in 1842. A period religious revival, educational progress, and agricultural expansion followed during the next thirty years. Population doubled every thirty years so that they numbered about 180 families with 1,100 souls in 1874. Approximately one thousand Hutterites migrated to Bon Home, Hutchinson, and Turner counties, South Dakota from 1874 through 1878. Their descendants numbered. 16,500 persons in 170 closed colonies in 1965. These Christian colonies are located in North and South Dakota, Montana, Manitoba, Alberta and, Saskatchewan. In addition, approximately 3,000 Mennonites of Hutterian Brethren descent live as private families in the same states. These independent family units have intermarried with the nearby other Mennonite ethnic groups: the Swiss-South Germans and the Dutch-Low Germans. Hutterite family names include; Kleinsasser, Mendel, Hofer, Gross, Entz, Glanzer, Decker, Pollman, Walter, Wedel, Wipf, Wollman, Waldner, Stahl, Tschetter, and Wurtz. These families and colonies have the strongest genealogical traditions and maintain nearly complete family records. Some of their church chronicles can be traced back to 1529. Mr. Arnold M. Hofer, Dolton, South Dakota, has carried on family research for many years and he will be happy to assist persons desiring information about their ancestors,

The Dutch-Low German ethnic branch of Mennonites from Russia is the larges. It developed a complex and advanced cultural and economic life during the first seventy-five years these colonists lived in South Russia. The Dutch-Low German Anabaptist movement grew rapidly during the 1520s in the various cities and provinces of Belgium and Holland. Severe persecution developed in 1535 and. hundreds of families moved to the Danzig area of West Prussia. This region had regions of swamp and water meadows which needed to be drained, before they could be tilled. The Dutch refugees settled in a triangular area sixty miles to the east and eighty miles to the southeast of the free city of Danzig.

The use of the Holland-Dutch language was discontinued about 1750. Intermarriage with the local Low German speaking Lutherans also facilitated the transfer to the use of the High German and the Low German languages. Population growth and. the envy of the other religious groups resulted in restrictive regulations being passed against the increased land ownership by the non-militaristic Mennonites. Ten major Low German Mennonite colonies were established in the Russian Empire during the next one hundred years: Wymyschle and Deutch Kasun (Poland) in 1762; Karolsvalde, Volhynia in 1780; Michelin, Kiev Province in 1791, Chortitza, Ekaterinaslov Province in 1789, Molotchna, Taurida Province

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in 1804; Bergthal, in 1836; Fuerstenland, in 1864; Am Trackt, Volga, Samara Province in 1853; Alexanderthal, Samara Province in 1859; and Karassan, Crimea, Tsurida Province in 1860. These original colonies in Russia then spread, to a number of daughter settlements.

The Dutch-Low German Mennonites in Russia numbered approximately 45,000 in 1874. One-third of this number (15,000) migrated to Canada and the United States during the next decade, 1874-1884. The new primary settlements In North America were: East Reserve and West Reserve, Manitoba, Canada; Cottonwood County, Minnesota; Hutchinson and Turner Counties, South Dakota; York, Hamilton, and Jefferson Counties, Nebraska; Marion, Mcpherson, Harvey, Reno, and Barton Counties, Kansas. Their descendants are estimated to number 160,000 at present (1972). We estimate that approximately 120,000 of the Dutch-Low Germans from Russia descendants are members of the Mennonite and Brethren in Christ churches. The remainder are scattered in all states and provinces under various religious affiliations.

The following table was constructed with the hypothesis that the greatest natural increase occurred soon after our forefathers' arrival in this land and that the rate of increase is decreasing: 1875 - 15,000

