Why being political is a very personal thing. The story of the Russ...

Family is the first place to learn about politics and religion.

But it doesn't happen very effectively through disputes or ideas told. To become an earnest politically interested person, you have to listen to stories of people who have succeeded in maintaining integrity during times of conflict.

I want to be of service with the personal story of my family and will connect it with the events that took place in the course of history.

Northwest Ukraine - Volhynia - End of 30s of the 19th century

When the Bolsheviks came to my grandfather's house and drove his family away, his question to the perpetrators of violence was: "Well, you took everything from me. Don't you want to take my children too?"

...

What do you think of that statement?

...

I think it's almost a philosophical matter. My grandfather could have asked or said something else, because the content is really not that important.

But if you imagine that a family's life, which until then had been reasonably intact, is torn out of its fugues with sudden violence and you see a family father ask such a question about his bailiffs: What does this tell you about this man?

He has not stood headlessly against the enemies. He asked a profoundly appealing question to humanity. What did those who were exposed to his gaze feel?

From then on my German rooted family was on the run.

They first left Ukraine and tried to make ends meet in Poland. But the urge not to lose home is strong in people. They returned only to realize that the unrest had spread even further and that the partisans were causing terror. My mother once had to hide under the floorboards in order not to be discovered by them while the house of the family who kept her hidden was searched. She told me about the boot steps above her. But then she also told how her father helped the family through these difficult times. He has managed not to do a single foolish thing and survive everywhere with his wife and children despite the dangers. He was a clever and far-sighted man. I have always found him cheerful and relaxed. He lived to be almost a hundred years old and there was not a hint of bitterness in him.

Finally my family went back to Germany, where their ancestors came from and were driven apart. My grandfather was ordered for track construction work, my mother sent to the country year:

The compulsory year was introduced by the National Socialists in 1938. It applied to all women under the age of 25 - so-called "compulsory year girls" - and committed them to one year's work in agriculture and home economics.

When the World War II was lost and all the organizations vanished into thin air, my teenage mother drove across the Republic with two other girls, when it was unclear exactly where the rest of the family had gone. She searched through all the registration offices on her quest and finally found her family near Berlin. By pure chance, as she wandered through the streets, she suddenly saw her sister through a window! She couldn't believe her luck. Although this was a really happy coincidence, her journey was dominated by determination. She didn't give up desperately, she moved on.

When the Russians occupied the eastern part and the soldiers patrolled the streets, my grandfather ordered his daughters to blacken their faces and behave unsightly so as not to be raped. What they did.

Siberia around 1946 - Camp imprisonment

Nevertheless, they were unlucky. The Russians took civilian prisoners and deported my family on trains to distant Siberia. That's when my grandparents got separated again. Grandma went to one camp with the children, my grandfather to another. After a long back and forth he was transferred from one camp to another, so that the family was reunited. My mother spoke fervently of her father's efforts. Which showed me that he must have set heaven and hell in motion for it. The journey continued eastwards until they arrived in Siberia. There the people were arrested for forced labour in one of the many Gulags.

My mother and her two sisters chopped wood in the forest in the middle of the frosty winter at very low temperatures and loaded the pieces onto carts. My mother abhorred this work and one day stood in front of the commanders and said: "I don't want to do this work anymore. My sister and I aren't strong enough for this. I demand another job!" In fact, the commander gave in and from then on the women were employed in the laundry.

Knowing what my mother looked like when she had had enough, I could vividly imagine the situation. There was a risk in this demand and it could have gone much worse. My mother was so angry at that moment that the consequences didn't seem particularly important to her. If she had been punished, it would have been called stupidity. But as she got away with it, she deserves the credit for her courage.

She told me that the prisoners silently sang "thoughts are free" and that everyone was jubilant when Stalin finally died and they were released from captivity in the mid-fifties.

Let me make a note of it. My family went through three periods of power: Lenin, Hitler and Stalin.

Back in time - Catherine the Great

How did my ancestors get to Ukraine in the first place? Exactly for the reason for which the October Revolution took place later. Because of the Czar's family. Catherine the Great, who had married the Russian Czar, encouraged the German people to follow her to the Russian country and so many Germans fulfilled this wish and founded their livelihoods there. One of these families was mine and they settled in the Ukraine.

Both of my parents were born there, but I know little about the story of my father, who died in 1991.

^{By Unknown, Public Domain - wikimedia}

In the 18th century large parts of the Russian Empire were still uninhabited, although they were well suited for agriculture and, according to the Russian Czars, should also be developed. The settlement of the first colonists began with the inauguration of Catherine II in 1762, when she issued a manifesto inviting all foreigners to settle within the borders of the vast Tsarist empire. This invitations, which were followed by others in the upcoming years, were distributed at the various royal courts of Northern and Central Europe.

