I hold
in my hands a much-read book published in 1924: Die Hungersnot in Russland und unsere Reise um die Welt by D.M.
Hofer (The famine in Russia and our trip around the world). The binding has
dried out so that the pages hang by frail threads.
My
mother gave me this book at a time when she was thinning out her stuff. She and my father had lived what was in the
pages. Now she handed the legacy of this book to me.
David M.
Hofer, Krimmer Mennonite Brethren minister and editor, was sent to Russia in
1922 to help with the distribution of food and clothing sent by American
Mennonites to their brothers and sisters in the faith and other needy persons.
They established food kitchens in Mennonite communities that fed not only the
Mennonites but also anyone who had need.
Need was
beyond measure. Hofer mentions that in one district alone 823 families suffered
from lack of food and 326 persons dying of starvation. They ate whatever they could find that might
offer a few calories of nutrition: crows, gophers, horse meat, cats, dogs, dead
livestock, leather. They baked bread out of beets, leaves, hay, oil cakes,
corncobs, pumpkins, bran, sugar beets,
ground bones, oats, barley, wild mustard, weeds, flaxseed, tree bark, sawdust
and so forth.
Hofer tells
about extreme famine that followed the Russian Revolution and the period of
anarchy, looting, burning, murdering and raping that followed. The mass
slaughter of innocents by blood-thirsty gangs destroyed families and sometimes
whole communities. The book gives a
first-hand, in-the-moment glimpse of the extreme need of these people and how AMR (forerunner of Mennonite Central Committee) helped.
Last
fall I began translating this book, page by page, weeping, praying, wondering how
anyone could endure so much misery and survive. Part of my Advent journey this
year was to become more mindful of the need to be thankful for our many
blessings and less enamored by consumer
goods. I recall how Dad had once turned to Mother to ask, “Do you remember when you
fried the gophers I caught?” They had known hunger. Here are two stories:
The first food package (p.241)Lord, you shower the needy with good things
(Ps. 68:11)
When, in
fall, the first snowflakes drift down from the skies, tumbling and turning, the
children shout excitedly, “Hurrah, it’s snowing! It’s snowing! In spring when the snow melts away and the
first violet shyly lifts her head, the children cry again, “See, a violet! How
beautiful it looks!” And when on a beautiful morning the first swallow flits
near the window, there’s joy once again,
“Listen, the swallows are back! The swallows are back!”
Our joy
was much bigger when in April of 1922 the first food package arrived from
America. Bread had been scarcer and
scarcer since Christmas. The little
piece which Mother doled out daily became smaller and smaller. And then one day there was no bread on the
table. We came to the table hungry, ate
our watery soup slowly, and stood up still hungry. The children’s cheeks grew paler, parents’
faces more drawn. When one has not had
enough to eat each day, one begins
to understand the fourth command in the
“Our Father” prayer and can pray with deep meaning, “Give us this day our daily
bread.”
And
suddenly the word came. One day the
children came storming in, “Papa, Mama, there is a package for us. The man told
us. When can we go get it, Papa?”
“At
once, children!’
“May I
go with you?”
“And I?”
“Yes,
children, yes!” The little wagon was
brought out and with brisk steps we walked to the distribution center. Gleefully,
the group returned to the home. “Mama, there is a lot of flour for us—and all
white!” “And rice!” “And tea!” The words came tumbling out. “And also
sugar!” said the littlest one and waved his hands. The spirit of Christmas joy filled the
house. With hopeful dreams and bright
eyes the little ones danced around the room and shouted for joy as each sack
was opened and they saw what was in it. “Now you can bake bread again, Mama!”
“And Zwieback!” declared the little one, eyes happy and bright. Mama folded her
hands, “Dear Father in heaven, thank you.”
After
that other notifications came for us [to pick up packages] and for other
people, always causing us to say thanks. I have often wished that the dear
loving donors could have been present
when a package was opened. They
would have seen the beaming faces, eager eyes and heard the children shouting.
They would have seen the tears of joy and thanks. They would have been enriched by the best and
purest joy imaginable. Thank you, you
dear loved ones, a thousand thanks. May God bless you throughout your lives. --P.J.
Braun, Neuhalbstadt
Good Friday
A
dismal, very stormy day. I found myself in H. where I had been summoned to
nurse my sick sister. I hadn’t left my
room for three weeks and had an unspeakable longing for something different and
for fresh air. The patient, God be
thanked, was on the way to recovery. I
determined to go to P. to
hear the new minister L. who was reported to give very good sermons.
