Vasiliy Dedkov, Municipal Secondary School N° 1, Balakhta, student of the 10th term (b).
Project leader: N.G. Lopatina – pedagogue of the educational department
Balakhta – 2006
The topic regarding the German population deported from the Volga Region to the remote territories of Siberia, the Altai and Kazakhstan has been kept secret for a long time; first publications on this only appeared in the course of the 1990s. Unfortunately, most of the representatives of the old generation, who were affected by compulsory resettlement in their prime, have already passed away. We now have to write down the life stories of the Volga-Germans, who lost their home villages, by availing ourselves of the memoirs of their children, the minors of that time, which means of all those who were born between 1924 and 1935. At that terrible time they were between 6 and 15 years old. Nowadays, they are well advanced in years, nonetheless they still recall those events clearly and with pain in their hearts.
Until 1990 about 2000 Germans lived in Balakhta district, scattered over various villages. Based on the memoirs of eleven individuals from this coverage we wrote the research paper on hand.
When today we are of the opinion that the German people lost all its rights on the 28th August 1941, after the notorious ukase about the liquidation of the German Autonomous Republic had entered into force, we cannot concede this as true, for the Germans, as well as all the other ethnic groups in the country, had not been free individuals before that very moment, either. Immediately after the revolution all peoples were suffering from its negative effects in almost exactly the same way. And in the German Autonomous Republic they even discovered class enemies, demolished churches and implemented compulsory collectivization.
Listen to the memories of Frieda Johannesovna Brening about what happened at that time:
“In our little town, in Saratov Region, their lived none but Germans. I was already attending school, when members of the Komsomol organization destroyed the church. At first, they turned it into a storehouse for grains, later it became the place of the club. I do recall our teacher; she was German, too. She guided all students of our term to the church, where she then often used to organize dances. Unless I am very much mistaken, she intended to demonstrate that we, as she would say, should not be afraid of anything: there is no almighty God, and – as a consequence – we would not have to expect any punishment”.
The memories of the children about life in the German settlements before the war is, nonetheless, characterized by clear and strong sentiences, for children are not yet able to face reality with a critical understanding.
“I was born in the little hamlet of Brumental (Blumenthal), - Irma Karlovna Butuzova (Schmidt) told us. The family lived happily and was well off. One year later, the father who was working as a public prosecutor of the district, was transferred to the district capital of Seelmann. We had a good life, I attended the German school, where they used to teach just a very fews subjects in Russian. I had a lot of fun with my friends and liked to sing traditional songs. As for our material situation I can say that our family was well-off; we had everything we needed. It seemed as if some deity had issued a blessing on our family and the entire large German settlement. We lived a rather solitary life; our little cramped world was located far away from the quickly changing Russian reality”.
The adults have more deplorable memories of the prewar time than the children. Prosperity with the German families had not just come by chance; they had been working hard for a long time to achieve and amass a fortune. But they all kept the prewar years in good memory because of the large crop yields. Emma Christianovna Weber told us that three years in succession they were having outstanding yields of wheat, which she had never experienced before. The work-day units brought in such huge quantities of grain at that time that, finally, there was no more space to store it – all suitable depots were filled up to the roof. The people would even drag the heavy sacks home to empty them out on the loft of their houses. They were also happy and content about successful apple and melon crops.
Only to the children it seemed as if there was not a single dark cloud in the sky of life. The adults, however, had to work hard, trying their best to provide for their families and being always concerned about the welfare of the family members. The news about the outbreak of the war against Germany caused a lot of worry and grief to them, but none of them would ever have expected the requital and punishment which was to affect their entire people soon.
There are many memories about the deportation; we collected them all. Read some of the deep impressions left with the children.
Emilia Friedrichovna Dorsch (Fritzler), who was twelve years old in 1941, told us the following:
“On the 5 September 1941, early in the morning, we, the former inhabitants of the hamlet of Lugovoe, Saratov Region, were woken up by NKVD workers. They informed us that we were to pack up our most indispensible belongings within an hour. They neither explained where they intended to take us, nor the reason for such an action. After having gathered some foodstuffs, we left the house. Outsode, we were immediately surrounded by soldiers armed with machine guns. They accompanied us to the train station. Some families went by horse-drawn carts, others had taken along one of their bullocks. It seemed to us, as if it was an endless trek. All men marched on with their heads bowed, women and children were crying”.
Aleksander Fedorovich Fritzler recalls:
“On the 5 September we all went to bed peacefully. They woke us early the next morning and told us to get ready to leave. We packed up the bare necessities – mainly food; what else could we have taken along, when four or five families, including food and clothes, were forced to use one single rack waggon? And little children who were yet unable to walk were put on top of the cart, as well.
