AR Journey to Moscow

Our family left Gnadenfeld on a frosty day late in the autumn of 1922. We had to walk on foot beside a horse-drawn wagon to reach the railway station at Halbstadt some 25 miles away. There we spent the night with another uncle and aunt, Abram and Katherina Klassen. Then we moved into the four-wheel boxcar that was to be our home on wheels for about three weeks on our way to Moscow.

This boxcar had been rented or leased from the government by our American relatives, with the agreement that we could be hitched to a succession of freight trains and hauled along the track up to the capital city.

For our trip to Moscow, this boxcar was arranged to accommodate ten people. In addition to uncle Wilhelm and aunt Margaret Neufeld were: my sister Evangeline, my brothers Herman, Dietrich, Frank and myself, and my uncle Aron Rempel, my father’s eldest brother and a Mrs. Klassen and her little daughter who had joined the travel party to reach her husband who already resided in America.

The boxcar had a platform at mid-height level at each end. Sleeping accommodations were arranged by spreading straw, covered with sheets and blankets at each end of the boxcar. Blanket curtains also provided privacy as men and boys occupied and slept on one end and women and the little girl at the other end.

In the middle of the car, opposite the great sliding doors, we had a wood stove, vented through to the outside. This stove was both our heating device during the three wintry weeks on the way to Moscow as well as our only means for heating our tea or postum and repairing our meals. With all the jolting on railroad sidings whenever we were being hooked onto or disconnected from a train, but also during ordinary travel,  it was essential that two people were constantly paying close attention to this heating arrangement. Otherwise, an accidental fire would be all too great a possibility. Even though the contract with the government included necessary firewood to heat our living quarters on the way, local guards were not always apprised of this arrangement, so that my brothers often had to bring in the necessary fuel quite surreptitiously.

The trip from Halbstadt to Moscow consumed about three weeks. Sometimes we made good progress, but sometimes we were stalled on a railway siding, waiting for days to be hooked onto another train. During one such prolonged waiting period in the city of Kharkov, our uncle and aunt were shopping or visiting in the city center while our car was hooked to a train that departed before our guardians were able to reach and board our car. Thus the rest of us passengers made the remainder of the trip to Moscow on our own, and were only rejoined with the Neufelds in Moscow, where they had come to meet us by passenger train.

Christmas was no longer far away and real winter weather had already settled in, with plenty of snow covering the countryside. Although the large sliding doors of the boxcar had to be kept tightly shut for both safety and heat retention, the boxcar did have a little highly placed window that enabled us to observe the land through which we were traveling. Other members of our group must have given me more than my fair share of time at that window, for as we traveled farther and farther north from Kharkov through Kursk, Orel and Tula on the way to Moscow, I remember miles upon miles of snow-covered terrain and open forest of white-barked birch trees. It was, of course, an occasion of special joy to have the Neufelds rejoin us at the end of this long journey to Moscow.