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

d could not sleep. I finally told Heinrich that I either had to return home or show myself publically. On Sunday I went to the worship service which was still held in the former granary on Hueberts yard. I sat down on the back bench. Everyone was surprised and they all looked at me, especially the choir members who sat in the front row. I had sung in the choir until the day we all vanished. There were so many questions and comments after church! . . . Now all of KJeefeld knew I had returned, yet no one asked for me nor demanded to see me. I stayed with Heinrich and began attending choir practice. I even spent a week at the Jakob Reimers in Schoenfeld. It wasn’t long before I was homesick for my par¬ ents and sisters, for we had never been separated this long before. There was also the fact that I was a deportee and felt like a stranger without a home. [One day] after dark I walked over to our former yard and saw only a pile of bricks. Everything — windows, doors, the white tile stove— had been torn down. Everything which we had painstakingly built up over all those years had been destroyed by ruthless hands. I was always so proud of that house. I did not know whether to cry or be angry with the people who did this .... At that time we began to learn what it meant to be strangers and pilgrims here on earth, and to this day we are still learning the lesson. This poor world is not our home, but thank God we hope for a dwelling in heaven not made by hands. In January 1931, I received a letter from my parents inform¬ ing me that they had found accomodation and that the relatives wanted me to return. Brother Rosenfeld wanted to return to the Caucasus and Memrik and so I had a good travel companion .... I was happy to be with my loved ones even though the future looked dark .... In May we had to leave our dwelling and moved to mothers sister, Mrs. Epp. They had a small summer kitchen in the yard which they offered us ... . If that little house had been ours we would have felt like the richest people on earth .... We felt very happy in that little house but only for a short period of time. How much love we experienced in that village! We went to church every Sunday. Jakob Paetkau, a dear brother, was the elder and often visited us in our little house .... In the village of Kalinovo there were exiles and ministers with their families in almost every home. They had all been disenfran- 56 JOURNEYS chised and had taken refuge here. In time it became rather appar¬ ent that the village sheltered many “dangerous elements,” and we sensed a mounting pressure against us. As Easter approached we hoped that we might still be able to celebrate the festival amid relative calm. On Good Friday we were all in church. Everything seemed calm. On Saturday all hell broke loose. In the morning Mr. Epp, mothers brother-in-law, came to us deeply agitated and told us what was going on. The authorities had arrived with