Written by Peter Wiebe (IV), born in 1935. Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario (Canada).
(I've added some notes in square brackets -- just to give a bit more context and information.)
I'm writing down some of my memories of my childhood. I'm almost 61 years of age at this time. They may not be all in the right order.
The village was called Adelsheim, very close to the Dniepr River, maybe four kilometers. We went to swim there. I was born in Einlage, about 35 km south of Adelsheim. The villages had German names, also numbers. It was No. 3, also Russian names.
Dad built a house on the outskirts of the village. During that time we lived at my aunt's place, Tante Katja, my mother's sister. The house was built very simply. The walls were made from mud and straw mixed together. Windows and doorframes were put up. Mud and straw were built around and over them. The roof was made from straw. Straw was used for many things, it was used for heating also, and baking, cooking, etc. Stoves were in the middle of the house for heating.
Houses and barns were next to each other very often. Watermelon fields galore -- good soil made it possible. Every household had a pig or two. They were butchered in the fall. Meat was smoked, cooked, salted, sausages made. Many homes had a smoke chamber in the attic. Some had a smoke house in the yard. It was necessary in those days in order to survive. Potatoes, meat, and flour were three important items. Watermelons were pickled and syrup made in the fall.
Mischief, yes, that was me! Seeds for the garden were often raised yourself. Whole carrots were planted in the spring and they would produce seeds. Well, I had to check them. Break them off and replant them. But they don't grow again. They wilt. I rolled leaves for a smoke. I was supposed to wash my feet before going to sleep. Barefoot was the way to go in those days. So one night I went to sleep in the barn on the straw. When darkness set in, there was no Petatje in his bed. So after some panic they found me on the straw in the barn!
During the late 1920s a hydro plant was built close to Einlage on the Dniepr River. A dam was made for a reservoir which flooded out old Einlage. A new village was built on higher ground.
Well, time moved on and the war came closer. 1941 brought German soldiers to the village (Adelsheim). Before the army came closer we were all told to leave our villages to cross the Dniepr River. The Russian army wanted to blow up the bridge (to slow down the Germans) and take along as many civilians as possible. As good fortune would have it, they blew up the bridge before we got there. So back to our villages we went. What a mess! Everything was helter-skelter, animals running around, a lot of looting had been done. Cleaning up to be done!
From 1941 to 1943, our village was occupied by German soldiers. One lived in our house. His name was Berti. We went with the soldiers to the Dniepr River to fish. But they used hand grenades. When they exploded, the fish were stunned and came up, bellies up. We would rush into the water and bring them out. It seems to me I had a chocolate bar from the soldiers.
Skates were simple back then; they would screw on to the soles of your shoes from the sides. The family went to the circus to a large city, probably Zaporozhe, and we had ice cream.
1943 brought turmoil again. The Russian army gained strength and pushed the Germans back. At one point, food was scarce and a horse was butchered.
The Mennonite villagers prepared to leave. We were heading for Germany, hopefully before the Russians would catch us. We packed a wagon full of belongings, butchered a pig, and packed whatever other food we could take along, hitched a horse to the wagon, and headed west. That bridge across the Dniepr River that the Russians blew up back in 1941 had been rebuilt by the Germans. Now when the Germans were retreating, they blew it up to slow down the Russians. What a traffic jam (only there was no 401 highway ....) -- miles and miles of wagons! It was in the fall, October 1943, when we left Adelsheim. I was 8 years old at the time.
Thousands of families headed for Germany. That made for a lot of ruts in the mud. Wow! At one point along the trek, women and children under 12 were put on a train, open cattle cars, in the winter time, snow and rain and wind! We survived several bombing attacks. I remember one night. First the planes dropped flares, the night turned into day, you could read by the light of the flares. They just hung there. And then the bombs came and came and came. We ran for shelter to a nearby building and made it, nobody got hurt. Only one baby died. During the attack it was handed to someone turned upside-down. Before they realized that, it had died. When daylight did come, they counted about one hundred bomb holes in the area.
During the day you could see the planes diving for us and the machine guns firing at us. We ran for ditches and culverts. When it was over we had to look for our horse and wagon, it had taken off somewhere. When we found our horse, it had been hit on the lower leg, but it wasn't very bad. By this time we knew -- If we could see a plane right above us when the bombs were dropped, they would miss us; they don't drop straight down. The moving of the plane drops them at an angle.
Keeping clean became a problem. Lice turned up everywhere, in your hair and in your clothes. Before we came to Lissek, a town in Poland, where we were supposed to meet our dads and older brothers, everybody was put through a cleaning process. All the clothes were put through an oven and treated to kill the lice. I can only imagine it was DDT. All the people went through a shower (bath). Then we went to pick up our clothes. It must have helped a lot.
