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

here, but Rachel met me. We hugged each other and cried. Then I washed up and we walked over to my parents’ home. There it was, neglected like all the others. Rachel went ahead to prepare Mother who was not well. My youngest sister Maria came flying out of the house simultane¬ ously laughing and crying. We walked into the living room. Mother was sitting on her chair by the stove. For a long time I kneeled with my head in her lap. She wept silently and stroked my hair with her trembling hands. Then the others appeared - sister Lena and Erna, Hans’ wife, with the twins Meta and Frieda. Erna immediately began to lament and cry: “Abram, where are all the others? Where is my Hans?” Lena gave her drops to calm her. We all sat about mother and talked for a long time. Now I began to realize that all my misfortune — arrest, trial and prison camp was nothing in comparison to what my loved ones and the entire village endured. Late that evening Mrs. Teichgraeb arrived. She wondered if I heard anything of her three sons and three sons-in-law. I had met none of them. Again and again the thought reverberated through my mind “Why?” None of these people were a danger to the state. Quite the contrary — all were strong, diligent hard-working men — and almost every family was missing them! Take our family for example. We were four brothers. Peter, the eldest, emigrated to Canada in 1928 — what luck! Hans and I ended up in a concentration camp. He returned after ten years in a northern camp, a shadow of his former self, suffering from tu¬ berculosis of the bone. Jakob vanished without a trace. The KGB only informed me of his fate in 1989. An accountant, he was arrested in November of 1937 as an “enemy of the people.” He was sentenced to death by a dvoyka and shot not long after his arrest. He was rehabilitated in 1965 but then we knew nothing of this. In 1989 I was called to the Karaganda KGB offices where a young official sympathetically informed me of his fate. He con¬ demned the methods used by his predecessors. ISLAND IN THE STEPPE 131 Next day I went to the village offices to register. They were located in Tiege. The authorities, suspicious, carefully examined my documents. It reminded me of the treatment I received when I wished to leave the camp after my release. My pass and leave authorization were repeatedly examined. Then the interrogation began. Whom had I come to visit, who were my relatives, how long was I in prison camp, etc? That was classified information and I quickly ended the interview by suggesting they write to the camp administration whose address appeared on the documents. The interrogation ceased. At home I helped where I could. Maria and I felled several trees behind the house and prepared firewood. They kept a cow and a goat which provided the basic nutrients. All the while our conversations continued. I learned of terrible events. In 1938 when there were almost no men left in the vil