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

a food package now and then which helped sustain him. On May 4, 1941, one month before the war started, Peter was drafted into the army. He was immediately sent to the front but he did not stay there for long. I received only one letter from him. He wrote: Mother, don’t forget God’s eye watches over you. I too have decided to follow God’s way, and believe that it is the surest one for me. If I survive, I’ll be coming home. I never heard from him again. For years I looked for clues as to his whereabouts, thinking that perhaps he was somewhere abroad, but my searching was in vain. Again and again the re¬ sponse to my searching was always “Whereabouts unknown.” I have confidence in knowing that I will see him again in heaven. Although prior to this letter I knew that he had not been a child of God, these last words of his indicated to me that he had found REMINISCENCES 33 refuge in the Lord. Things were very hard in Bergtal where my parents and my family lived. When my husband had been arrested in 1938 most of the men of Bergtal had been arrested as well. Some thirty- seven farmers lived in the village. Within one week there were twenty-five “widows” who were forced to work the land in their stead. When the war broke out, internal security sent an agent to our village. He was a gruesome individual who showed us no consideration. We had to work the sugar beet fields from early morning until late afternoon. If we were not at the fields by sun¬ rise we were severely punished. In the evenings we were pressed for payments of the various dues which the agent said we owed the government. One night we had just lain down when there was a loud knocking at the window summoning us to come to the office immediately. Upon arriving, we were informed that a speci¬ fied war tax had to be paid by each of us. In order to raise the money for the tax, we had to deliver meat, eggs, milk and other products to the village. I recall how I scraped together the last of the flour, put it in the sack, and sent it to Frunze to be sold so that I could pay the levy. One evening while I was lying down after a long day of work, I was summoned again to the office by an insist¬ ent knocking at my window. With a heavy heart I went to the office. I didn’t have a single ruble. “So you want Hitler to win,” the agent screamed at me, “you are supporting him.” “No,” I replied, “the proof of this is that I have a son at the front. That shows you that I don’t want us to lose.” “Ah, but your son must have money.” And so the argument continued. I was so distraught I began to tremble. I don’t know what came over me but suddenly I looked at him and said with all the courage I could muster, “Today, I’m struggling and you are giving me a hard time of it, but I wonder how long you’ll be able to keep this up and what the future will hold for you.” That night I thought I would be arrested, after all I had poured fuel on the fire. But th