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

dily find work for me. Since it was risky to keep our cow we sold it to a Mr. Reimer for five thousand 170 JOURNEYS rubles, even though he had no money to pay us. Until he paid us, Mother went to Alexanderkrone every morning to milk the cow. Meanwhile I made preparations to leave. My first stop was Alexandertal where my Uncle Isaak lived .... I arrived towards evening. Everyone knew what happened to us in the sovkoz. Uncle Isaak urged me to return home and settle the matter of the cow purchase, since the perspective buyer did not have a good reputa¬ tion .... By 3 A.M. I was back home. I lay down to sleep and Anna immediately went to get the cow. When I awoke the cow was already in our barn. Reimer and a buyer arrived in the evening. He paid us five thousand rubles and expressed displeasure because we had not trusted him. He also bought the potatoes which we planted in our Kleefeld garden for three hundred rubles. Now we were not completely impoverished and changed our plans accordingly. My parents, relatives and other acquaintances lived there ... in rela¬ tive peace and contentment. . . father thought it a secure place to live, but felt we should stay where we were since we had a good livelihood .... Many of the German inhabitants of the Stavropole steppe settled there after their unsuccessful bid to get to Canada. In spite of manifold difficulties they had built fine homes and planted beautiful gardens. Naturally it was not easy for us to leave here. I walked to Lichtenau at night and got an acquaint¬ ance to purchase our railway tickets. A special permit, designed to keep the collective worker at home, was essential for such a purchase .... Since I had often been at the Lichtenau station during the past four years I wore different clothes to avoid detec¬ tion. In spite of such a precaution I was almost captured by my pursuers. I left during the day. We got on as soon as the train stopped. It was a question of accepting our baggage. Without thinking I went to the baggage handler and asked him to load our luggage. At that moment a heavy hand grabbed my shoul¬ der. It was the sovkoz representative sent to arrest me. Immedi¬ ately we began to argue. I reminded him that our [transport] group would not have got into such difficulty if he had warned us in time. I also reminded him that we had frequently helped him. Was this the way to pay me back? Finally his conscience began to bother him. He realized that no one except him had seen us. The train which was already late, left without us, but he did not arrest us. MEMOIRS OF ARON WARKENTIN 171 The next day we boarded the train without any difficulty. For the longest time we still felt we might be arrested at any passing station. Nothing happened and the journey was uneventful. Quite suddenly, it seemed, we were at our parents’ house in Neuhoffiiung. Father was overjoyed. The fact that our four children were with us meant we came to stay