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

ll the prisoners were asleep, the po¬ lice arrived and lined them up in their underwear. Three prison¬ ers had escaped and a thorough search ensued. The police found and confiscated the Bible and all the other material. They were very sad about this. The three escapees were captured in the woods and beaten half to death with clubs. Suddenly there were no more letters. After a lengthy time a letter arrived from Kotlas beyond Leningrad. Here the prisoners had a difficult time of it and re¬ ceived very little food. We tried to send packages with sugar, ham and lard, but they took two months to get there. Heinrich Hildebrandt was arrested in the same year. His family left Memrik because of increasing pressures and had journeyed to the Caucasus where Heinrich was arrested. Mariechen had adopted two children and had had two with Heinrich. She was now alone with four children. The two oldest went to their grandmother in Grossweide and Mariechen and the two little ones went to Sarah, where our parents also resided. Mariechen got a job as a cleaning lady as well as a room in which to live. Meanwhile pressures intensified in the Caucasus and our par¬ ents had to move on. There was no place for kulaks. For a time they stayed in a large Russia village where they were dependent [on the generosity] of good people. When things in that village became too difficult they returned to Sarah for a short time. New political pressures now erupted and our parents left the Caucasus. Where should they go? They came to Lena and Kornelius in Schoensee. Many men were arrested in 1937-38. The front half of our former farm was Heinrichs yard. Hans Willms, Neta’s brother had, as a landless person, received the back half. Here he had built a small house for his family. Together with his wife Klara and four children they lived a marginal existence. One evening when a group of tired men came home from work they were called to the village soviet, located in Johann Hubert s house. As the son of a kulak , Hans Willms was in the group. It got later and later and the men did not return. Klara came to us and said, “I must go and see what the problem is, there are cars driving back and forth on the street.” She returned crying loudly and came to our window and said, 64 JOURNEYS “Terrible things are going on there. They have two large cars and are taking them away. They were being whisked away as they returned from work My Hans was already in the car and I could not even say goodbye. Other wives also came looking for their husbands, all of whom were already seated in the cars. When they began to cry an official shouted and the automobiles left. No one knew where to or for what reason. Some thought they had been taken to some work project, but the [village chairperson] said we would not see them again.” That is exactly what happened. One group of men was taken to the Neukirch church which had been converted into a club¬ house