1900 - 50,000 1935 - 100,000 1972 - 160,000

A brief survey of the 1971 Hillsboro and Newton, Kansas, telephone directories identified the following common names of the Dutch-Low German branch of Mennonites: Abrahams, Adrian, Andreas (Andres), Baltzer, Barkman, Bartel, Buhr, Bushman (Boschman), Bartsch, Boldt, Bestvater, Baergen, Banman, Seeker, Beisel, Berg, Block, Bergman, Boese (Base, Boehs, Bese), Born, Brandt, Braun, Buller (Buhler), Claassen (Classen, Klassen, etc-), Cornelson (Kornelson, Kneils), De Fear, Dahl, Dalke, Decker, Delk, Derksen (Duerksen, Dirkson), Driedger, Doerkson, Dick, Dyck (Dueck)) Dirks, Ebel, Ediger, Eitaen, Elias, Engle, Enns (Ens, Entz, Ensz), Epp, Esau, Ewert, Eck, Frey, Fadenrecht, Fast, Paul, Fruchting, Federau, Flaming, Foth (Foote), Frantz (Franz), Franzen, Friesen (Von Riesen), Froese, Funk, Guenther, Gaede (Gade), Giesbrecht, Goentzel, Goertz (Goertzen), Goossen, Gaeddert, Groening, Grunau, Guhr, Hagen, Hamm, Hildebrandt, Hanaeman, Harder, Harms, Heppner, Heide, Heidebrecht, Hein, Heinrichs, Hiebert, Huebert, Hodel, Isaac, Jantz (Jansen, Jantzen), Jaworsky, Jobnson (Jensen), Jost, Just, Kasper, Klein, Kofeldt, Kasdorf, Krabn, Kliewer, Knaak (Knak,, Knack), Koehn, Koop (Coop), Koslowsky, Krause, Kroeker, Lange, Leppke, Lepkeman, Litke, Loewen, Lohrenz) Lehrmann, Matties, Martens, Nachtigall (Nightingale), Neufeld, Nickel (Nikkel, Nicbol), Ollenburger, Olfert, Pankratz, Pauls, Penner, Peters, Paetkau, Plenert, Plett, Prieb, Pries, Patskowsky, Quiring, Quapp, Ratzlaff, Redekopp, Reddig, Regier (Regehr, Rediger), Reimer, Rempel, Richert, Ratin, Rogalsky, Rosefeld, Sawatsky, Scheikosky, Scaellenberg, Schlichting, Schierling, Schmidt (Smith), Schultz, Schneider, Schroeder (Schrader), Seibel, Siemens, Suderman, Sukkau, Sommerfeld, Sperling, Thesman, Thiessen, Tieszen, Thomas, Toews (Toevs), Unrau (Unruh.), Vogt, Voth, Wall, Warkentine, Wedel, Weinbrenner, Wieler, Wiebe, Wiens, Willems, Winter, Woelk, Wohlgemuth, Witsky, Zacharias) and Zimmerman. The above nearly two hundred names reflect the old Dutch surnames, the descendants of the 60 Anabaptist families from Moravia who settled to the south of Danzig in 1535, Danzig area Lutheran names, and the Volga River and Don Region Germans from Russia who have joined the Mennonite congregations. The above list is not a complete list of the Dutch-Low German Mennonites but it includes the great majority of names.

The 1971 Hillsboro, Kansas telephone directory includes approximately one thousand families with the following surnames listed most often (the number of families follows the name): Bartel - 25, Ewert - 14, Friesen - 24, Funk - 58, Hein - 15, Hiebert - 22, Janzen - 16, Jost - 29, Klassen - 25, Nickel - 14, Permer - 25, Schmidt - 21, Schroeder - 15, Suderman - 22, Unruh - 20, Wiebe - 17, and Wiens - 13.

A number of family genealogy books are on file with the following Mennonite Colleges: Freeman College, Freeman, South Dakota; Bethel College Historical Library, North Newton, Kansas (Dr. Cornelius Krahn, Director and Archivist); Pacific College, Fresno, California (Adonijah Pauls, Chief Librarian); Tabor College,

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Hillsboro, Kansas (Prof. A. K, Janzen, Director of Historical Library and Archivist). These libraries also contain copies of German language Mennonite periodicals, printed from 1885 to the present. Many of the obituaries of the 1874 immigrants to America were printed in these papers. These sources are invaluable and. are available for study by the present day genealogist. Mr. Jacob A. Duerksen, retired archivist of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., has identified the passenger lists of over 200 ships that carried Russian German Mennonite pioneers to America during the 1870's. Many of these ships lists are in micro-film form and filed at Bethel College.

Active genealogists who can be contacted for information and assistance with research about Dutch-Low German Mennonites from Russia include: Dr. Solomon L. Loewen, Hillsboro, Kansas; Mrs. A. R. Ebel, Hillsboro, Kansas; Dr. John F. Schmidt, 420 East 2^rd Street, Newton, Kansas; Dr. Leland Harder, Elkhart, Indiana; August Duerksen, Rt, 2, Hillsboro, Kansas; I. G. Neufeld, Fresno, California; Alan Peters, Fresno, California; Eldon E, Smith, Marion, South Dakota; Dr. John D. Unruh, Freeman, South Dakota; J. A. Boese, Freeman, South Dakota; Rev. Verney Unruh, Newton, Kansas; and Abe J. Unruh, Montezuma, Kansas.

Very few of the Dutch-Low German families have records dating to a time prior to 1750. The change from the Holland Dutch to the High German and Low German languages, during the middle 1700's may account for this loss of continuity. Oral tradition confirms that as late as 1875, a few Molotchna Mennonite colonists could still read the original Dutch language. Most of the Dutch family Bibles, which came to America in the 1870's, have long since been discarded by their "modern" and "progressive" children and descendants. This constitutes an irreplaceable cultural and historic loss. The tracing of family lines from the 1750's in the Danzig, Prussia area, back to their Dutch origins is a challenge for future generations of genealogists.

A renewed interest in the former values and the seeking of a bi-cultural identity by various American Mennonites has resulted in a resurgence of genealogical research in our circles. The continued improvement in communication and transportation, together with the 1974 Centennial year of the coming of Russian Mennonites, should produce many more published family histories during the decade of the 1970's.

