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

d to her family. There was another happening during the second year of our stay on the collective. Some of our leading men whom we all respected were arrested. Initially we thought this was simply an error which would be rectified, but the men did not return and we never heard from them again. Until now we were left alone . . . but this was the first harbinger of what lay ahead. Not long after the chairman of our little village, Jakob Reimer, was arrested at night and vanished forever. All spiritual activities ceased. My sister Lena, who died suddenly, was silently buried without the reading of the Word or a song or even audible prayer. Previously I still preached in Kleefeld, Alexanderkrone and several other villages in spite of the obvious danger. During the first several months I spoke in our new village, but then became si¬ lent. Our Christian life deteriorated. When they elected me head of our horse breeding collective early in 1936 I did not object. I suppose it would have been all right if my spiritual life had not been impacted, but as my public service intensified, my prayer life simply vanished. Not that I gave up my faith in God, I just sat on both sides of the fence. When a 1936 questionnaire asked whether I believed in God I still answered “yes.” Now, for the first time, we were allowed to elect our regional and national representatives by secret ballot. In my simplicity I thought my situation secure and sensed that my previous suffering was forever in the past. There were many things I did not anticipate. A clear and 174 JOURNEYS beautiful morning can bring storm clouds by noon, but our eyes and ears cannot predict this. Our experience was like that. I plunged into the business of the everyday — a simple steady fellow doing the job entrusted to him. I was unfaithful only towards God. Now 1937 began. We and our land experienced many extremes. We veered right then left and seemed unable to find the golden median in our economic and political life. We were either too good or too bad and there was no middle way. Again and again we asked ourselves “What is happening now?” This was certainly the case in August 1937 when our father together with twenty-one others was arrested in Neuhoffnung in the middle of the night. We never saw him again. In all some one hundred men were arrested and some of them never re¬ turned. I was not home that fateful day.... A few weeks earlier they honored father as one of the best workers and collectivists and the chair¬ man of the district praised fathers diligence .... It was a strange and terrible time_I only learned of the mass arrests later_I left for Neuhoffnung as soon as I could. Early Monday morning, August 7,1 arrived at my parents’ home in Neuhoffnung. My mother came out to meet me and her eyes told me more than I wanted to know. She repeatedly begged me to van¬ ish. Rumor had it that since I held an important post I would not be arrested bu