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

he kitchen of a lady whose husband was at war. We had very little — some bedding, a few pots, a spoon for one person and one knife. We had traded in our forks. One suitcase with clothes was still in our possession. There was brother Heinrichs black suit, Neta’s and my Sunday clothes and two lovely bedspreads. Neta said we should trade the clothes for products if we no longer had anything to eat. Since we lived in her kitchen we could always see and smell what she was cooking but she never gave us anything .... Because I was sickly and we had so little to eat I steadily became weaker, and one morning I could no longer get up because I was so faint and weak. I wasn’t even hungry any more .... Marta was afraid that I would die .... She went to a neighbor lady crying and told her I was so weak that I couldn’t get up. The people had a cow and so she begged for milk. The lady had compassion with the poor child and gave her half a liter of milk. She returned with the milk and upon her insistance I drank half of it. I poured the other half into the children’s soup. Hence¬ forth we received a half liter of milk everyday until I could get up. Our landlady had two cows but never gave us a drop of milk. In the evening she often baked potatoes on the glowing embers. They smelt so wonderful when she removed them before going to bed. Our children looked at them with longing eyes, but all we got was the wonderful smell. When the landlady had eaten she placed the shells of the baked potatoes in the pail for the pigs. After she had gone to sleep the children descended upon the po¬ tato skins and ate them. They thought they were wonderful. One MEMOIRS OFJUSTINA MARTENS 79 morning the woman asked me: “Where are the potato skins which I throw into the pail every evening. They are not there in the morning and the pigs are waiting for them.” “Our hungry children are eating them,” I replied. “The pigs are hungry. See to it that it doesn’t happen again.” She had more symphathy for the pigs than for the children. Yet even if people ignored us, our heavenly Father did not leave us in the lurch. I told the children that we should pray that God would bless our meager and sparse food and fill it with special energy so that we could survive. I firmly believe the Lord did that for we continued to work in spite of our poor food. One evening when we came home from work — it was haying time — and my landlady said a German man had come and begged for money. He had been in the army. She had gone in the house to get something and, when she returned, there was no man to be seen and our suitcases with clothes were gone as well. I found this unbelievable. I went to the kitchen and saw that the suitcases had disappeared. What was I to do? Marta began to cry and won¬ dered what mother would say when she came back and had no clothes. In her childish despair she ran into the garden and shouted: “Dear Lord, why have you allowed our la