Annotated Bibliography and list of Genealogical Resource material:

The Mennonite Encyclopedia, four volumes, printed in 1958, The Mennonite Publishing House, Scottdale, Penna, over 4,000 pages, contains short references on hundreds of family names, biographies, and other information. This set of books has much statistical information and is the logical starting place for new genealogical research.

A Register of Family Names in West Prussian Congregations: Danzig, Czattkau, Hausdorf, Marienburg, etc., unpublished Manuscript by Dr. Charolette Schierling, Danzig, West Prussia (1942), 200 pages. This document contains hundreds of entries of births, deaths, marriages, etc., for these communities from approx-imately 1750 to 1814. This manuscript is on file in the Bethel College Historical Library.

Die Familiennagen der Westpreussichen Mennoniten, Gustav E. Reimer, Weierhof, West Germany, 1940.

Das Siedlungswerk Nederländisher Mennoniten in Weichseltal, Herbert Wiebe, Marburg, Germany, 1952.

Mitteilungen des Sippenverbandes Danziger Mennoniten Familien, Kurt Kauenhowen, Goettingen, Germany, 1934.

The Hutterites In North America, John A. Hostetler and. Gertrude Enders Huntington; Holt Rinehart and Winston; New York, 1967, 117 pages.

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APPENDIX:

An analysis of living descendants (in 1972) of the 1874-1880 migration of Dutch-Low German Russian Mennonites to Canada and the United States. The Descendants of 1874 column is based on the most recent church membership figures available plus an adjustment for the estimated number of living children. Most Mennonite Anabaptist groups baptise their membership candidates between the ages of twelve and twenty. All of the Central and South American colonies listed below originated with immigrants from Canada beginning in 1925.

Descendants 1970 Total of 1874 Church Church Group Migration Membership(Old) Mennonite Churches 500 116,737 Church of God in Christ, Mennonite 7,700 8,754 Evangelical Mennonite Brethren 2,500 3,731 Evangelical Mennonite Mission Conference 1,712 1,712 Evangelical Mennonite Conference (Klein0) 3,937 3,937 General Conference Mennonites 30,000 57,948 Mennonite Brethren Churches 18,000 33,000 Old Colony, Bolivia, S A 2,000 2,000 0 0 Mennonite Churches, British Honduras 2,500 2,500 Old Colony Churches, Canada 5,000 5,000 Bergthaler and Chortitz Congregations, Canada 3,000 3,000 Sommerfelder Mennonites, Canada 8,000 8,000 Reinland Mennonites, Canada 1,600 1,600 Old Colony Mennonites, Mexico 22,500 22,500 Menno Colony, Paraguay, S A 4,000 4,000 . . Eergthal and Sommerfeld Colonies, Paraguay 4,000 4,000 Sub-Totals 116,949 278,419Sstiinate of Dutch—Low German Mennonites from Russia, 1874 Descendants in other churches or who presently have no religious affiliations 44,000 Estimated Total 160,949 Sources: Yearbook of the Central District Conference of the Mennonite BrethrenChurches, Mennonite Brethren Publishing House, Hillsboro, Kansas, 1971. Handbook of Information for the General Conference Mennonite Church, Faith and Life Press,

Newton, Kansas 67114, 1971. Mennonite Yearbook and Directory, Mennonite Publishing House, Scottdale, Penna., 1971.

* ** * *

A BLACK SEA GERMAN OUTLINE

By Arthur E. Flegel Black Sea Germans have a background that is extremely varied. While other German groups in Russia came from principally one area, those of the Black Sea make up a totally new ethnic culture through the mixture of so many types of Germans as well as other nationalities. Foremost in total numbers of immigrants as well as dominance of the dialect, were the Swabian (Schwab) Germans from the Kingdom of Wurttemberg. Intermingled with the Schwäbisch dialect, the trained ear can soon detect expressions which had their origin in Baden or the Rhine Palatinate, or from the Rhine Hessen region. To further season this language conglomeration, a sprinkling of the Low-German (Platt-deutsch-also known as Kaschubian) dialect can be recognized.

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Where did all these people come from with, their similar but varied cultures and manners of speech? To adequately deal with this subject and the reasons for emigration would require an additional hour or more. However, let us deal in as much depth as possible with their places of origin and their ethnic backgrounds. A very well detailed map of that period of time is very essential to a clear understanding of this.

Ethnic origins may be traced to 16 distinct localities and conditions.

l. Swabians (Schwabs) from the Kingdom of Wurttemberg. Districts principally affected were those immediately surrounding Stuttgart, from Heilbronn in the north to the Schwabisch Gmund and Heidenheim in the east, to the Swiss border in the south and to the Duchy of Baden in the west.

2. Alemanii, from Baden immediately to the west of Wurttemberg. Emigration took place from

Heidelberg in the north to Buhl immediately south of Karlsruhe, Southern Baden was scarcely

affected.

3. French Germans from the Alsace (Elsass) northeastern corner of France, extending from Weissenburg (Wisombourg) on the German border to Strassburg to the South.