They had to leave everything inside the house behind, all the furniture, all the cattle, which they, however, managed to give away in time; but principally they were forced to abandon everything. At the train station we were loaded on freight cars: small ones meant for 50 people, and bigger ones fit for 100 and more people. The trains transporting the prisoners were escorted by NKVD workers. Judging by their attitide towards us we understood that we were considered as enemies of the people. But why? We were strictly against fascism like all the others, after all. They gave us food every 2-3 days. The trip went on for 12 days and nights. We neither received any warm meals, nor drinking water. By the names mentioned on the place-name signs at every train station, we could guess the direction our train was heading into: when we passed through Novosibirsk it became evident that we were on our way to Krasnoyarsk. Everybody was afraid of that: first of all, the harsh climate, and secondly, the beginning of autumn. And we were sure that nobody had built any appropriate houses for us, not even very primitive ones. The prisoners were prepared for the worst. One of the older people had brought along a piece of glass: in case they were to build dug-outs they would at least be able to put in a window to let some day-light in”.
From the memoirs of Irma Karlovna Butuzova (Schmidt):
”Mum learned about the deportations from our father. Early in the morning, still half asleep, I heard her talking on the phone. She was crying. At that time I was not yet able to understand, what all this was about, and so I set off to school towards 10 o’clock to attend the first lesson. When Dad came home from work he reported that they had closed the school, but I still insisted to go there. When I arrived nobody was there; the doors were all barred. I was in a terrible fear and began to cry. They took us to Saratov by steamship, from there the trip continued in heated railroad cars. Each waggon was watched over by an NKVD man in an executive position; there was an iron discipline, but we were at least quite well fed. At Shira Station they told ou family and another young couple to get off the train”.
Irma Karlovna Simkina (Ganz) reports:
“I was six years old when they deported my family from the settlement of Wiesenmiller, Saratov Region, to Siberia. I still recall some male person coming to our house, ordering us to get ready to leave. Nobody knew where they were going to take us and what reason for. Our parents were stunned, they were beside themselves with grief; the whole village was wailing and crying. We were loaded on horsedrawn vehicles in the clothes we were just dressed in. We, the children, ran behind, after having refreshed ourselves with apples and watermelons before. They took us to the train station, put us on freight cars, as if we were a herd of cattle, and then the train pulled out in an unknown direction. Dad and Mum pressed their four children to their hearts and cried. The eldest son was ten, I was six, our sister four and our youngest brother just two years old. It was already quite cold in September. It seemed to us, as if we, the were hungry, freezing victims, were en route for ages. The worst, however, was that none of us was able to understand and speak Russian”.
Emilia Ivanovna Schmidt recalls:
“Many had not even succeeded to pack up underwear for change; they had to leave in the clothes they were just dressed in at the time of their forced departure. – The train stopped on sidetracks very often. There we usually had to wait, sticking to our places, for several days and nights. They did not supply us with food, and there was not enough water, either. The waggons were full of moans. Mainly women and children were crying and violently sobbing. The men kept silence, clenching their teeth in helplessness. Those who died en route were simply thrown out of the train to the tracks”.
Heinrich Heinrichovich Schmidt confided a story to us, which he had heard from his parents:
“I was born one week after the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War. In August of the same year, when I was just half a year old, they began to resettle the Volga Germans to the remote parts of the country – to Siberia, Kazakhstan and Middle-Asia. The whole action was based on this notorious ukase passed by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. It was a great tragedy for everyone, including my parents. My mother was so deeply shaken up that she was ready to throw me into the Volga, so that at least one of the family members could stay behind on home grounds in peace. Of course, she decided not to do that in the end”.
In order to get those who had survived the long trip by train from Krasnoyarsk to the Balakhta District, the escorts drove them to the landing stage and loaded the human freight to barges, which would go up to Daurska.
Aleksander Fedorovich Fritzler continues the story:
“At the landing stage representatives of the kolkhoz farms and sovkhozes were already waiting for us. They chose workers from among us according to their needs and then took us to different villages. Our family got to Malye Syry. We were accomodated in an apartment where two old people were already living. One can imavgine the attitude of the people towards us during the first time after our arrival. The world “Germans” alone instilled a terrible fright on the locals – and besides we were deportees! It meant that we were fascists. It was a poor kolkhoz farm; we received nothing but a loaf of bread and a bottle of kerosene”.