Back to the dispossession of my grandparents who lived in Russia as Germans. Historically, it is known that Bolshevism was a workers' and peasants' movement, right? Not only that, there is talk of the "dictatorship of the proletariat".

So what were my grandparents seen as?

In the course of the expulsion of landowners - who was crushed? Foreigners like my family. The fact that my grandfather was a miller, who may have been lumped together with a large landowner, did not interest the insurgents. For them he had a suitable national affiliation, which did not belong to them. Why else would the Germans, who had already lived there for quite some time (150 years!), have been considered enemies? Because they made their own living? It is logical to assume that all those who did not belong pro Red Army were washed down in the same dishwater. However, the fact that my family members were completely normal self-sufficient - and were peasants and workers - did not matter. They were incorporated into the political unrest. It must be assumed that my family was a victim of the movement of the communist efforts as there was as a result of this a shortage in food and needed supplies.

^{By http://photoarchive.spb.ru:9090/www/showObject.do?object=2502078330, Public Domain, Link}
^{Red Guards at Vulcan factory 1917}

It makes no difference whether a revolution takes place from below or a war is started from above. Both resulted in violent clashes that many people who did not want to have anything to do with war were automatically drawn into it. I assume even if my family would have wanted to let themselves being incorporated into the Bolsheviks movement they wouldn't have been let in. By definition, they could only be enemies, since as Germans they had enjoyed the privileges of the Tsar family through Catherine and the Bolsheviks had overthrown them. Royalty was no longer looked up to.

My mother said about her early childhood that they had lived in a beautiful place near a river and that she and her three siblings had a good life. She was born in 1929, just a few years after the revolution and the victory of the Red Army. So how could it be that they were still gripped by the unrest, when the Communists had already seized power in the mid-twenties? One can only ask this question if one orients oneself to year dates and considers events as cemented. In reality, all upheavals are a very protracted affair and mostly die in the course and are corrupted by horror, violence and inability to know what one actually wants and can do besides the realization of mental concepts.

The Communist Party ruled the country. It was not until 1952 that the term Bolsheviks was removed from the party names of the CPSU and abolished in the official language of the Soviet Union. A short time later followed the death of Stalin.

My mother, who never had any idea of ideologically constructed concepts, neither knew what Socialism nor Communism should mean, owes me a certain intellectual resistance.

Who were those Partisans threatening their lives?

It must have been taking place somewhere towards the end of the 40s my family were on their still ongoing run that my mom had to hide from the bribes. One figure who acted in the country of the Ukraine, was Nestor Machno. I mention him because I was searching for leading figures near the region my family was located back then.

^{By Unknown - http://varjag-2007.livejournal.com/2110190.html, Public Domain - wikimedia}

The February Revolution of 1917 liberated Machno in Russia. He returned to Ukraine, where he began to organize the peasants and workers in the local environment, as chairman of the district peasant committee and later as chairman of the local Soviet Union. In March 1918, the peace of Brest Litovsk temporarily separated Ukraine politically and economically (until 1920) from Soviet Russia. Even before the October Revolution of 1917 and the enactment of the Land Decree by the Bolsheviks, large landowners and entrepreneurs were expropriated and anarchist communities established.

Was my mother properly informed about the pursuers? She spoke of "Russian partisans assigned to the Bolsheviks", but they might just as well have been other groups. As there were many of them and not all were well organized or labeled.
I don't know exactly and never will.

Because it also says:

World War I and the Russian Revolution
In the anti-German mood during the First World War, so-called liquidation laws were enacted. After that all Germans had to be driven out within a 150 km wide border strip in the west and southwest of the empire. Fearing collaboration with the Germans, Russia had the German soldiers in the Russian army fighting on the Caucasus front in the southeast. For 1917 there were plans to extend the liquidation to the whole European part of the empire. But the Russian Revolution preceded this measure and changed the conditions again.

During the confused years of civil war between 1918 and 1921, the German colonists were severely affected by crop failures, starvation and attacks on their belongings and were brought to the brink of extinction. The transformation of the so-called working municipalities on the Volga into an Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR) of the Volga Germans in 1924 represented a genuine new beginning. German was allowed to become an official and teaching language, which in itself had an extremely positive psychological effect. In the autonomous areas, the Germans were also allowed to reanimate and expand their own education system. This led to the emergence of an almost perfect primary and secondary school system in the newly founded districts of Ukraine and the Volga Republic, which by the early 1930s had been supplemented by five universities and over 20 universities of applied sciences.

It is told that the Germans would have freedom in practicing their religion. Which they did. My mother was a devoted Christian and I assume she became even a stronger believer after all what had happened to her. Faith was the only refuge during her imprisonment. The atheist movement must have seemed very strange to her.

