45. At the Gates of Moscow

            Peter and Anna and their children Betty, Mary, Anne, Katherine, and Peter left Ebentahl in September of 1929 and went to the outskirts of Moscow where they rented a Datscha or summer place in the village of Kljasma.  Kljasma had a town center and markets where they could buy fresh fish and food every day but the prices were exorbitant.  Kljasma was 18 kilometers from Moscow and was one of several such villages filled with Mennonite refugees.  There were about 4,500 people in 800 Mennonite families seeking to leave, all in overcrowded uninsulated homes, hoping to get approval to leave the country.  The total number kept increasing so that eventually 18,000 refugees came to Moscow.  They had heard that Germany was receiving German speakers but anyone caught trying to enter the German embassy was arrested.  Anyone arrested was tortured and shipped into exile.  Some were shot.

            Mary remembers that the family shared this summer house with 3 other families.  They shared a common kitchen.  The house had dishes and a camping stoves called a camping 'primus'.

  The stove burned gas and had an air pump. Picture above was taken at a WW1 museum. They had brought nothing from home because they had to leave in secret and without giving authorities reason to question their trip.   

Passport Photo 

Peter (42), Katherine (4), Anna (40), Peter Jr. (2), Betty (15), Anne (6) and Mary (11)

There is a lot that can be read into the facial expressions on the picture. 

       Written on the back of this picture: "This passport picture is at the Datscha Klaysma outside Moscow where we lived from September until the end of November 1929 the last remembrance of the old "heimat" Ukraine where our family lived for the last very difficult years.  The visas for the trip out to Germany and later to Canada in 1930.  Papa 42 yr., Mama 40 yr., Liese 15 yr., Mariechen 11 yr., Anna 6 yr., Tiena 4 yr., Peter 2 yr."  

(The translation my not be totally accurate because I translated it.)

              Some of the people waiting to leave were wanted by the officials, often for not have paid all the taxes they owed.  The secret police went from house to house in the middle of the night and rounded up many families, took them to the train station, and they were never heard from again.  Since Peter had to go to Moscow every day to get their papers to leave, Betty and Mary were the ones who had to go from house to house to find out who had been taken way by the secret police during the night.  It was a very fearful time and they were always on the lookout for these officials.

Betty in her new winter coat.

            While they were in this summer home waiting for passports and a country to accept them, Stalin said no money could leave the country.  Most of the refugees had no money but it appears that Peter had sufficient funds to take the family shopping in Moscow to buy cloths that they could wear out of the country.  They bought beautiful latest fashion Russian padded coats with fur collars and warm boots.  When they got to Canada these cloths were not at all fashionable, and Mary was very embarrassed to have to wear them. 

            Because of the large number of refugees seeking to leave the Soviets agreed that some could leave, but they had to have sufficient funds to pay for the passports.  Then committees were formed to oversee all the documents for groups of 200-300 families to prepare them for leaving.  The committee was also responsible for collecting 400 rubles for each adult passport to be issued.  The group was then assembled at the train stations and allowed to leave as a group.   Between October 30 and the end of December 16 groups were allowed to leave, and the final number to reach the Germany was approximately 6,000.

Caption on this photo: Group who took on the responsibility for exit permits 

to get out of Russia in 1929.  Peter Friesen is top right.       

                   
                        Every day Peter went into Moscow to find out which countries were accepting immigrants.  Canada had officially said they would take none of these refugees because of the depression going on in their country with many people out of work.  Brazil and Paraguay were two places that would receive the refugees if Russia would release them.  Germany put a lot of pressure on the soviets because the German speaking Mennonites were their kinsmen.  At this time the newspapers in Europe and America began to publish articles about these many refugees and their dilemma and this also put pressure on the Soviets to let them leave.  Germany said they would accept the refugees but they could not keep them, so they had to have a guarantee that other countries would take them.  Finally, after many refugees had been forcibly put on train cars and shipped out of the camps, pressure from many governments and also an agreement from Canada allowed only a small number of families to leave.  Canada would accept refugees if they had a sponsoring family in Canada, and this is what allowed our family to be one of the few to go to Canada.  

The Story as Told by Another Refugee Family:
http://library.ndsu.edu/grhc/aboutus/introduction/heimatbuch7.html
The North Dakota State University Germans from Russia Heritage Collection Library has the story of one family's experience that is a first hand account of their escape from Communist Russia in 1929.

            The story that my aunts recorded is very sanitised.  When I was a child I remember asking my Mother (Mary) to tell us stories of Russia, but she always said "Grandpa says never to talk about our experiences.  We must leave them behind and only be concerned with our present and our future."  After reading the story on the link above and also reading a book called "At the Gates of Moscow" by H.J Willms under the sponsorship of the Committee for Mennonite Refugees, I can understand why my Grandfather refused to talk about their horrifying ordeal.  The book is available at the Clearbrook BC Mennonite Historical Society http://www.mhsbc.com/index.html for $10.