[ed: By checking google maps, I calculated the distance between Dnipropetvovsk Oblast to Lyski (Lissek), Poland ~ 1425 km. Lyski to Kotliny ~ 259 km.]
We stayed in Poland during the summer and until January 18, 1945. Tante Katja, cousins Henry and Peter Quiring lived on the same yard. I can remember two small houses and a large barn on the yard. The village was called Kotliny. During the summer, while harvesting grain, Dad's right hand became infected. He had to have an operation which left his fingers somewhat stiff, especially the pointer finger.
I can remember a visit by some of my cousins, the Schellenberg family, in Poland. Some of them were sent back to Russia after the war was over and endured terrible times. During the 1980s, many of them made it to Germany. A few years ago (early 90s? or late 80s, not sure) my mother's two sisters came to visit us in Canada. Tante Elsa's two children died, one survived, and Tante Greta told us they had nothing left to eat in 1947. She said they made soup from grass. When her husband was released from prison [ed: where he'd been taken after the war ended, as they were on the Russian zone of post-war Germany] he managed to get a bag of potatoes and that saved them from starvation.
[ed: I have notes of the meal with (great aunt) Tante Greta and she had amazing stories to tell of their time after the end of the war.]
In January, 1945, the Russian army caught up with us in Poland. Now every able body was called in for duty in the army. Dad was issued a rifle and told to report later. Young boys were taken too. I was only 10, I was too young. On the night of the 18th of January, 1945, we got ready to move once more. The wagon was packed, one old horse, 27 years old. Tante Katja, cousins Henry and Peter, my sister Erna, and my mother. Dad had gone to report for army duty. It was getting late, I had gone to sleep fully dressed, ready to go out at a moment's notice. All of a sudden, the yard was full of soldiers, they spoke Russian, Mother could understand them. She blew out the carbide light, bolted the door. But they had seen the light and threatened to break down the door if we didn't open up. So we snuck out the back door and hid under a blanket outside. They broke down the door and came in. They lit the lamp and looked for us. Then we heard my Dad's voice. We he got to town to report for army duty, no offices were left, the phone was cut, everything was in turmoil. So he quickly came back to see if we were still here, so we could leave together. When he found the soldiers in the house he wasn't sure what had happened. He asked them, "Where is my wife and family?" Then he pointed to the back door, it wasn't closed all the way. He said, "They must have gone out the back and hid." Finally he found us and told us they were Russian soldiers captured by the Germans and were helping them. They were hungry so Mother had to make them a meal and off they went. We decided it is time we move on. January 18, 1945. The Christmas tree was still up. Late at night, early in the morning, one old (27) horse, one wagon, three adults, four kids. We did a lot of walking.
Before long we came across a group of soldiers who had a horse that was very skinny. They couldn't use it anymore. So Dad made them a deal -- a piece of pork for the horse. Now our old horse had to pull it too. But after a while it gained strength and helped to pull the wagon too. For eleven days and nights we travelled, no stopping. Once we did stop. But some soldiers came and said, "If you still want to get out of here you better go."
The war did catch up to us one night. We were almost encircled. We could see firing almost all around us. Dad would walk beside the horses in the front to stay awake. One time he did fall asleep while walking. The horses followed him into a small ditch.
Food was very scarce. Cousin Peter Quiring and I went begging. People gave us leftovers. I remember crossing a bridge in Germany. There was the body of a hanged man, with a sign saying, "This will happen to you if you steal."
Not too far down the road we came to an empty farmyard. There was a cow in the barn. There was a cow in the barn. We managed to get a bit of milk from her. There must have been other people doing the same thing. We also caught a chicken. We didn't need a fridge, all we had to do was hang it over the side of the wagon and it was frozen.
War was evident everywhere, bodies in ditches and fields, some were still moving. One of the families we knew -- their father died. After carrying his body on the wagon for a while, he too was left beside the road.
At one point a tank aimed at our trek and fired. It hit a wagon not too far ahead of us, killing someone. My sister Erna's feet froze, but it did clear up later.
April 1945 came and we were in Germany. Families took us in. Food was scarce. We found potato peelings on a garbage pile to cook.
War caught up with us again; this time it was the Americans, and we stayed. We could see the tanks coming down the road. One German soldier told my dad to take him to another village. Dad went to get the horses from the barn. Just then there was some shooting close by. Bullets hit the roof (clay tiles) and fell to the ground. The German soldier picked up a bullet and recognized it as American. He knew it was too close for any more travelling. He said to my dad, "Lassen Sie die Pferde im Stall." (Leave the horses in the barn), and disappeared into the house. A few minutes later he came out dressed as a civilian. The lady of the house got the kids together and gave us a dish with cookies. Now the American troops took over the villages and soon the war was declared over.
We heard that our Aunt Anna had died, leaving three cousins as orphans. Philip, Anna and Mary. Their father, my dad's brother Philip, had died some years earlier in Russia. So Mary became part of our family; Philip and Anna stayed with Tante Lena.
