Journal of European Baptist Studies, 2007

ted Germans and a kind of crystallisation point. Locations with large numbers of Germans were spread around the whole country - from Norik sk 46 in the extreme north of Siberia to Chelyabinsk 47 in the Ural region, from Kostroma 48 in northern 42 Dyck, ‘Revival as Church Restoration: Patterns of a Revival Among Ethnic Germans in Central Asia after World War IF, p. 78. 43 Material of R. Mantai, 14 September 1999, Honingen. Phonogram, J. Dyck’s personal archive. 44 N. Reimer, Nur aus Gnaden. Erinnerungen (Chisinau [1996]), p. 98. 45 Ibid., p. 111. 46 Ibid., pp. 92-93 47 ‘Aus der Geschichte der Mennoniten-Brudergemeinde Tscheljabinsk’ Aquila, 4 (1998), pp. 22-4. 48 Documents of the Mennonite Brethren Church in Kostroma Region in the exposition of the Museum der Deutschen in/aus Russland, Detmold, November 2005. 46 Journal of European Baptist Studies Russia to Karaganda 49 in Kazakhstan. In all these places revival took place, but most of them did not appear later in the list of German congregations in the USSR 50 - a crystallisation point was missing. The most important crystallisation point for ethnic Germans in the post-war revival was Karaganda. In 1930, the Soviet government declared Karaganda as a rich coalmining area and in 1931 it became a place of exile when the mass expulsion to Karaganda began resulting in an immense loss in human lives. In the same year, two faith communities began there. The first was a Mennonite Church with exiles from the Am Trakt Mennonite colony, but ceased in 1934 when their leaders were imprisoned. The second one, consisting of Russian Baptists and Evangelical Christians, had regular meetings from 1934 and baptisms from 1935, and managed to get legal status in 1946. 51 At that time, it had a total membership of 258 people 52 and gathered in a house built of adobe bricks covered in ashes. In 1948, it was CO one of twenty-five legalised ECB Churches in Kazakhstan. At the time of the legalisation, there was a considerable number of exiled Germans in membership: the list of members for 1946 includes about fifty German names. 54 One of them was Peter Bergmann. He received some theological education in the Orenburg MB Bible School between 1923-26 55 and escaped imprisonment in the 1930s by taking flight to the Ukraine. After the deportation to Kazakhstan in 1941, he was ordered to enter the Labour Army at Karaganda, where he arrived in 1944. He joined the ECB Church and started to preach there. Somewhat earlier, in 1942, a large number of young Germans were mobilised to the Labour Army at Karaganda. Here, behind barbed wire, some were converted. Fifteen-year-old David Koop was converted through 49 Ya s vami vo vse dni do skonchaniya veka. Shisn ’ veruyushschikh v Kciragande (1931 -1946 gg.) [I am with you always, to the end of the age. The life of believers in Karaganda (1931-1946)], ed. V. Fast (Karaganda, 2001), pp. 113-160. 50 Nemetsko-mennonitskoe br