4. Rhenish Germans from the Rhine Palatinate (Pfalz) directly north of Alsace.

5. Hessen Germans from the Rhine Hessen district north of the Palatinate.

6. Hessen Germans from the Hesse Darmstadt district, immediately to the east of the Haine Hessen area.

7. Descendants of trench Huguenot refugees who had moved into Switzerland and South-Germany.

8. Swiss Germans from the Canton, Zurich, and Huguenots (Reformed) from Basel and Vaud.

9. Bavarian Germans from the northwestern corner of Bavaria at Ulm and Günzbur.

10. Plattdeutsch (Low-German) speaking Kascnubes* from Pomniurania and. Mecklenberg; a few from as far west as Schleswig-Holstein.

*Kaschubes was an erroneous term applied to Germans who had immigrated into Russia from the North, and served as a designation from the Wurttembergers. Kaschubes were actually the last Slavic tribe to be christianized and lived on the peninsula and islands northwest of Danzig.

11. Prussian Germans from the provinces of Brandenburg, Anhalt, Prunswick.

12. Mixtures of German people from various parts of Germany which had earlier moved into and created the German influence in Northern Silesia, West Prussia, the Danzig area, and. Posen along with the Duchy of Warsaw.

13. Hanoverian Germans from Westphalia.

14. Austrian Germans and Moravian Brethren from Bohemia who a century earlier during the Counter-Reformation had been resettled on the Herrnhut estate of Count von Zinzendorf in northern Saxony.

15. Danube Germans (Danau Schwaben), people from southwest Germany who had moved eastward, under the invitations of Maria Theresa and Prince Eugene of Austria to be settled along the Danube at the Banal and Batschka regions.

16. Swedish people from the Island Dagö in the Gulf of Riga.

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Essential Dates of Immigration into the Black Sea Area:

l. Plattdeutsch Germans from the Danzig Region moved with the earliest Mennonites into the Choritize district during the period 1787 through the 1790's.

2, Under Alexander I, from 1803 through 1823, settlements were established in the Molotschna region, eight colonies were created on the Crimean Peninsula and the Berdjansk region of Taurida, and the Gros-Liebenthal, Glückstal, Kutschurgan and Beresan districts near Odessa and in Kherson came into being.

3. Following the Treaty of Tilsit, Bessarabia was ceded to the Russians and that region was immediately opened for colonization in 1813-1814 through 1830.

4. During 1817-1820 a group of Chiliastes (those who believed the Millennium to be eminent) received permission to establish a colony at Tiflis in the South Caucasus.

5. Following the freeing of the serfs in 1860, the North Caucasus was opened for settlement. This brought a few from the Prussian/Polish regions, but mostly settlers from the previously established German Colonies in Russia, to again create a new culture.

Religious persuasions ranked in order of their prominence in numbers were as follows: 1. Evangelical Lutheran 2. Roman Catholic 3. Mennonite

Available Sources of Information:

4. Reformed (Calvinist) 5. Baptist 6. German Jews

l. Dr, Karl Stumpp's Book of Family Names, Places of Origin, Localities of Settlement in Russia. Now in the process of printing, due out in late 1972 or early 1973. Excellent for those who can read only English.

2. Microfilms of the Bessarabian Church Records made by the Mormon Church are on file at the Salt Lake Genealogical Library and available for order to any Mormon Genealogical Library. These will require a knowledge of the German Gothic script.

3. Microfilms of the West Prussian, Danzig, Posen, Pommeranian, and Polish German areas at the Salt Lake Genealogical Library. Same conditions as above.

4. Jahrbücher für Auslanddeutsche Sippenkunde, 1936-1940, in German. (Yearbooks for Genealogy of Germans in Foreign Lands) 1936-1940. Reportedly on file at four institutions: U.S. Congressional Library, Columbia Univ.. Harvard Univ., and Stanford Hoover Library. Hoover Library call number DAI DD68 A2-048.

5. Heinz Becker, Doctorate Thesis covering 1817-1820 emigrations from Stuttgart area, in German, owned by Arthur E. Flegel.

6. Institutions to visit in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland -

A. The Prussian National Archives in Berlin/Dahlem B. The National Archives at Vienna, Austria, Albertina Plata C. The National Archives at Zurich and Bern, Switzerland D. Ausland Institute Bibliothek, Charlottenplatz, Stuttgart, West Germany E. Landesbibliothek (State Library) Neckar Strasse #8, Stuttgart (Hauptstaatsarchiv) F. Staatsarchiv, Ludwigsburg G. Stadtarchiv, Esslingen H. Bessarabian Museum, Florianstrasse 17, Stuttgart

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I. Proteatantische Landeskirchenrat der Pfalz Arcbiv, Speyer, Grosse Himmelsgasse 6

J. Heimatatelle Pfalz, 675 Kaiserslautern, Museumplatz 1 K. Individual Church Records kept in Village Churches in Germany and

northern France

7. German Genealogical. Societies:

A. Arbeitsgemeinschaft Ostdeutscher Familienforscher (Herrn Rudolph Schönthur) 433 Mülheim/Ruhr Saarn, Eibenkamp 23-25 B.

