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

gh flour to last an entire year. We were well supplied in the fall of 1929. [The local authorities] repeatedly demanded that I give up my position as a minister, promising to restore my right to vote. According to the law the wife of a minister was also disenfran¬ chised .... My wife and I were specifically designated as servants of a religious culture. For me the renunciation of the ministry was equivalent to renouncing God. I could not commit such sin against God and my conscience. This raised many questions about our future survival as a family. We had already planted some seven dessiatines of winter wheat when I and several other citizens of Suvorovka were subjected to a special assessment which called for the delivery of an enormous number of products — wheat, barley, oats, sunflower seeds — which no one was in a position to do. Now a large number of women from the villages surrounding Suvorovka organized a petition and presented it to the village council. The local authorities spent a whole day discussing the matter. Even regional authorities and militia arrived by automobile. By evening they declared the as¬ sessments as contrary to the law and informed the women, who then dispersed. The turbulence passed, but only for the moment. It was the calm before the storm. Not long after this the leader and elder of the Brethren Church, who had been exempted from the assessments, packed what things he could and sold the rest by auction. After saying goodbye to his church he left Suvorovka for an unknown destination. About a month later a letter to his relatives arrived in Suvorovka. Its con¬ tent deeply impacted those who, because of their convictions, lived difficult and insecure lives. We belonged to that group. He re¬ ported that our government in Moscow had drawn up an agree¬ ment abroad which allowed those who so wished to leave Russia forever. He invited the oppressed to follow his example, sell their MEMOIRS OF ARON WARKENTIN 145 goods and come to Moscow in order to get their exit visas. As a result of the letter many in Suvorovka quickly sold their belong¬ ings at a low price, obtained their [internal] travel documents in the district capital of Pyatigorsk and left for Moscow. Everything they worked a lifetime to acquire was sold at the Pyatigorsk mar¬ ket at ridiculously low prices. After I had literally given away my horses, wagons, utensils and other things I headed to the local finance ministry in order to obtain a certificate stating that I owed no debts locally. As a con¬ sequence I missed the train for home and only left Pyatigorsk to¬ wards evening. I needed to change trains in Miniralnye Vody, about an hour distant. Of the twenty who travelled [to Pyatigorsk], I was the only one who had missed the train. It was already dark when I arrived in Miniralnye Vody and was astonished that my neighbor Gerhard Born, who was a year older than I, met me at the train. He motioned to me an