Despite these freedoms, however, even the Russian Germans did not escape the great wave of collectivisation in agriculture from 1928/29. From 1928, the atheistic Stalinist state also took action against the various German religious communities, up to their prohibition. After the National Socialists seized power in Germany, all Germans in Russia were put on lists unnoticed. From then on, arbitrary arrests were reported from all districts after Germans were accused of espionage, propaganda for foreign power or other anti-state crimes.

Immediately after the German attack on the Soviet Union, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued a decree "On the resettlement of Germans living in the Volga region". This decree marked the beginning of the greatest odyssey in the history of the Russian Germans. It accused all Germans of covering "tens of thousands of spies and divers" and therefore planned to deport all Volga Germans "to other regions" in Western Siberia and North Kazakhstan.

My family was deported 1945 or 46, released in 1955 from the camp and sent to Kazakhstan/Kokshetau, where I was finally born in 1970.

They were only transported to the East in freight cars and in part by ship with the bare necessities of food and clothing. The resettlement of the Volga Germans was followed by the deportation of Germans from the cities of Moscow and Leningrad (St. Petersburg), the North Caucasus and the Transcaucasian republics. According to estimates, more than 900,000 people were deported.

The long arm of the deportation regulation reached into the German Reich until the end of the war and finally got to my family, who had demonstrably been recognized as Russian-Germans because they had spoken Russian. I remember my mother saying that they should not have spoken Russian, but it had already happened and they were discovered by the soldiers.

My mom rejected the Russian language. She even became a weak speaker despite the fact she spent her life with Russians and partly Estonians until the beginning of the 1970s. We only talked German in our household but of course my siblings went to Russian school and were taught under their regime. They speak it fluently but unlearned to write and read over the course of time.

In the next part I will finish this story.

Why did I publish it?

Certainly not because my readers become upset that such injustices are happening. First of all, they are not to be undone. But they should be told.

Political education does not begin with the communication of concepts or the explanation of terms.

It begins with the highly personal family history.

In tracing one's family history, something like a deeper understanding of the events takes place. If they have no personal reference, they are usually limited to the abstract. Psychologically, something is also happening. To relive the circumstances and living conditions of previous generations through narration and to connect them with relatives creates a higher tolerance towards parents and grandparents with regard to their personal worldview. Or at least increases the probability that this will happen.

Some generation trenches can be overcome and the family system can be viewed in a larger context. Genealogy is therefore not only a hobby or fun, but experiences meaning in the psychological sense.

If you think of yourself as a committed person and are interested in the community of people, then my question would be to you: Why don't you start with your own family? Have you ever asked your grandparents or parents about their experiences without accusing them of screwing up your upbringing? Did you understand what they experienced as children and young adults?

First, you could ask for the facts, personal events related to historical events. But it would be wise not to ask about the horrors and also not want to know the traumatic experiences of your relatives out of curiosity. Ask them about their survival strategies and what good experiences they have had in the midst of difficult times. Who helped them, who was a valuable role model for them? And even if your parents don't belong to any generation of war or expellees, it would be important to ask them about their grandparents or what exactly they went through.

If you never talked to your parents like that, the start won't be easy. I started to ask questions when I became a teenager. I continued to do so and was nursed with stories but very little facts as my mother confused the numbers of dates and years but vividly remembered personal encounters and events. As a kid, I really loved to listen to the exciting stories at the kitchen table, it was like fairytale-hours and I hung on the lips of both siblings and parents, as I am the youngest. Both of my parents were good talkers, I must admit. It ain't easy with those who do not like to talk. But maybe they can name aunts and uncles or other relatives who do like to tell family stories.

If you are interested in their everyday life in depth, in their little things (actually not void) and you do not think of artificially upsetting yourself about what has happened to them, you may be met openly. To do this, it is necessary to stand on reasonably good terms with your parents or other relatives.

Thank you for reading. I hope you stay tuned for the next part.

Sources:

Pfetsch, Barbara,
“In Russia we were Germans, and now we are Russians.” - Dilemmas of Identity Formation and Communication among German-Russian Aussiedler
Discussion Paper FS III 99-103.Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin: https://www.econstor.eu/obitstream/10419/49827/1/312915594.pdf

GENEALOGICAL RESEARCH OUTLINE - Germans From Russia: http://files.lib.byu.edu/family-history-library/research-outlines/Europe/GermansFromRussia.pdf

Cody Hardin - Germans From Russia; My Heritage: http://www.grhs.org/youthn/previous/2014essays/Cody%20Hardin-Germans%20from%20Russia%20Essay-edited.pdf

Die Geschichte der Russlanddeutschen/ The History of the Russian Germans: https://www.bpb.de/gesellschaft/migration/dossier-migration/56417/russlanddeutsche?p=all

Why being political is a very personal thing. The story of the Russian Germans - from my family's point of view. Part one.