Arbeitssemeinschaft der Genealogiscben Fachverlage 853 Neuatadt a.d. Aiscb, Nürnberger Sir- 27-29 Degner & Co. Inh. Gerhard. Gesaner, Neustadt a.d. Aiscb Heinz Reise, Verlag in Göttingen, Hassenstrasse 24

8. Individual Genealogists:

A. Dr, Karl Stumpp, 74 Tübingen, Autenrietbstr. 16, West Germany B. Dr. Schober, Bibliotbek des deutschen Ostens, 469 Herne/Westfalen/Kreis

Gelsenkircben 7c, West Germany C. Helmut Streblau, 48 Bielefeld, Hartlager Weg 76, West Germany D. Karl Friedrich von Frank, Niederosterreich, Post Ferschnitz, Austria

9. Current Publications:

A. Hilfskomite Ev. Luth. Kirche der Deutscben aus Bessarabien (Haus Deutschen Osten) #3 Hanover, Königswortherstr. 2, West Germany

B. Volk Auf Dem Weg (Landsmannschaft der deutschen aus Russland) Stuttgart, Stafflenbergsbr. 66, West Germany

l0. American Publications: The Early Palatine Emigration, William Allen Knittle, author; published by Baltimore Genealogical Publishing Company in 1965. Available at most public libraries.

11. The American Historical Society of Germans from Russia

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PASSENGER LISTS

Gwen B Pritzkau

(Continued from Work Paper No. 9, dated October 1972, Page 62)

Note: Number appearing after Christian name indicates individual s age.19 July 1876 Vessel: Suevia Route: Hamburg, Germany, to New York, U.S.A. From: Obermonjou, Russland.

LEIKER, Michael, 25 Catherina, 23 Marianne, 4/12 Anton, 4/12

LEIKER, Rosalie, 56 Joseph, 28 Nicolaus, 20 Anna, 19

LEIKER, Jacob, 60 Anna, 58 Conrad, 28 (Son) Agnes, 28 (Wife) Heinrich, 26 Catherina, 23 Jacob, 9 Michael, 11/12 Aloisia, 1/12 Agnes, 13 Catherina, 11/12

RUPP, Jacob, 25 Margretha, 25 Michael, 11/12 Agnes, 1/12 Margretha, 70 (Mother)

RUPP, Anton, 40 Maria, 38 Alexander, 21 Joseph, 9 Calcilia, 7 Maria, 6 Anna, 11/12 Rosina, 1/12

RUPP, Casperina, 32 Margretha, 27 Casper, 11/12 Agnes, 1/12

6 August 1878 Vessel: Bahia Route: Hamburg, Ger- many, to Rio de Janeiro (These colonists were go- ing to Paranagua, Brazil) From: Reinwald, Russland DÖRING, Heinrich, 47 Johanna, 47 Catharmna, 11 Emilie, 7 Beate, 4 Heinrich, 23 Elisabeth, 21 a 8/12

ZÖTTEL, Andreas, 34 Elisabeth, 33 Carl, 9 Elisabeth, 5 Catharina, 3 David, l 1/2 Friedrich, 26 Catharina, 27 David, l 1/2 Sophie, 19 Louise, 17

SCHULZ, Carl, 44 Christine, 43 Catharine, 9 Marie, 6 David, 4

MARKGRAF, Philipp, 28 Catharine, 27 Johann, 7 Heinrich, 3 Carl, 1 RUPPEL, Friedrich, 38 Cathaine, 36 Friedrich, 14 Carl, 9 Philipp, 6 Caspar, 3 Anna, l ½ a 2/12

KAISER, Peter, 82 Louise, 75 Jacob, 52 Susanne, 52 Heinrich, 18 Catharine, 16 Carl, 9 Julie, 7

MARKGRAF, Johann, 31 Sophie, 22 David, l 1/2 Heinrich, 1/2 Magdalina, 62 David, 17

HORNUSS, Carl, 60 (Age ?) Catharina, 50 Magretha, 28 (Age ?) Elisabeth, 16 Gottfried, 36 Elisabeth, 34 Andreas, 9 1/2 Christine, 8 David, 7 Georg, 5 Amalie, 4 Casper, 3 Ludwig, 28 Elisabeth, 26 Catharine, 9/12 Johann, 24 Elisabeth, 24 HORNUSS, Philipp, 50 Margretha, 50 Catharina, 21 Friedrich, 20 Regina, 16 Carl, 9 3/4 Friedrich, 8 Casper, 7 Ferdinand, 25 Regina, 23 Carl, 3 Johannette, 11/12 Carl, 23 Elisabeth, 20 Christian, 8/12

WIEGAND, Peter, 23

Dorothea, 22 Peter, 11/12 Maria, 1/12

MARKGRAF, Peter, 55 Elisabeth, 50 Carl, 20 David, 18 Eva, 15 Friedrich, 7 Casper, 4 Heinrich, 25 Amalie, 25 Johanne, 11/12

