AR Moscow to Germany

And then came our departure from Moscow, the final farewell to our native land, and the breaking of all ties with the U.S.S.R. This time we traveled by passenger train, and our destination was Riga, the capital of Latvia. The most vivid memory of that night time journey was the phenomenal pyrotechnic display around us. The steam locomotive, I understand, was fueled with firewood, producing a massive and continuous release of sparks that settled in the snow-covered firs and spruces flanking the rail right of way, the sparks sliding off and tumbling down the snow-covered boughs and branches in a stunningly beautiful display, a real feast for the eyes.

We attended a church service in Riga in a cathedral of Gothic architecture, and with pews for the worshipers, differing profoundly from the style of the Russian Orthodox churches with their Byzantine heritage, in which no seating is provided for the worshippers.

From Riga, another train journey took us through more of Latvia and across Lithuania to East Prussia, whence my great-grandfather had emigrated to settle in the Ukraine, then through the Polish Corridor in the Danzig area where after the first World War, the Poland of that day had been given access to the Baltic Sea through earlier Prussian territory; and finally,  to Berlin and the heartland of Germany. Uncle and aunt Neufeld now treated our family to a horse-drawn coach ride of this capital city of Germany, where on a rainy day they also had a photographer take a picture of us all as we were making a visit to that renowned avenue “Unter den Linden”. 

While traveling through Germany on their way to Russia, uncle and aunt Neufeld had purchased a small disused school building in the farming village of Grossmist, not far from the city of Luebeck, and also within fairly close reach of the port city of Hamburg. We all lingered in Grossmist for what may have been two or three weeks, perhaps for rest and relaxation after the strenuous sojourn through the turmoil of revolutionary Russia. This was also where we met the arrival of the new year on the 1st of January 1923, and four days later, on January 5, by the new calendar, I reached the age of 13. When thirteen years earlier I had been born on the 23rd of December in Tsarist Russia, the Russian Orthodox church calendar then in use by the Russian empire had fallen 13 days behind the calendar already in force in Western Europe and America, where my birthday would have been reckoned as January 5 all along.

While living in Grossmist, I remember the train trip to Lubeck where the Neufelds shopped for some new clothing for us, and I also remember the rainy weather and the muddy streets, and the many farm wagons loaded with manure that made their way down the street in view of our windows. No wonder the village was called Grossmist, translated “Big Manure”, a commodity apparently highly prized in this farming community!

The time eventually arrived for us to move on. The train took us to the port city of Hamburg, situated near the mouth of the Elbe River. There we were scheduled to board the ship to England at one o’clock in the afternoon. But now a new complication has developed. My uncle Aron Rempel, who had traveled with us from Gnadenfeld, and who was my guardian, and whose travel documents also included my border crossing and entry permits, now decided to remain in Germany. This was due to the fact that word had reached him that his son, also named Aron, together with his family had succeeded in departing from the U.S.S.R. through the port city of Batum in Georgia and had now reached Istanbul in Turkey. My uncle Aron wanted to get in touch with his son’s family and felt that he could not continue on to America at this time.