Emilia Friedrichovna Dorsch (Fritzler) continues with her memories about the arrival of her family in Balakhta:
“We arrived at nighttime. When we inspected our new place of residence, we began to cry out of despair. We were just unable to figure out how to organize our lives here. The language barrier was one of the biggest problems: we did not speak Russian well. Aleksander Friedrichovich, my elder brother, helped us out of the scrape. At that time he had already finished the 7th term. He managed to find a job with the Balakhtinsk village general stores, and the producers’ cooperative procured him a living space. This is how we settled in Balakhta.
I was 12 years old, when I began to work as a domestic servant in order to help to support the family. After having worked for about three years, when everybody was somewhat organized and felt his feet more or less firmly on the ground, I left my job and returned to my relatives. For a long time the locals would yet continue to behave towards us, the resettlers, as if we were cattle, calling us “Fritzes”, whenever they were talking about us. It was particularly difficult for the children to comprehend why they were being treated this way”.
From the accounts of Irma Karlovna Butuzova (Schmidt):
“Having arrived at the station we noticed a huge crowd of people on the platform. They had all gathered there, in order to see what true Germans looked like. Many of them were quite astonished: “Look, there is nothing special about them, at all – they look just the same as everybody else in this place”, - they said while looking at us in disappointment. The Siberianms had expected terrible-looking monsters with horns, as Soviet propaganda had described them. The resettlers were put on rack-waggons and taken to the village of Chebaki. It was hard for me to get used to the Russian language, and I had great difficulties to keep up with the class, but I continued to go to school every day. Thus, step by step, I acquired this foreign language. I cannot refrain myself from mentioning the kindness of the simple Siberians. Not once I heard any of the locals say the word “fascist” or any other offence. We lived in harmony: the omnipresent misery suspended all over the country, welded them all together”.
Below you can read the memories of former German minors, who are today advanced in age and who we had the opportunity to meet and question in the villages of the Balakhta District. Most of them did not show any embitterment, but a lot of sympathy, when talking about the past.
The Trott family, little Sasha, two of his little sisters and their mum got to Vilenka:
“They temporarily accomodated us with the village bee-keeper – I.P. Pliskovskiy. They behaved quite well towards us. They even let us have their parlour to live in and provided us with food and drink. The landlord often took his sons to the beehaves; he always used to ask me, wheather I would like to go with them. V. Bakhar was the head of the kolkhoz farm at that time. He showed great understanding for the newcomers, was voluntarily prepared to help them out with coal and assigned them little plots of land”.
The German families who lived in the territory of the Balakhta District led a miserable life; it was a permanent struggle for existence. Most of the families were made up by mothers with several children (their fathers were working for the labour army at that time, as well as all minors from the age of 15). In the district town the industrial combine organized the drying of potatoes during the years of the war; afterwards they were sent to the front. Late in the evening the German women came there with their children and helped to peel potatoes. When the shift was over, the workers were fed with cooked potatoes, and the mothers always hoped that their children would also receive a certain ration. And, in fact, this was the case. It was a proof of sincere sympathy shown to the exiled Germans.
However, some of the deportees were confronted with misbehaviour and an attitude of distrust, as we learned from Irma Karlovna Ganz:
“We got to the Krasnoyarsk Territory, Balakhta District, were they put us on a kolkhoz farm, which is today situated in the area of Gruzenka. Fear still grips me, when I think about what we had to go through, how much our Mum had to suffer! For in December 1941 they came for our Dad – he was mobilized into the labour army. Grandma and Mum wee left behind with all the children, which still tied to mother’s apron strings. In 1942 another girl was born to the family in Gruzenka. They gave us accomodation in some unheatable little house. Mother gave me and my sister a little linen bag, and then we set off to beg for alms.
Some people were very kindhearted, they gave us bread and potatoes; others chased us away calling us fascists and shouting swearwords at us.
Then our three year old brother and our little sister who had just completed the first year of her life died of hunger. They were buried at the cemetery of Gruzenka without coffin. According to Mum’s account, we lived in Gruzenka for four years. Then we removed to the village of Kamenka, which does not exist anymore. During the night Mum was working as a dairymaid and herdswoman, in the daytime she was working in other jobs in different places. My sisiter and I were sweeping the floors of the kolkhoz office and did the cleanout at school; our brother had a job as an unskilled worker. At night Mum visited the place, where they used to bury the cattle, and took home the meat of perished cows and horses. This is what she fed us with, so that we would not starve. One horrible incident was engraved in our child minds, which still causes a crying fit with me. I clearly recall this incident. Mum grew seriously ill, she had a high temperature. The kolkhoz manager, Dmitriy Andreevich Ustinov, told her to come to the office to see him. She went there and explained that she was unable to work this day. Her reply enraged the manager and he began to beat her by means of a whip. When they brought Mum home, her body was all blood-splattered; she had to stay in bed for more than a month’s time. We were sitting around her crying all the time. There was nothing to say about. Just keep silent and cry your heart out.”