Breakfast consisting of a cup of black Prips and a little piece of bread made
of mixed grains didn’t take much time so I started out at the crack of dawn
accompanied by my sister’s little
serving-girl. We found the church packed full.
We found a small spot on a bench without a back.
During
the sermon I told myself once again that
the sermon that offers the simple clear word of God makes the greatest
impact. The immature believer can’t handle a sophisticated
sermon. Using his Bible the preacher
simply and surely spoke the most important truths about being born again. (The young girl accompanying me talked to me
on the return journey about her amazement how the “Uncle” could make things so
clear.)
At the
end of the church service the minister read the weekly death list. “God be thanked,” he said, “there are already
fewer this week ... only 18.... We have buried more than thirty in one week.”
“Died of typhus, died of starvation,” he
intoned again and again . If I remember
correctly only one person had not died
of typhus or starvation. Mute,
withdrawn, the people sat. No one cried, no one showed a sign of sympathy. The people had experienced too much sorrow to feel it now.
The
minister then urged the people to bring dried fruit if they wanted to observe
the Lord’s Supper at Easter. If they
didn’t have cherries, they should bring other dried fruit. If this wasn’t available a little beet syrup
would help. Congregations were so poor
that they couldn’t even have communion together.
In the
afternoon three little school girls went with me and my sister on a stroll
looking for violets in the “bush” but didn’t find any. The year 1922 was even poor in flowers.
In order
not to show the village of H. in too bad a light, the little Russian girls
began to tell me about significant little things about it. Among them were three churchyards. They invited me to visit them. To get there we had to pass the poorest
section. In front of one shack I noticed
a crowd of people. Little Lydia quickly supplied the information that a funeral
was being celebrated there. Both Harders
had died on typhus or starvation – they didn’t know which. We went to see.
The porch of the little house was so small
that only a few persons had room beside
the two bodies. Never before had I seen such a funeral. The two bodies were lying on bare boards.
They were wrapped up to the neck with white sheets so that they looked like
mummies. Thin, skeletal-like, with
almost black faces. I looked around the gathering. The faces of the living looked equally
dark. The reason was possibly that these
people had for months filled their stomachs with all kinds of substitute food
instead of normal nourishment.
Most were
poorly clothed, some even with ragged garments. Many women had covered themselves with old
blankets instead of shawls. Minister
Harder was just finishing the funeral
service and spoke of a place where there was neither heat nor cold, hunger nor
thirst. At the end of the closing hymn a
few people spoke their voices weak.
Then the
two bodies were loaded onto a wooden wagon pulled by two nags. The wind pulled mercilessly at the gray beard
and sparsely covered head of the man, tugged at the Haube (covering) of the
woman, as if it wanted to pull it from the woman’s head. It took skill to get
the bodies to the church yard on the rutted roads with a strong wind
blowing.
During the drive it looked as
if the dead were always nodding their heads and saying good-bye to those who
followed. They seemed to be
earnestly admonishing us: “Would we
really have had to die if you had shared your last piece of bread with us? Maybe God gave you more in order to be able
to share with us who had nothing!”
Eventually we reached the graveyard. The sun
was about to go down. We stopped in
front of a very shallow grave. The
bodies on the boards were lowered into the grave. To the right and left of the
hole was a small dug-out area. The
bodies were shoved into these niches, the boards placed in front of them and
the grave filled in. During the
shoveling the men had to take turns because they were all without strength. Close to the Harders’ grave another grave was
being dug by a man in ragged clothing.
A daughter of the deceased pair had
placed her head on the wagon and was crying bitterly. She had been working in an area well supplied
with food. She was better clothed. The other children were so oppressed by
misery that they could not give expression to their feelings. The sons stood looking downcast. After the prayer at the grave Minister H.
spoke lovingly to the relatives, and slowly, wearily, without words, the crowd
dispersed.
The image of the bobbing heads of the two old people
followed me for days. Ever and again I
saw the haggard, care-worn faces who had
returned to life on the bier. Always I
had to ask myself: Have we Christians truly done our duty? If we had used a little less couldn’t we have
given a little more? Is it really not possible except that people in our midst
have to die of want? Soon we heard that the three sons of the pair had also
died. For them the help came too late.
How can
I ever forget this funeral? And still
people assured me that this was fairly normal and regular in comparison to the
mass occurrences in the surrounding Lutheran villages. In P. the minister had to admonish the people
for a time to take care of their
dead. The people were so stupefied and weary of all the misery
that they stopped burying their dead. –
K. Reimer, Gnadenfeld, June 1923
I have
many more such stories. When I finish my
translation, I hope to find a publisher somewhere.