SCHWEFAL, (? Sp.) Johann, 35 Maria, 35 Helen, 16 Theodor, 14 Christine, 9 1/2 Christian, 8 Catharine, 7 Casper, 4 Maria, 3 Philipp, 7/12

HORNUSS, Christian, 38 Christine, 36 Ferdinand, 8 Sophie, 6 Christine, 3 Elisabeth, 2 Alexander, 3/4

HQRNUSS, Philipp, 34 Helene, 32 Catharine, 9 Christine, 5 Sophie, 2 Heinrich, 11/12 RUPPEL, Jacob, 59 Magdalena, 55 Sophie, 9 Peter, 32 Catharina, 31 Ludwig, 28 Marie, 26 Johann, 3 Heinrich, 11/12 HORNUSS, Maria, 3/12 (Daughter of Carl) ZÖTTEL, Catharina, 1/12 (Daughter of Andreas)

Same Ship From: Fischer, Russland WALGER, Christian, 56 Maria, 49 Jacob, 17 Christian, 28 Maria, 24 Leopold, 2 Anna, 1/4

Same Ship From: Obermonjou, Russland

BOOS, Anton, 26 Magretha, 26 Catharina, l 1/2 Kagretha, 1/12 Alexander, 18

SEIB, Conrad, 49 Magretha, 50 Dorothea, 19 Adelheid, 9 3/4 Anton, 9 Andreas, 8 Catharina, 7 Elisabeth, 6

SEIB, Philipp, 29 Kagretha, 29 Johann, 5 Marie, 4 Anna, 2 Catharine, 1 Alexander, 1/12

KRANEWITTER, Nicolaus, 21 Elisabeth, 19

ROHR, Johann, 42 Elisabeth, 40 Rosa, 9 1/2 Joseph, 7 Georg, 11/12 Gertrud, 60

LEIKER, Martin, 35 Anna, 35 Alexander, 5 Johann, 3 Catharina, 10/12 Casper, 20

BREHM, Johann, 55 Barbara, 54 Nicolaus, 34 Catharine, 31 Adele, 7 Elisabeth, 1/4 Gerhard, 32 Margaretha, 29 Augustin, 4 Ferdinand, 11/12 Johann, 29 Dorothea, 26 Pauline, 4 Johann, 1/12

BREHM, Gerhard, 46 Nargretha, 45

a 19 Anna, 14

PFLAUHENSTIEHL, Joseph, 42 Dorothea, 40 Magretha, 15 Ferdinand, 9 Jacob, 8 Johann, 6 Joseph, 1/12

NÜRNBERGER, Johann, 47 Barbara, 44 Paul, 19 Alexander, 8 Maria, 3 Clemens, 10/12

GIEBLER, Peter, 21 Anna, 21 Frans, 18 Anna, 19

WORMSBECHER, Joh. F., 46 Magretha, 42 Philipp, 17 Andreas, 9 1/4 Catharmna, 8 Friedrich, 6 Maria, 4 Johann, 9/12

KÄFERLEIN, Joseph, 19 Catherine, 46

SEIB, Franz, 48 Catherine, 46 Magretha, 17 Joseph, 10 Maria, 9 Agnesia, 7 Anton, 5 SPEYER, Gottfried, 43 Eva, 45 Raimund, 9 WORMSBECHER, Hermann, 55 Magretha, 55 Johann, 21 Magretha, 17 Joh. Ad., 14 “ David, 9 RUPP, Johann, 47 Magretha, 45 Alexander, 18 Gertrude, 10 Johann, 9 Catharine, 10/12 Nicolaus, 1/12 BREHM, Anton, 36 Elisabeth, 30 Jacob, 8 Alexander, 5 Pauline, 3 Anna, 11/12 Johann, 32 Hagretha, 29 Raimund, 3 Marie, 1/2

GRAF, Peter, 36 Magretha, 31 Elisabeth, 12 Magretha, 9 Amalie, 6 Heinrich, 5 Conrad, 1/2

GRAF, Friedrich, 34 Anna, 32 Johannes, 9 Ferdinand, 6 Franciska, 3 Alexander, 1 3/4 Paul, 18 Axma, 54

HERTEL, Joseph, 20 Barbara, 19 Alexander, 16

UNREIN, Gerhard, 39 Anna, 38 Lucie, 17 Johannes, 12 Philipp, 8 Joseph, 6 Nicolaus, 4 KONRADI, Frans, 61 Marie, 60 Johann, 36 Magretha, 36 Maria, 16 a 15 Joseph, 19 Raimund, 5 Rosa, 3 Johann, 5 Anna, 8/12

BESS, Georg, 59 Catharina, 59 Carl, 18 Agnes, 19 Anna, 15

DORTZEILER (? Sp) Jacob, 64 Catharina, 50 Maria, 20 Balthasar, 18 Heinrich, 25 Anna, 23 Melchior, 6 Carl, 4 Anna, 3/4

