For Abraham and Maria Loewen, the time to emigrate felt right. Abraham had invested all his efforts in farming and supplementing his income with blacksmithing for the village. His family had been financially tested on numerous years, both before the revolution and after. The 1911 drought and subsequent crop failure come to mind. During the Civil War, both the Red and White armies made demands on the village, at the time that Abraham was the elected village ‘Schulze’ (Reeve). During the famine of 1921-22, his children lacked enough to eat, and in fact, a MCC food kitchen had perhaps saved them from starvation (my father made that claim). Letters from  daughter Lena’s friend in Canada had played a role in encouraging the Loewens to emigrate. In September 1926, the Abraham and Maria Loewen family sold their farm and possessions and joined the Peter P. Dyck group from the Orenburg colony that emigrated in 1926.

     For others, it was not as easy to leave. Among them, Abraham’s older brother, Martin, who lived in Gnadental, Chortitza Colony. He was a successful farmer, and in fact, he enjoyed a level of affluence that his younger brother, Abraham, could not expect. In 1911, Martin had sent a train carload of grain to his brother in Orenburg because of the severe conditions caused by crop failure. The grain provided relief for Abraham’s family and for six other families, with sufficient seed for the next year’s seeding. Maria’s older brother, Johann Eitzen, too, resisted the invitation to emigrate until it was too late. Timing had been everything.

December 18, 1926

In a letter to Abraham and Maria, several months after their emigration, Martin shared his reservations about leaving:

I often think about whether or not it is God’s will if we should leave Russia. Do we move because we want to serve God, or move because it’s in our own interest, pretending that it’s because of our faith? But does such faith exist in America, that the love of Christ is evident? When reading your letters it is not evident to me, but only that the dollar plays a large role. But I’m not saying that we wouldn’t want to move as well – far from it. But if I’m going to be truthful, I must say that these thoughts are often in my mind.

     Notwithstanding the challenges they were faced with in 1926, Martin was filled with more optimism about the future. He describes a good harvest and plans for increased planting and perhaps, diversifying on the land he was leasing from the association.

Harvest was very good. Wheat produced 68 Pud/Desatin; and barley and oats very similar. We have done some seeding and want to seed winter wheat of 25 desatin, rye 4 ½ desatin, oats 9 desatin, barley 3 desatin, and fallow 6 desatin. We don’t know yet what we are going to plant in that section. Last spring we planted one quarter desatin with ____ and I think that next year we will plant another quarter. We harvested beautiful apples this year, and so we planted more, and we’ve also uprooted some. And if we’re going to stay here in Russia, we will plant still more, and look for ways to branch out into other activities. The winter crops are growing beautifully; they have a succulent green.

And if it is futile for us to continue working, we know that with God’s help we can succeed. We are paying 434 rubles to lease 22 desatin, an increase of five rubles since last year. Next year we will have to pay an increase of 10 rubles for the lease. The Association is no longer functioning, but we’ve been told it will resume under a different name.

     Martin’s letter included a report on the economy and his present financial status. He was curious about their journey to Canada had gone, and he had other questions about some individuals he had read about in a previous letter from Abraham and Maria.

The price for wheat now is one ruble for 10 to 20 kg, barley 50 to 55 kg, and oats 90 kg. Butter one Ruble for 80 kg. If only the cows produced a lot of butter; but it is very little. We have the following livestock: five old horses, three mares, two geldings, one stallion, and one stallion foal. We have five old cows, and 3 2-year-old heifers, three pigs and one butchered. The weather was very pleasant this fall allowing us to do what we needed to do. Today it began to snow a little, so that the earth is covered, and in the afternoon the sun shone with a little frost. Temperature went as low as -7.

And now I need to remind you that we have yet to hear how your journey went; what did you experience, and who are these Loewens and Wiebes? Are they relatives? If you should write again, please describe your home life, the work you do, as well as church life, and describe the surrounding countryside. We’ve heard that in certain areas the land is not good at all, so that working that land robs a man of his strength and his work.

What kind of denomination is it that my sister-in-law writes about? Holdeman – are those Mennonites? Or are they different people from different lands? My wife has been ill since last winter until this point; however it appears that she is getting better since she has gained a little weight.

So please understand my letter, everything is good. Best wishes.

     If Martin was not ready to leave, his older brother, Isaac Loewen was, based on his letter.

We just received a letter from Isaac Loewens and read that they are to receive their passports next week. The letter was dated December 2, just as our children Maria, and also Johan Funk’s daughters Helena and Anna have been waiting for their passports for the last month.

