The previous post (here) recounted how, in the early 1920s, Peter P Buller helped a number of Russian Mennonites, including the orphans Henry, Agnes, and Agatha Remple, make their way to the United States. We will return in due course to Peter P’s service during that time, but first we need to take a step back so that we have a broader view of the situation. To do that, this post will take up a question with which the previous one ended: What circumstances led the Remples and other Mennonites to leave their homes?
John B. Toews provides one answer to this question:
The Russian Civil War which followed the October Revolution of 1917 generated a massive social upheaval characterized by anarchy, famine and disease. Hundreds of … Mennonites living in the Ukraine lost their lives. Those who survived were confronted by an array of calamities. The stage for the first great famine of the Soviet era had been set by the fall of 1921. Reserves in most of the villages were totally depleted by the requisitions of criss-crossing armies or the later confiscations of capricious officials implementing the ruinous economic policies of War Communism. Many held little hope for a Mennonite future in Russia. The most critical question in the fall of 1921 became that of survival. … Everywhere people were searching for bread. In view of the steadily worsening conditions, a number of Mennonite families fled to the Black Sea port of Batum late in 1921 and early in 1922. (Toews 1971, 117)
The Remple children named above were members of one of the families who left; sadly, of the eleven family members who set out in early 1922, only the three orphaned children survived the journey. In his account of his family’s experiences during that time, Henry Remple lends support to Toews’s explanation but also puts the October (Bolshevik) Revolution and the ensuing civil war into the broader context of World War I (1914–1918).
By … the beginning of World War I, the Mennonite villages now numbered nearly 100 and the area had become the breadbasket of Russia. The Mennonites had accepted Russia as their home and saw themselves as good citizens, loyal to the Czar. When the war began, they immediately participated with the Red Cross, collecting food, clothing, and money for needy Russian families. Young men joined the medical service of the Red Cross. As the war continued, Mennonite men worked in army hospitals and hospital trains. Others provided transportation with horses and wagons to haul government supplies to the front. In spite of their support for the war effort, Mennonites soon experienced distrust because they were German-speaking immigrants from Prussia, and Russia was at war with Germany. With the passage of time, anti-German and, therefore, anti-Mennonite sentiment increased. (Remple 2001, 26–27)
One of the outcomes of this anti-German sentiment was the passage of property liquidation laws in 1915 that “specified that German colonists were to sell their property within eight months. Fortunately,” Remple adds, “the laws were not fully enforced” (2001, 27)—at least not yet.
After Czar Nicholas II abdicated his throne in February 1917 and the Bolsheviks seized power later that year, Russia entered into a bloody civil war between the Bolshevik Red Army and the anti-Bolshevik White Army. Remple recalls that
the fighting rapidly spread, engulfed the Ukraine and soon raged through the Mennonite villages. … As conditions worsened in Russia, anarchy, banditry, and civil war were accompanied by an outbreak of disease and famine. A severe crop failure in 1921, due to a drought that covered most of the Ukraine, lasted until the fall of 1922, and the earlier requisitioning, which in some areas exceeded the total harvest yield, led to massive famine. … No relief was in sight. (Remple 2001, 33, 35)
The only hope for many Molotschna Mennonites was to flee, to escape to some other place. As Remple puts it, “the possibility of immigrating to America seemed remote, but leaving the country as refugees seemed less risky” (2001, 36). So it was that the Remple family joined other refugees heading south first to Crimea and then on to Batum (now Batumi) on the shores of the Black Sea.
Peter Janzen, whom we met in the previous post as someone whom Peter P helped come to America, was part of that group of refugees in Batum. On 20 October 2022 he wrote a letter that was published as an article titled “Concerning the Mennonite Relief Efforts at Home and Abroad from the Mennonite Refugees in Batum” in the 17 January 1923 issue of Die Mennonitische Rundschau (first two paragraphs shown to the right). His recounting of the circumstances that led Mennonites from Molotschna to flee reiterates what we have already read:
The Lord has helped us this far. He will certainly continue to help us. As you are probably already aware, we are on our way to a new home because the circumstances of our past, present, and also the near future have compelled us to take the first available route that would enable us to escape the extremely difficult situation in our old home.
The storms that broke over us began, as you are well aware, with the Liquidation Act of the fallen imperial government, raged over us in an extremely devastating manner during the civil war, and, through the terrible deaths from starvation that occurred everywhere, severed all ties to home, farm, and fatherland, since life was more precious to us than our possessions, which lay destroyed and devastated. The empty barns and cellars, the many uncultivated fields, the many fresh grave mounds, and the camps of emigrants in the ports testify to the credibility of what has been said.
Many prayers rose up to God during this time, and many a guest appeared in spirit, probably also in person in the form of representatives, or in letters and magazines sent to relatives and acquaintances and fellow believers abroad, especially in America. But because help still did not arrive and the need became ever more pressing, many who had only their last morsel to eat came to the obvious conclusion: if I am facing starvation in my homeland and may soon fall into its clutches, it is better to set out immediately for a place where help is more likely to reach me and where the outstretched arms of our dear brothers abroad would be able to snatch us from this terrible specter of starvation with their help. (Janzen 1923, 9)
Janzen’s letter continues on to describe the perilous straits in which the refugees found themselves as well the types of supplies and support they so desperately needed; we will return to the letter a bit later, when we explore the Mennonites’ life in Batum. For now, it is enough that we have yet another witness to the circumstances that led many Mennonites to flee their homes in the early 1920s.
At least one more important testimony remains to be heard, that of Anna Marie Becker Wiens. However, since this post has already gone on long enough, we will need to wait until the next post to hear that voice.
Works Cited
Janzen, Peter M. 1923. “An die Mennonitischen Hilfsaktionen im In- und Auslande von den Mennoniten-Flüchtlingen in Batum.” Die Mennonitische Rundschau 46.3 (17 January):10. Available online here.
Remple, Henry D. 2001. From Bolshevik Russia to America: A Mennonite Family Story. Pine Hill Press.
Toews, John B. 1971. “Flight to Batum.” Mennonite Life 26:117–22. Available online here.
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