JOURNEYS Mennonite Stories of Faith and Survival in Stalins Russia, John B. Toews, 1998

ed in the same neighborhood and were friends with his family. He died in Karaganda at age forty-three. Many former prisoners accompanied him on his last journey and ISLAND IN THE STEPPE 129 many kind words were said about him. Now that I was a free person I was entitled to a vacation after eleven months of work. My poor mother was counting the days and could not wait to embrace me. I was her youngest son, and for her the only one who was still alive. She had not heard from Hans and Jakob for years .... Visiting My Family In December 1940, I was officially granted a fifty-eight-day leave. The document stated that I was on vacation leave from the Karaganda work camp and entitled to assistance from the military in the event of an emergency. I was provided with both travel and spending money. Upon my arrival I was to register with local authorities. Before I left I bought some cloth for my family, because I knew they were experiencing tremendous shortages .... I left on December 20, 1940. Little did I know that the worst winter on record was about to begin on the Karaganda steppe. The storms began on December 29 and continued with only oc¬ casional breaks until March 1941. In January 1941 the tempera¬ ture plunged to minus 46 C. I was fortunately on the train and my thoughts focused on my loved ones in those special villages of Blumenort, Tiege and Orloff. I did not sleep the first night for excitement, yet felt restful and relaxed for the first time in years. I had a few books with me and began to read. After all, there was nothing but the steppe scenery until Petropavlosk, then came the forests and the Ural region with its mountains, streams, lakes and trees. When I first travelled this route I was locked in a freight car and saw nothing. Now I was a free man on the way home and enjoyed all the wonderful landscapes. When we reached the Volga River the train suddenly stopped. Apparently the train driver got drunk and vanished with the locomo¬ tive leaving us momentarily stranded .... I switched trains in Volrovacha in order to board the one travelling to Svetlodolinsk (Lichtenau). How often I waited at this station when travelling to see my friends Hans Pankratz, Victor Nickel and Paul Janzen. By now I knew that all were arrested and were somewhere in the camps .... I sat dreaming of my home and thinking of ways to ease the shock of my arrival for my dear mother. After I arrived at my station I found a horse-drawn wagon 130 JOURNEYS bound for Orloff. As we drove through the familiar territory I noticed how drastically everything had changed. What happened to those thriving, beautiful, well-cared-for villages and the streets, fences or sidewalls adjoining the houses? Apparently people were unable to care for their property since everything looked run down, grey, uncared for and dirty. 1 knew that my sister Lena and Jacobs wife, Rachel, worked at the Orloff hospital. Lena was not t