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

nuary 1949, when early one morning, I went into the office to obtain my release papers. MEMOIRS OF ARON WARKENTIN 219 14 I joined my family in July 1950 .... How many questions crisscrossed my mind during my homeward journey! Would I be able to fulfill my role as head of the family after such a long ab¬ sence? . . . The children were young when I left in 1937. Today my daughters Michi and Lenie already had families of their own. Three of the children were still at home - Annie, Aron and Hilda. In Schuchinsk we reported to the commandant, since all Ger¬ mans were still in perpetual exile. We could not leave a village or city without permission .... I had adjusted to life in the north where everyone was a prisoner .... Now, standing before the official, I had the feeling that I was still somehow guilty, a feeling which plagued me for a long time .... Everything seemed so strange. The large, expansive steppes of Kazakhstan with its broad trails, paved roads did not exist at the time. No tree stumps stood in the way to hinder our progress. The settlement in which my family lived was called Reinrodoch. I sort of imagined a paradise city, but it turned out to be anything but that. I managed to get a ride with a German truck driver . . . en route he stopped at a village. It appeared to be a poor village. “This sod house belongs to your son-in-law Kornelius Doerksen, who married your second daughter.” A neighbor lady greeted me and told me Lenie was on her way. Her mother, she declared, was also here on a visit. I sat down on the grass to wait - and there my dear Anna, still a beautiful woman with dark eyes and black hair, came walking towards me. Both (wife and daughter) hugged and kissed me and invited me into the house. We entered the house through a small doorway - how happy and thankful I was to be with my loved ones! Before retir¬ ing for the night we prayed and praised God for our reunion. Gradually the implications of our long separation began to sink in. Little children were introduced to their grandpa. I could not be a father to my own children and now I was to be a grandfa¬ ther? Three of our children were still at home — Aron (our Bubi) was now seventeen, Annie, nineteen, and Hilda had grown into a slim young lady of fifteen. My children lived in a roomy sod house with whitewashed walls and a roof covered with sod and clay. It was a warm, inviting place. Next to the house was a large garden entirely, it seemed. 220 JOURNEYS planted with potatoes. They obviously kept a cow for I saw the milk stool and a sod barn .... Chickens also walked about the yard. Inside the house was plain, but sparsely furnished . . . . Chairs, beds, table — all were rather primitive. In the corner stood a large chest, completely filled with wheat. At least they were not starving. In the evening many of the Germans in the village came to greet me. I had not heard such lovely and familiar Christian song