Famine of 1921-23

The Famine of 1921-23

We lived in a very good house (in Ebenfeld) and kept pigs, two good cows and many chickens. We had 7000 rubles in the bank. Though we had become a family of ten, we would have been well able to support ourselves.

When World War I (1914-1918) and the Revolution (1917) came, we lost all our money and we had to leave our home. Of the wagons containing our possessions as we fled from Ebenfeld, only two wagon-loads were left to us, for the men who drove them were influenced by Makhno. My girls particularly regretted the loss of a new piano. Netas could already play. Later we had a zither on which she played for us. It was a small compensation for the loss of the piano.

The First World War and the Revolution left everyone poor. It became especially difficult for us, as we had to endure a famine and our children were still young. Thieves had taken all our flour and the wheat was taken away by Soviet authorities. What saved us was the American food aid we received in Halbstadt. It was a very difficult time for people like us but we all survived. God brought us through!

Editor’s note: The family spent the winter of 1918 at Reimerhof, an estate belonging to Heinrich Klassen and managed by Evangine’s brother, Herman Dirks. They lived for six months in the village of Muensterberg, and from there they moved to Halbstadt in the fall of 1919. Gustav taught Grades 1-5 in the so-called “model” school for three years. Thus in 1919, they were able to settle down in a more permanent location. In that year Neta, the oldest daughter, was attending the teacher’s college in Halbstadt. They did not know where their oldest son Heinrich was because, at age 16 when as  a high school student in Berdyansk, he was inducted into the Self-Defense Corps.

In the year 1922 Gustav lost his teaching position and they had to move from the teacherage to another house in Halbstadt. He worked half-days in the district municipal office. In the  fall of 1924, after the famine was over, they moved to Wednesford, where Gustav got a job as a teacher again. These were relatively stable years.

The following reminiscences of my grandmother about the famine of 1921-23 go back to September 1965 in Winnipeg, when my aunt Frieda was visiting from Paraguay. Because of Grandma’s deafness, aunt Frieda had a green notebook in which she wrote down some of her experiences and thoughts for Grandma’s enjoyment. One was a story she remembered about her mother from the time of the famine.

First I will include aunt Frieda’s story:

The Rediscovered Flour-crock

I want to go back even further in time and you must think back with me to those days, when I (Frieda) was a young teenager. It was during the famine following the First World War, when so many innocent people starved and even died of hunger.

I am sure you recall this incident yourself. Actually you should be the one telling the story because you experienced it. For me, however, because of you, it has remained doubly precious.

There was nothing, nothing left to put in the pot except salt, which we still had, and nothing, nothing more left to put into our mouths, except water. Although you had fetched everything that was edible from the cellar long ago, you went down again once more, to see if perhaps somewhere in the darkest corner a few potatoes might yet be found to put into the soup. Nothing could be found anywhere. Also there was no place where we could buy anything, nowhere to get anything, nowhere to earn anything, nowhere to beg for anything.

You stood there in the cellar and you knew: nine people have nothing more to eat. Only someone who has experienced it knows how distressing this is for a mother, when she has nothing left for her children to eat. But you knew Who is above all things, Whom we can ask in all our needs, and you did this. And after you had told Him everything, you lifted your eyes and you saw the salt-crock standing on the highest shelf. And you thought, maybe you should take it down again, after all it has been standing there for over half a year. But why was it so heavy? The salt had long since been out somewhere else. Carefully you took it down, lifted the lid: it was full of flour, fine white flour! Yes, and now you remembered, at a time when the soldiers had not yet taken away our wheat, when our winter supply of flour had not yet been stolen, you had put some of the best flour in this container and put it away.

Even though you yourself had filled this crock, and even though it was your own flour, how remarkable, that now you had received it in answer to your prayer. “Before they call, I will answer!” So you yourself had to fill the crock and forget it, in order to receive it now to help us in our greatest need. Otherwise we would have used up this flour months ago.