July 26, 1927

     In a letter received from Maria Loewen’s brother, Johann Eitzen, the following year, it is apparent that he and his wife were giving serious consideration to emigrating, even though there appears to be slight hesitancy. His letter indicates they had come to the realization that they may have waited too long; that a degree of uncertainty had delayed a more timely decision. Perhaps they may not have felt an urgency to leave.

As expected, we were on the trip south, from 9 June to 15 July. After a two-year delay, the desire to visit our homeland, my wife and I took this trip. In addition, we hoped to find more potential buyers of our farm, which also was part of our reason for making the trip, allowing us to make a more informed decision as to whether to emigrate or buy something here.

     Reading on in his letter, Johann expresses feelings that leaves one with the distinct impression that they regretted not having made a decision to emigrate as early as 1925.

If I assume and believe that what we are experiencing now will continue into the future, I must conclude that this place is not our home, despite so many ties that should keep us here. It is and remains our homeland, but we have been alienated from it, and everything is stacked against us; that’s why we want to leave, because it’s still possible. Much is already lost by leaving, but now it is still possible; so forward before it is too late.

We are waiting for buyers, and as soon as the buildings are sold, the work begins; we will have hope. Too bad we didn’t leave in 1925; but with God it is not yet too late. We expect to make our decisions within a short time period.

     Johann Eitzen’s comments turned to the paperwork he was engaged in completing, and the process involved in securing permission to emigrate to Canada.

One more question: Are you aware that the Board has a competitor, Mennonite Immigration Aid, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada? I have a letter promoting British Columbia through the company mentioned. It is supposed to be an association, and under the protectorate of the Canadian government, but operated by Mennonites. The president is a Doctor Gerhard Hiebert in Winnipeg, and the Secretary is a Mennonite advocate, Abram Buhr.

This is the letter, and it is signed by N. Banman. This society does not involve itself in missionary work but is organized for the purpose of settling Canada. And is a competitor of the board in Rosthern, of which you write that it is English politics. I ask for clarification in this.

     The letter contained the usual updates on common acquaintances, family activities, the weather, the harvest just completed, and a few questions out of curiosity about life in Canada. A large part of this letter related their experiences and the people they visited on their five-week journey to southern Russia – the old colony. He makes a comment about the impressions he had been left with, and it would appear that they had begun to separate themselves, mentally and emotionally, from life in Russia, in preparation for the hoped for emigration.

In Niederchortitz, we stopped in to visit Mrs. Funk. Peter Loewen, who lives with her, drove us via Ebenfeld to Heubuden. My wife and I visited Ebenfeld’s churchyard and examined everything. The whole cemetery was in disarray; only the gravestone of my oldest ancestor was still standing, but our graves were even then, in somewhat better condition. The mass grave is 10 steps long and 3 steps wide. Pain pierced my breast. How that place was once so dear and precious to me, but now I could not bear to stay. I cast one last farewell glance before I left, probably never to see it again.

My general impressions of our journey, I would say, “We have come to the conviction that the South offers us Mennonites nothing more than the remembrance of the past, now and hereafter.”

Finally, we arrived home on July 15, happy. We thought we would still be in time for the harvest; however, they were already threshing and had been interrupted by the rain. Saturday, July 23, at noon, we finished the threshing.

As for the harvest in the South, people hoped for a medium harvest. We have harvested curlew rye 45 poods per desatin, common rye about 15 poods, and wheat on average at 15 pud per desatin. Potatoes are fine. We did not plant much because we expected to emigrate.

What about the disagreement between you and your companion? Can you separate? What does “Fenz” mean? Is it meant to fence the cattle pasture? Do you also have a Shepherd? What about English and German innkeepers? How is it that the farmers sell the farm and move to the city? Surely they also have children who are able to farm there, or is the farm not profitable?

We have no letters from Orenburg. Martin Loewen is doing well. He also has children who want to emigrate. He writes and tells us where we should go (in Canada) if we were to emigrate. We are depending on the Board in Rosthern. As I write, my wife is in bed. She has pain in her body. The Lord be with you. Greetings to all Eitzens.

February 16, 1928

     It appears that Anna (Eitzen) Bergen would have emigrated, had the opportunity appeared. Several possibilities exist that prevented her from leaving in 1926, including a lack of a feeling of urgency, and having no husband. If these assumptions are correct, by 1928, the time had passed. Based on her letter, it appears she may have made application earlier.

