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

the cavalry members nick¬ named “Igel” instructed me in the art of riding. In the process I learned to speak Russian somewhat better. This division later par¬ ticipated in the defeat of General Wrangel. I remember the village school, the teacher, the school vegeta¬ ble garden. There were pranks and there was punishment. What wonderful memories of swimming — we in one lake, the horses in the other. My father was a homeopath and so we owned no land — that is until 1920 when we received sixteen hectares and became farmers. The instruction in the schools and technical school was in German and as late as 1930 German texts were still being im¬ ported. The Russian language and later Ukrainian was also taught. Since emigration to Canada and America was beginning I took private English instruction. My second oldest brother, Hans, had finished agricultural school and worked as a technologist in a large butter factory. He was strongly opposed to emigration and so our family stayed behind. Only my oldest brother Peter and his fam¬ ily emigrated. After completing high school I tried to enter a medical pro¬ gram in Halbstadt, but I was neither a workers nor a peasants son and the director disliked Mennonites. He accepted me but without a scholarship or a place in the student residence. My 102 JOURNEYS parents were unable to support me .... D. Schellenberg was the editor of the German newspaper The German Collectivist. He learned I had a typewriter with Latin letters and wanted it for the paper. He was a well-known author in our circles. During one of his visits I showed him my story “A Journey to the Crimea” which I wrote after a school outing. It made a good impression on him and he offered me a position as a correspondent for his newspaper. My services were valued. I not only reported on the collectivization, but translated the speeches of Russian leaders in our district. Schellenberg recommended me for the Journalism Institute in Kharhov, then the capital of the Ukraine but things turned out very differently. One day the editor called me into his office. Here two repre¬ sentatives of the GPU (later KGB) informed me that I had been mobilized as a translator. Engineers from Germany were being invited by the government to aid in the reconstruction of the coal mines in the Don Basin. I was attached to an experienced elderly engineer in energy technology named Arnold Menge. My work with him was very interesting and punctuated with oddities and drama: oddities when it came to his knowledge of the Russian language and drama in regard to the work. He left after five and a half months and I returned home. Once at home my brother Hans persuaded me to apply to the School for Animal Husbandry in Prischib, not far from Halbstadt. I took his advice and graduated with distinction from the school in 1932. Initially I worked in the village, but subsequently in the sovkoz breeding station “Rosovka.” They treated