Feeding the Hungry, P. C. Hiebert, 1929

ry unusual manner. The two brethren, Miller and Kratz, came to Halbstadt. We were permitted to see them, to speak to them. That raised wonderfully the spirits of the committee, and of the whole community. In conjunction with the American brethren, extensive plans for relief work were at once made. But what always dampened our ardor was the fact that the White Army under General Wrangel would be too weak to withstand the superior forces of the Reds. The retreat of the White Army would destroy all our hopes and plans—at least prevent for a long time the carrying out of the plans. But in spite of all this, the work continued cour- ageously. The M.R.U. organization had its own work in Constantinople in conjunction with the general Ameri- can organization, the N.E.R., from whence our first help was to come. Constantinople was to be the base for the work of the Mennonite relief in southern Russia, be- cause the conditions in Russia itself gave too few guaran- tees to justify the bringing in of any large amount of relief supplies. The American brethren, young men, eager to under- take, full of Christian conviction and love for their fel- lows, the spirit of sacrifice and the will to work, seemed to have only one thing in mind—to help where help was 346 FEEDING THE HUNGRY needed. Everything else that in one form or another threatened us, which was not directly connected with hun- ger, but with which we had to reckon very definitely, seemed not to exist for them. Having just come from a country in which orderly and controlled conditions existed, they could not grasp the whole situation as we could, who had seen it develop, had lived in it and struggled against it with every fibre of our being. Not that the American brethren had no interest for events that lay outside of the realm of hunger—no, indeed! But what I want to say is this: the hearts of the brethren beat so entirely for the good cause they represented, that they found time for little else, and perhaps because of that failed to see one thing and another. It could not at once be decided where the American brethren ought to establish their headquarters in Russia. That depended on numerous circumstances, which must first become clear. For the time being they chose Halb- stadt as headquarters. The brethren divided their work as follows: Brother Miller wished to press on to the Old Colony, (The Reds had in those days been pushed far back by the Whites) to look into the situation there, then to go to the Crimea, to receive and forward supplies arriving in Sevastopol. Brother Kratz was to remain in Russia, in Halbstadt, to study the situation there, and with the committee to begin the work as far as that was necessary and possible. Here, unfortunately, I cannot give all of the circum- stances exactly as they took place; but as nearly as I can recall, four days after the brethren arrived in Halbstadt they left for Schoenwiese, Alexandrows