RUPP, Adam, 45 Catharine, 44 Agathe, 19 Michel, 18 Elisabeth, 13 Marie, 9 Friedrich, 8 Pauline, 4 Anna, 2 Joseph, 1/2

HERTEL, Johann, 67 (?) (Ink is smeared — Age is not very legible) Johannes, 45 Elisabeth, 44 Raimund, 8 Barbara, 6 Clementine, 2 Carl, 26 Gertrud, 25 Catharine, 3

Johannes, 1/12 Conrad, 18

19 July 1878 Vessel: Buenos Aires Route: Hamburg, Germany, to Paranagua, Brazil From: Stahl, Russland

OTT, Johann, 58 Anna, 55 Gottlieb, 17 Marie, 23 Heinrich, 30 Marie, 31 Georg, 6 Marie, 4

KRUTSCH, Georg, 30 Catharina, 32 Gottlieb, 10 David, 8 Anna, 3 Sophie, 1 Christian, 26 Marie, 26

SCHMIDT, Casper, 44 Helene, 40 Johann, 19 Casper, 12 Conrad, 6 Gottfried, 3 Heinrich, 1/12

KAMPF, Michael, 63 Elisabeth, 63 Adam, 21 Helene, 21 SCHNEIDER, Christian, 24 Marie, 21 Jacob, 20

SCHMIDT, Gottlieb, 59 Susanne, 59 Christian, 30 Christine, 30 Elisabeth, 9 Friedrich, 7 Catharina, 5 Gottlieb, 2

SCHMIDT, Casper, 28 Margretha, 28 Casper, 5 Catharina, 4 Elisabeth, 2

Conrad, 26 Dorothea, 26 Christian, 3 Dorothea, 2 Heinrich, 11/12

KRUTSCH, Christian, 24 Georg, 3

JUSTUS, Georg, 21 Catharine, 21

MÜLLER, Georg, 26 Marie, 26 Gottfried, 8 Casper, 5 Sophie, 3 David, 1/2 FLAUM, Friedrich, 39 Marie, 39 Sophie, 17 Heinrich, 12 Helene, 9 Dorothea, 3 Friedrich, 1/2

HILGENBERG, Michael, 40 Marie, 40 Heinrich, 17 Christian, 14 David, 4 WOLF, Heinrich, 44 Catharine, 32

Gottfried, 20 Marie, 16

Catharine, 9 Dorothea, 8 Elisabeth, 6 Helene, 1 Gottfried, 29 Marie, 24 a 7 Christine, 3 Sophie, 1

JUSTUS, Casper, 35 Dorothea, 33 Christian, 15 Helene, 10 Casper, 9 David, 6 Andreas, 4 Dorothea, 34

HENNENBERG, Jacob, 36 Marie, 37 Johann, 15 Jacob, 13 Catharina, 11 Marie, 6 Sophie, 2 Heinrich, ½

SCHMIDT, Conrad, 40 Catharina, 40 Marie, 19 Catharine, 16 Heinrich, 14 Sophie, 9 Catharine, 5 Dorothea, 3 Helene, 3/4

JUSTUS,

Georg, 52 Dorothea, 50 David, 19 Gottfried, 14 Catharina, 14 Georg, 10

HILGENBERG Gottlieb, 65 Elise, 60 Johann, 18 Christian, 38 Dorothea, 40 Marie, 19 Sophie, 18 Jacob, 14 Catharina, 9 Christian, 8 Helene, 5 Catharina, 2 Marie, 1/2 Gottfried, 37 Catharina, 33 Georg, 15 Christian, 13 Gottfried, 11 Conrad, 9 Catharina, 5 Christina, 2 Georg, 33 Catharina, 31 Christian, 9 David, 6

Same Ship From: Rosenheim, Russland

GRASSMANN, Christian, 52 Catharina, 53 Jacob, 31 Helena, 30 Johannetta, 11 Christian, 5 Friedrich, 3 Heinrich, 1/2 WALTER, Friedrich, 16 (Step- son to Christian)

HORST, Caspar, 23 Regina, 22 Heinrich, 6/12

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. Starting point will be with the colony of Rosenheim, Russland, which was not completed in the above tabulation.

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CAN YOU HELP?

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. 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 that the query is appearing for the first time in the work

* WEITZEL Info wanted - Male ? WEIITZEL mar ? SCHWINER; John KLERHR mar * SCHWINER Katherina GIEBELHAUS; George WEITZEL b 12 Jan 1852-.mar Catherine * KLERHR KILDAU; Philip WEITZEL mar ? All from Norka, Rss. * KILDAU *GIEBELHAUS Info wanted - John BAUER mar Mary SGHNEIDER; John KLEIN mar * BAUER Katherine BAUER; John SCHNEIDER mar Amolia (Molly) BAUER. All * SCHNEIDER of Balzer, Rss. John SCHNEIDER b I? Sept 1871. - Mrs. George * KLEIN Weitzel, Route 1, Mason City, Iowa 50401 * SCHAAK Need info re SCHAAK (Dschaak) fam from Black Sea area. Locality (Dschaak) not definite. Interested in all SCHAAK families. - Mrs. Jennice (Dschaak) Abercrombie, 152 18th Ave. NW; Great Falls, Mont. 59404

Wanted info re ALTENHOF and LUFT fam from Volga region. Like to ALTENHOF hear from persons or acquainted with following towns in Volga LUFT region: JAGOSEAJA, POLJANA, POLITOSINO, KATHARINSTADT. -

Capt. N. C. Altenhof; 1226 Albert St., Moose Jaw, SK. Canada; S6H 2Y4.