The American soldiers were friendly to us. They gave us chewing gum. I remember seeing a black soldier, my first black person. The remains of the war were evident everywhere: Blown-up tanks, guns, ammunition, grenades, some live, were left behind. Bomb holes became our swimming pools. The war was over and we were in Germany safe and sound! But ... soon word got around that Germany was to split up. One part would become East Germany and belong to Russia. And that's where we were. "But the war is over", some of our friends said. "What can they do to us now, after all, we are in Germany" -- "They'll send us to Siberia", some said. "Let's go to the west," others said. We managed to get some papers stating that we were travelling through Germany. So off we went to the west.
Grossmama and Grosspapa (Grandmother and Grandfather) literally walked across Germany towing a wagon with a few belongings behind them. We managed to get to Wewer, close to Paderborn. There was a large estate called Gut Wilhelmsburg, owned by a baron whose name was von und zu Brenken. Quite a title, I must say! He lived in Wewer, in a castle. The yard was big. Houses and barn, Blacksmith shop, more barns, milk cows. With a manure pile in the middle. That's the way it was in those days. At first we had to stay in a large house not too far away. It was die Ziegelei, where they made bricks.
Some live ammunition was found in the fields. One boy got blown up and died from it.
[ed: Distance from Lyski to Paderborn ~ 900 km. Paderborn to Gronau ~ 190 km]
A number of families lived here, maybe six. So for sleeping we would all lie down in the living room and dining room on the floor. One night a group of thieves (men with a gun, crooks) came to rob us. We had to line up with their gun pointed at us. We were shaking. My cousin, Philip, was about six or seven. He said, "Grosspapa, waut waure se nu met ons done?" (low german - "What are they doing to do to us?")
"The oldest man, come forward," they said, so Grosspapa came out.
"So ein altes Schwein"! We want the next one.
My dad came out. They spoke in broken German. Probably Poles, we figured. they said, "Eine Uhr, nix nehmen; keine Uhr, alles nehmen". They wanted a watch (pocket watch). My dad had found a pocket watch somewhere on the trek, so he gave it to them. They did leave us, but first went through our belongings.
The house we were supposed to move into on Gut Wilhelmsburg wasn't quite ready. We were scared to stay there, so we moved to a hayloft in a barn and slept there. The very next night the gang came here, but they went to the main house and looked for the boss. But he snuck out the back way and took off. Someone figured these might have been former workmen looking for revenge.
As time went on we made contact with Grosspapa's brother here in Niagara-on-the-Lake (Ontario). More families came. One was a teacher, Anni Nickel, and we did get some schooling. School was in the morning and work in the afternoon. Those rows of beets must have been long (10 miles??). In the fall, we would harvest potatoes. Those rows were long too!
Cousin Philip was sitting under a shade tree one day instead of working. His excuse was "Lass die Bauern schwitzen, ich kann in Schatten sitzen." (Let the farmers sweat. I can sit in the shade!)
One day the boss came out to the field to look around, and saw someone standing around. I "think" it was I. He said, "Der Blage reisst ja Mund and Nase auf und tut nichts!" (The brat has his mouth and nose wide open but does nothing!)
In our spare time we would kick the soccer ball, chase a rim with a stick, and climb trees. I believe we eliminated all the rats that lived in the barns.
Grossmama went to look for cousin Henry Schellenberg. His feet froze during the trek and he was left behind in a hospital. The front parts of his feet had to be cut off. Only his heels were left. The rest of his family was sent back to Russia with many others. They were put on a train and sent back to Russia to suffer more hardships. Grossmama found him in Bayern (Bavaria) in southern Germany. He lived with a family on a farm. At first they did not want to let him go but Grossmama managed to persuade them. Now, the language they speak there is one of a kind. We had a great time trying to figure out what Henry was talking about. (Schwabish?) We could hardly believe he could walk on his heels only. He managed ok. Later on he made his own shoes, a wooden sole with leather nailed around it.
Summers were a lot of fun at Gut Wilhelmsburg. On Saturday evenings we guys would take all the horses to pasture. We would each ride one and the others would follow. We could go through a bush to a pasture. Then on Sunday nights we would get them home again.
Now that skinny horse that we got from the soldiers in Poland turned out to be a beauty, full of spirit and zip. When he was hitched to a wagon someone had to hold him by his bridle, and when the Kutcher was on the wagon, of he went!
1947 brought a baby sister to the family. Margaret, my youngest sister, was born on Gut Wilhelmsburg.
We would walk to Wewer on many occasions. We had a little wooden wagon which would coast down the hill. I wanted a bicycle so badly for along time, so finally on Gut Wilhelmsburg, I got one. The only problem was "no tires", only rims. Eventually we found some thick cable, which we put on the rims. Talk about a "rough ride"!