I am sorry that I cannot come to you; I would have preferred to come to you. But if it is not possible, then I shall also go to Brazil, for it is very difficult for me here. (Feb 16, 1928, Anna Eitzen)

     “Officially, the emigration movement was now at an end in actual fact, however, it did not terminate in 1926. A number of emigrants still managed to leave Russia during 1927 and 1928. These, however, came only on the strength of the organizational structure which successfully secured the exodus of thousands between 1923 and 1926. The emigration after 1926 experienced the calculated termination of the movement by government authorities.” (Toews, pg. 195)

     The 1929 attempted flight by several thousand Mennonites, was in response to a successful application by some settlers from Siberia. Thousands descended on Moscow suburbs in a desperate attempt to gain permission to emigrate. Faced with international headlines that embarrassed the Soviet government, the government responded by trying to remove this source of embarrassment as quickly as possible. The end result was an enforced deportation and ‘relocation’ to eastern Siberia or return home, resulting in family separations and the deaths of large numbers of children (Toews). This was compounded by the election of a new government in Canada and the Great Depression with its unemployment level.

     Among those that attempted to leave in 1929 was the Abram and Margaretha (Eitzen) Driedger family. Abraham and Maria Loewen had advised their brother-in-law, Abram Driedger, in 1926 to emigrate as well, with his family, but he was convinced that the situation in Russia would improve. He was wrong. Things became increasingly worse. In 1929, after he had been arrested and released shortly thereafter, he said to his family, “It’s time!”. They left everything – the house, the farm, and the livestock, and departed for Moscow, together with his children: Heinrich and Helena (Driedger) Vogt, Johann, Peter and Margaretha (Driedger) Sawatzky, Maria, Anna, Aganetha, Daniel, Peter, and Henry, to emigrate from there to Canada.

     In Moscow, they were all accommodated in one house. After a short time, the Sawatzky family moved to another building, presumably because of issues of living space. Shortly thereafter, Abram Unger, also from Pretoria, arrived in Moscow and reported the Vogt and Driedger families to the local militia as kulaks. Abram Driedger, in fact, had farmed a 90 hectare piece of land in Pretoria. Abram Driedger and Heinrich Vogt were immediately arrested. Heinrich Vogt was released after a short time, but Abram Driedger was transferred to Orenburg and sentenced to death by firing squad. The case against him was reopened and the sentence was replaced with a 10-year term of imprisonment. After sentencing, he was taken by train to Kotlas and from there transferred, on foot, to the camp at Tylaju (Komi ASSR), where, according to the authorities, he died of pneumonia in 1933. Apart from his son Abram, who had visited him in Kotlas, the family never saw him again.

     The Driedger and Vogt families, along with Margaretha and the other children, were repatriated to Pretoria in December 1929. Abram Unger managed to emigrate to Canada and from there he wrote a letter to Margaretha Driedger asking forgiveness for reporting her husband to the authorities.

April 18, 1929

     No record of any further correspondence between the Loewens in Canada and the Johann Eitzens in Orenburg until this one, 21 months later. Johann does state in this letter, however, that three letters have gone unanswered (they may have been “lost” along the way).

     A lot had changed in Soviet Russia. The period of 1924 (Lenin’s death) to the early 1930s was a time during which Stalin consolidated his authority, marked by the initiation of his Five-Year Plans, the first of which commenced in 1928. The repressive and unforgiving view of the Kulak class (which included Mennonites) resulted in mass dispossessions of land and forced relocation eastward to provide the cheap labour force required to accomplish Stalin’s goal of rapid industrialization.

     Had Johann Eitzen been dispossessed of his land by this time? No correspondence exists that comments on that. He does, however, make reference to the use of a tractor for seeding, and rumours that suggest it may be taken from them. This is very likely a reference to tractors allocated to collective farms. Were they also allocated to “private” farms? Based on the following excerpt from his letter of April 1929, it appears so, and furthermore, it might suggest that Johann Eitzen had not yet been dispossessed of his land.

There is no excuse for such a tractor being taken away. We miss it very much. We don’t want to keep workers this year; we have to do everything ourselves. And yet many are crying out for work.

On the other hand, they may have been dispossessed and granted another, smaller piece of land, much like the Driedger family experienced.

The main subject of this letter revolves around the question of emigration and the securing of permission to leave. The letter also contains a tone of resignation to the fact that they may well have to remain, and at the same time, a faint hope that not all is lost.

We also received a reply from Moscow today regarding my enquiry of 26 March about freedom of entry. They report that they have not yet received an entry permit from the board for us, but that they will send it to us as soon as it arrives. I fear something is wrong again, so I’m writing to you right away to ask you to be so good as to check what’s wrong.

It seems that we are to stay here, but we cannot get ourselves to accept that. And as long as there are possibilities, we will manage, because staying here is only a loss of time and work. But we are afraid that our resources will not suffice for the journey, due to a sharp reduction and new restrictions. And then what? But hopefully we will still be successful.

     Johann signs off with:

Along with this letter,  one is also being sent to the Board. I couldn’t get to Mr. Klassen. I will write to him when I get home. Give our greetings to acquaintances and relatives.