I can still hear you hurrying up the cellar steps and hastily opening the door, so that we all looked up. The tears were running down your cheeks, and you were laughing at the same time, holding the big salt-crock in your arms: “I have flour! You can say what you want, for me it is a miracle! I asked God, and He showed it to me.”  We didn’t say anything. We thankfully ate our flour soup.

Other help came too, wonderful help that was easily grasped by the mind. How else would we have survived the famine? But this experience of yours taught me that God’s help and miracles do not necessarily have to fall straight from heaven.

Grandma’s comment:

I have just read the story in the green notebook as if I’m hearing it for the first time. Our descendents will perhaps be interested to examine and gain insight into the life of their grandparents on the chosen narrow path that leads to eternal life. “He who believes in me has eternal life and I will raise him up” (John 6:40) is written in the Scriptures. My prayers have mostly been short fervent prayers and sighs for wisdom for today, strength for today, bread for today. This was especially true in the famine of 1921-23.

That my prayers have been answered is proven by the fact that we parents with seven children (Heinrich was away) survived this difficult time of involuntary fasting, during which we all became very thin. For two years we baked no bread. I can still see how a boy’s thin hand (Gusti) reached immediately for a bun, when we received our first meal (bean soup) provided by the American soup kitchen. What a comfort their help was to me!

At that time, even unbaked bread was stolen from the (outdoor) oven. This happened to us. Two soldiers were talking to me in the kitchen and when I went out and looked in the bake oven, all three loaves had vanished from the cookie sheet. Moreover, these were quite gray-looking loaves made from green barley ears, which had been cut as feed for the horses, with some charcoal mixed in to add to the volume. These small dark loaves tasted delicious to us and we would have liked to have had more. The farmers also had no flour. They had been forced by the Soviet authorities to hand over to them every bit of grain, corn, beans, and sunflower seeds they had.

Everyone kept their cow on the back porch for the night. We kept ours in the pantry, for thieves were after them. I was thankful for our cow and our little five-year-old daughter eagerly drank the diluted milk. In spite of our precautions our cow was stolen. Thieves also took the last sack of flour from the pantry.

I was so weak that I became dizzy when I blew on the straw to start a fire in the stove. My feet were beginning to swell.

What a heavy burden on a mother’s heart, when there is nothing left to cook for her family! But look! Something happened exactly at the right time. At dusk there was a knock at the door and a note was thrust into my hand: “A sack of millet and a container of oil are standing outside. These should be emptied and out back to be picked up again.” I did this, but when I looked, the person was already gone and no trace of the kind giver was to be seen. To whom did we owe our thanks? Not until years later did we find out that these gifts came from Neta’s fellow students at the teacher’s college, who put on plays and sang in the villages to collect food. They had given it to us as a favor to Neta.

At that time, some Russian women exchanged a few cupfuls of chickpeas for my Sunday jacket. When the peas were soaking in water, the children announced that there were sharp popping sounds, like distant cannons, coming from the kitchen. These were the expanding chickpeas that shot up in small explosions to the amusement of all.

Again and again we heard children crying at house doors, which were usually locked; “Auntie, dear aunty…” and so on. When two gypsy girls begged: “Amri, amri!” (bread, bread), one said to the other, “You know she doesn’t have any, nobody has any.” No one asked for bread anymore. Every day children came to us from Hoffgenthal near Prischib (German-Lutheran settlement) for a hot cup of ersatz coffee made from roasted chicory. “In our village there are no dogs or cats anymore,” that said. When I asked them why the funeral bell rang there all day, they said that their mothers were lying in bed from weakness and their fathers were digging graves in the cemetery.

Since Christmas, we had been waiting for the promised famine relief from the United States. It was under the direction of Mr. Miller and Mr. David Hofer and it saved the lives of thousands. In 1922-23, Mr. and Mrs. David Hofer came to Halbstadt and brought American food aid and helped many. “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy,” as Jesus said.