Impact of the Russian Revolution (1917)

The Impact of the Russian Revolution (1917)

On a Saturday, October 18, 1918, we suddenly and unexpectedly had to flee from Ebenfeld to Wintergruen (another estate further away), because the Russian anarchist leader Makhno and his men had set up their machine gun at the front gate. In the little wood close to our houser, I saw leaves and branches falling amidst the hissing sound of bullets.

I  put out the fire on the stove on which potatoes were cooking for lunch. “Children, run to Kaethlers!” Our neighbor Mr. Peter Kaethlerter was already helping his children up on the long hay wagon, and our children joined them. I quickly grabbed an armful of clothes out of the closet and ran over to the other wagon, driven by Mrs. Kaethler. Amidst the thundering and rattling of the machine gun, we had to leave, together with all the Russian employees carrying their bundles. It was raining and we were soaked to the skin.

Our employer, the kind Jakob Neufeld of Ebenfeld, had to leave too. That same day, their cattle and possessions were moved to their relatives in the village of Liebenau. Not long after that Makhno’s marauding band followed them and robbed them there. Their time of suffering extended until their exile and death. They bore their heavy cross without complaining and died as faithful Christians and are with the Lord.

The same thing happened to other rich estate owners, like the kindly Heinrich Klassen, my sister Margarete’s husband, who was treated unjustly, persecuted and robbed. He lay in his coffin surrounded by his wife and children, who had to borrow clothes (He died of a heart attack in 1923). He lies buried in the cemetery in New Halbstadt. Instead of a tombstone, a ripening wheatfield waves over him. Where are the beautiful marble monuments and the archangel with the raised trumpet? Everything was broken up and crushed to pave the sidewalks. And the churches were turned into club houses and theaters.

We spent that night in Wintergruen in the home of the manager Morgenstern and his dear wife, who served us hot peppermint tea and let us dry our clothes by the warm stove. We two mothers could not sleep because of anxiety about our children. Mr. Kaethler had lost his way and spent the night on the Janzen state on the Konskaya River.

When we returned to our house the next day, everything was still there, for Makhno’s men had moved on to Schoenfeld. I packed our china between linen in the brown book-trunk, which Dietrich Rempel then transported to Reimerhof in his wagon. I am so grateful to Dietrich, my sister Liese’s son, for his help.

The rich Goossens of Wintergruen took us in for about a week. It was Sunday morning and it had rained. I helped the old house-keeper in the kitchen cut noodles, thus gaining her goodwill. Later when Gusstav lost his job as teacher in Halbstadt, she helped us find a place to live.

It was on that same Sunday morning that Heinrich Rempel (Liese’s oldest son) was cruelly murdered on the Zeriko estate by Maskhno’s men. His parents, knowing nothing of it yet, had come to our house at Ebenfeld with the express purpose of waiting for their son. They looked in vain down the road to Pologi, and then drove on to Gnadenfeld. Their son Herman, who was studying at Halbstadt, found his parents there and drove to the Zeiko estate and picked up the body, which an old Russian had buried in a trough in the snow. The funeral was in the church in Gnadenfeld. His grave is beside those of his great-grandmother Elizabeth Dirks Lenzmann and a little brother named Gustav.

Not long after that, Gustav and Liese Rempel moved to her parental home in Gnadenfeld, where Agneta (Liese’s daughter) and her husband David Klassen and little Olga also were forced to live. There, little Olga died of dysentery and soon after in August 1920 her grandmother Liese died of the same illness.

My mother suffered from asthma. It was so severe as to make breathing difficult and resulted in her death in 1911. My sister Maria and my brother Heinrich stood by her until the end.

We never inherited anything from our parents because Makhno’s band, forty men and one woman, put all of our parent’s possessions on wagons and drove off. My brother Heinrich was severely beaten by Maskhno’s men because they wanted silver and gold. They took everything of value, including gifts our parents had received at their silver wedding anniversary. This marauding band drove through our German villages on German wagons singing and playing accordion music. They took away our young men wherever they could, especially those who had been involved in the Self-Defense Corps.

When the Red Army was in control, 300 Mennonite young men were supposed to be tried before a military tribunal, but the silver-tongued Dr. Kitat was able to persuade the authorities to let them go free. All honor to the able D. Kitatt! Through the heroic efforts of Calvary Captain Hochmeier, who spearheaded the self-defense movement, Makhno had to flee the country. Wearing an old uniform, Maskhno is said to have spent his remaining days in poverty in Paris. All respect to Cavalry Captain Hochmeier, who helped save our villages from destruction at that time!

Written on December 16, 1963 in Winnipeg

It is advent and he who has time to reflect is fortunate. I, too, am enjoying a clear winter day in Canada, which reminds me of a similar one in Halbstadt, Ukraine, in the days when Makhno and his men were in power.

They got hold of some estates owners, among them my brother-in-law Heinrich Klassen, and shut them up in a large cellar on Heinrich Klassen’s estate. They charged them with possession of guns and said that if the town of Halbstadt did not come out with all hidden weapons by 11 o’clock, three men would be shot. On that day wild men rode along the street, waving a black banner with the words, “Without mercy” in Russian. My husband, who was the school teacher, went outside and was robbed. Thus I lost my excellent Swiss watch that he was wearing. When evening came, led by Bagon and wild Marusya, they took old Mr. Willms, caretaker of the old folks’ home in Rosenort, a garner named Jaeds, and a young student named Goosen, and shot them mercilessly in the gravel pit.

In Blumenort and Ohrloff they killed a number of men and set fire to the houses of the rich. If the Self-Defense Corp had not been organized against Makhno’s band by the German officer Hochmeier, other German villages would not have been spared.

In Ohrloff, my sister Anna was alone with little Willi when three bandits got off their plumed horses at the front door. They demanded gold from her, which she did not have. So they beat her head with a big spoon. She was able to hand her child over to the neighbor lady, as she was being pushed forward by the butt-end of a gun, but she had to return to her house. Two of the men found a small bottle of liquor as they were ransacking the house and were distracted, so that Anna was left alone for a moment and could flee.

When she regained consciousness she was unable to recollect how she had come to lie under a cedar in the neighbor’s garden in the evening. Her family was worried about their mother. When she came home, feeling weak because of loss of blood, she fainted again and was taken to the hospital right away.