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

. I explained to him that we were bank¬ rupt. When he learned we brought five thousand rubles with us he felt we were not to be pitied. After all we could now purchase a cow, a year’s supply of bread and other things which were needed. The real difficulty, he felt, related to housing and our registration without appropriate documents. He was right.... We bought a cow for one thousand five hundred rubles and a year’s supply of flour for about seven hundred rubles .... Thanks to former friends I got a job as a statistician and accountant, something I had never done before. Both I and those who knew me wondered whether I should be sitting behind a desk. Rather unexpectedly I was granted a five-year [local] pass. It seemed I was a free man. After so many years, it was now 1936, I was finally a real so¬ viet citizen and that without bribery or dishonesty. I had the right to earn my bread and livelihood .... I wasn’t exactly the best accountant but I got by. Maybe I should have stayed. One day the head of the artel in Neuhoffnung came to me and asked if I would not consider working for him - after all I had my soviet papers. There was an added advantage — I could live as a German among Germans. I was interested but my employer refused to let me go. Towards spring the chairman appeared again. He insisted I come immediately and was willing to speak to my director. I made my application and was allowed to leave .... A general meeting to accept new members was held in the school on the same evening I arrived in Neuhoffnung. It was difficult to get into the artel of German horse breeders. These villages wanted families which still clung to German customs and practices. Most of them were also deeply religious. They were reluctant to accept just anyone into their group and were unhappy when I appeared. They refused to accept me. We were still having breakfast when the chairman arrived. He was embarrassed about my rejection. It seemed it was not the first time it happened. He [the chairman] had another plan. Right after breakfast I was to collect my paper, pen and pencil and come to the office to help with the year-end financial report. My offi- 172 JOURNEYS cial acceptance would come later .... I worked in the office until the beginning of summer when the artel decided to build another horse breeding station. Several young families including ours were to resettle to a new location. A new chapter began in our lives. Gradually my sense of pes¬ simism vanished. It was a difficult beginning. Mother and I longed for greater independence and so were quite happy to move to our new home. The grassland stretched as far as the eye could see. An old well, forty meters deep, stood alone on the endless steppe. Our village, consisting of some thirteen houses, was to be built north of the well. A village plan was drawn up and we drew lots. We got the building site next to the well. We loaded the logs and boards, add