I went to Gronau, a city near the Holland border, where many Mennonites gathered and passed through, to recuperate. We had porridge every morning!! While there, on a wet and windy April day, I watched a soccer game. I climbed a tree to get a better view but also got pneumonia. I ended up in the hospital with a spot on my lung. It seems to me my stay lasted about three momths. One of the nurses was named Susie Wiebe. She would come in the evenings and tell us stories. We had a nickname for her: U.S.W. - unsere Schwester Wiebe. Every morning they would take our temperatures. One morning I was half-asleep. The nurse put the thermometer in my hand. I was dreaming I had a stick in m hand and threw it away! Erna had troubles with her eyes. Baby Margaret need a blood transfusion. Dad's blood matched hers so the doctors hooked her up to Dad and gave her some blood.
[ed: Peter met and married my mother, Susanna Voth, in NOTL. ... another "Susie" Wiebe.]
Meanwhile we were trying to get our exit visas to go to Canada. we had a sponsor, Onkel Abram Wiebe, Grosspapa's brother here in Niagara-on-the-Lake. [ed: Abram was born in 1883 and had come to Canada many years prior.] They would pay for our trip and guarantee that we would work. We then would pay him back. I think it was $1200. But Canada would only take healthy people. So for a while we thought we might have to go to Paraguay. But time heals a lot of things, including sickness. A lot of people came and went through this Lager in Gronau, some to Paraguay and some to Canada.
[ed: Gronau to Bad Fallingbostel ~ 250 km]
From Gronau we went to Camp Fallingbostel. It seems to me there were a lot of large buildings, housing man refugees for processing. Doctors would check us out from head to toe. And finally one day we had the OK. "Wir haben das OK!" That's what we would say. We have the OK to go to Canada! So, on January 13, 1949, we were in Cuxhaven, a northern port in Germany. We boarded a ship called Scythia, run by the Cunard White Star Line, with the few belongings that we had. We headed for France, made a stop at Le Havre, and off we sailed for Halifax. Ten days later, on January 23rd, we saw Canada in the distance. Finally! We had boarded about noon. By 12:30 I felt sick. We didn't leave the port until about 4:30 - 4:00 o'clock. Just the swaying, the movement of the ship made me seasick. I should have asked for a refund on the food ticket because I could hardly eat anything. I did manage to keep some fruit down. We sailed through some pretty stormy weather. At one point they sealed all the emergency doors. The waves were terribly high! I knew where the kitchen was, so on my way by it, I would hold my breath and run; just the smell of the food would make me sick. I would go to the open deck, the fresh air seemed to help a bit.
Well, finally, after 10 days we saw land! One of the stewards in the dining room spoke some German -- he encouraged me to eat a bit when we came close to land.
Now we boarded a train to St. Catharines, Ontario. Everybody got $30 cash for food for the trip. And away we went! The train had a stopover in Montreal for several hours. So all the brave (curious) people got off the train to check out Montreal. I went to the first intersection, got pretty scared when I saw all those cars. I turned around and went back to the train station. They sold white break and Polish sausage on the train. Wow, that was good!
On January 26 the train rolled through Beamsville and Vineland (Bay-ams-vee-lay and Vee-nay-land) heading for St. Catharines. We had relatives in Beamsville and cousin Lili had married George Dyck and they lived in Vineland. So there it was-- Santa Katarinas!! We saw the plaque on the station. And there was Onkel Abram! Uncle Abe, Grosspapa's brother! He welcomed us with open arms. Mom and Dad and Erna, Mary and Baby Margaret and me! So off we went to Concession II and Larkin Road. Tante Agathe had a pot of borscht ready and bananas for dessert. They also owned a little house next door. Tante Lena, Leni-mi, cousin Henry Schellenberg, Philip and Anna stayed there. For the time being, we moved there too. Tante Katja, cousins Henry and Peter Quiring had arrived in the summer of 1948, and they lived on the Dawson farm at the corner of Concession II and East-West Line. Onkel John Wiens lived on the Parkway, he worked for Larkin Farms. So now we waited for the arrival of Grosspapa and Grossmama, and Tante Liese and Onkel Jasch, cousins Henry and Leni Unrau.
We were in Kanada! We had $30 left from the money we received on the train.
Extra Details
Author: Peter Wiebe, born April 13, 1935
Father: Peter Wiebe, born Feb. 2, 1904
Mother: Elisabeth Neufeld, born April 20, 1908
Grandfather (Grosspapa): Peter Wiebe, born April 24, 1881
Grandmother (Grossmama): Margaretha Neufeld, born August 14, 1887
Sister of author, Erna Wiebe: Born November , 1932/3
Sister of author, Margaret Wiebe: Born April 20, 1947
Great grandfather (Grosspapa) on a tractor shortly after arriving in Canada.