WANTED - Facts, stories, or pictures about GLOBEVILLE, Colo., GLOBEVILLE to enlarge my current book. - Larry Betz; 3446 West 30th Ave.; . Denver, Colorado 80211.

Trying to locate fam and birthplaces of my Mat GP – Katharine Sophia LEHR, dau Karl LEHR and Sophia KARLLA b 25 Jan 1885,

LEHR poss Samara side of Volga in perhaps Katharinenstadt, came to KARLLA Sutton, Nebr, 1910, d Sept 1927; Alexander BRENING , (Brening, BRENING Browning) , s of Johann BRENING and, Ulizabeth GREILIG, b in GREILIG Kutter 7 Mar 1884, came to Sutton 1907, d 14 Dec 1941. Would be happy xch info and desire corresp with rel or receive suggestions and stories. – Mrs. Roseann Stroh Warren, 546 Sparta; Helena, Montana 59601 Desire info re Pat GF Friedrich Georg WUKSCH b Alt Galka, Rss, 1840 mar Betta ZWETZIG b 1843 in Morgentau (Samara). Who were p? Bros and sis? Ch were Katrinlisbeth, Marikatrina, Johann WUKSCH Georg, Fritz, Ev Margret, Gottfried, Georg Friedrick. Mat GP ZWETZIG Johann Georg KRENZ , b Nov 10, 1852, Franzosen (Bergseite) Rss, KRENZ mar Marie Katherina SPINDLER, b Dec 20, 1852, Seinhard (Samara), SPINDLER Rss, also lived in Alt-Weimar. Who were his p? Who were hers? Ch were Heinrich Christian, Johann Georg, Katherina Maria, Katherina Elisabeth. - Mrs. Bruce (Bertha) Cardwell, Rt. 2, Box 576; Coos Bay, Oregon 97420

Seek info re HOPP& bros Christian, b 1888, and Johannes, b 1890. Both left Einwald, HOPPS Rss, 1906 for Chicago, Illinois. Richard Guthmiller; Medina, North Dakota 58467. 55

REPORT OF THE 1972 RESOLUTIONS COMMITTEE

1. WHEREAS the Reverend Hermann Zwecker heartily accepted the invitation to participate in this third annual convention of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, and noting his unique contribution toward the establishment of our heritage, and WHEREAS we recognize his personable and admirable character; Now therefore be it RESOLVED, that at the Third Annual Convention, the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia go on record as thanking him for his unselfish efforts and support him in his future historical endeavors.

2. WHEREAS the facilities of the Boulder "Harvest House Motel" have been the site for this Annual Convention of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia; and WHEREAS the manager and the personnel on his staff has made it possible for us to enjoy good food, a pleasant environment and prompt attention to our many needs; there fore be it RESOLVED, that thanks and appreciation be extended to them from all of us in attendance.

3. WHEREAS several members of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia have unceasingly and willingly donated their time, efforts and talents to the establishment and maintenance of the international society; and WHEREAS their contributions were instrumental in the formation and success of this Third Annual Convention; therefore be it RESOLVED that our honorable President and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. David Miller, Mrs. Emma Schwabenland Haynes and Mrs. Ruth Amen both International Vice - Presidents, be extended our deep gratitude and appreciation for their generous and devoted service and toil.

4. WHEREAS this society owes much of their gleaning of historical data to the chairmen of the nine International Committees of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia; and WHEREAS their efficient functioning insures future blessings on our organization; Now therefore, be it RESOLVED, that we express our sincere thanks and appreciation to each chairman individually for their role in leading and organizing the necessary labors imperative to our record of achievements-

5. Be it RESOLVED that as a method of sharing the inspiration and values received at this convention of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, we will, during the next year, redouble our efforts to collect and preserve artifacts and memorabilia brought over to this country from Russia by our forefathers and to continue to gather written documents of our history including old family Bibles, German books, newspapers, early personal letters, and early commercial records of pioneer businesses in this country.

6. WHEREAS this is an election year, and this is a land of liberty, we RESOLVE to increase our efforts to pray for our government officials, to support honesty and objectivity in all political endeavors, and to actively participate as good citizens of this democratic republic.

7. WHEREAS we owe our protection and growth in America during the last one hundred years to our Heavenly Father, and WHEREAS we are a religious people with appreciative hearts; be it RESOLVED that we acknowledge His divine guidance and ask for His help in teaching the Christian principles of the faith of our fathers to our children as well as following generations.

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