So many decades later it is hard to find an explanation for what might have caused such an unhuman, brutal punishment; but it makes us glad at the same time that such terrible, weird memories now do not exist anymore with most of the Germans who lived in the Balakhta District. It is just the opposite: many of those who were children and minors at the time the war was on, have more pleasant memories of that time.
Heinrich Heinrichovich Schmidt:
„First of all I would like to mention – and my parents fully agreed with my opinion – that there were no signs of discrimination towards us from the part of the local residents. During the first time the native Sibverians even helped us, the newcomers, to look for a place to stay and supplied us with warm clothed and foodstuffs.
And then, all of a sudden, I was an adolescent, who was frolicing around with the other children of the village. It would not have occurred to anybody to ask about someone’s nationality. The people went to work, celebrated all festivities together and everyone shared in everybody else’s joys and troubles”.
However, the locals did not always show a friendly attitude towards the deported Germans. And this is easily explained: the country was at war against a people representing this very nationality. Very first death notives of killed soldiers had already reached the village. Apart from this, the local residents of this poor Siberian village lived in needy circumstances themselves, and now the population yet increased due to these newcomers! A fact that crowned it all! For the resettlers had to live somewhere, they had to be fed at least during the first time of their stay in their new place of residence.
Friedrich Friedrichovich Wamboldt recalls:
„When they brought the German families to Tryasuchaya, all local residents came running out of their houses to see what we looked like. With my own ears I heard them say: “Would you believe that! You look just the same as we do; you are wearing trousers and shirts, as well! And we thought you have a lot of – wool and horns!”
They did not allow us to attend school; they teased us, gave offence to us. All the time they were calling us: “Fritzes! Fritzes!”
We had no right to leave the village and were forced to get checked and registerd with the commandant’s office every month –until 1956. During the first three years we were not even allocated a pieceof land. We exchanged our clothes against foodstuffs and dressed in garments made of sackcloth. In order to just have something to eat, we collected ears from the fields, which had been left behind after the grain harvesting”.
The procurement of housing was one of the most serious problems.
The Fooses and another eight families found accomodation in the village of Tryasuchaya, in the building where the former bakery had been housed. Nowadays, it is really difficult to imagine the circumstances and conditions of that time, but that is the way it was.
The Germans had many children. The following families were resettled in the village of Tryasuchaya:
The Foos family: Heinrich Heinrichovich, Maria Karlovna, their children – Maria, Irma, Amalia, Mina, Andrei, Katerina and Emma.
The Wamboldt family: Friedrich Friedrichovich, Maria Christoforovna, their children: Maria, Friedrich, Irma and Volodia.
The Fritzler family: Katerina Petrovna and her children – Emilia, Aleksander, August and Maria.
Soonafter, the heads of the families and all minor children as from the age of 15 were called up into the labour army. Mothers and their little children were left behind. In order to have a chance to survive, the children had to be called in early to help to earn their living. Nobody was talking about sending them to school or let them serve an apprenticeship.
“When I was nine years old, they took me, my parents, brothers and sisters to the settlement of Ugolny in the Balakhta District. We found accomodation in a big house togetehr with several other repressed families. I was attending school for a few months only: when the cold season set in, I had to forget about going to school – I had no warm clothes. I do not know, how we actually survived, for we were permanently suffering from hunger. Sometimes, we had no alternative but to hunt ground squirrels, in order to have something to eat. One time, my brother and myself had to go to the neighbouring village to exchange Mum’s skirt against potatoes. It was bitterly cold; it was touch and go that we had frozen to death. Our lives were saved by a miracle”.
At the age of 12 Irma began to help her mother to milk the cows on the farm; when she was 16 she became a milkmaid with equal rights – the entire herd of cattle had complete confidence in her.
It is small wonder that now, since we are talking to the aged Germans living in the Balakhta District and the village of Balakhta, find out that they are illiterate persons, who do not know more letters than those needed to spell or write their surnames. Thus, they are at least able to sign papers. But they can neither read nor write. Their childhood and youth were poisoned by humiliations, insults, hunger, hard labourm, the loss of relatives, separation (often forever) from their fathers, their elder brothers and sisters, and the lack of possibilities to go to school and get an appropriate education. However, these children and minors of past war days made an enormous contribution to the economic development of the region, starting with the 1940s and going far into the 1990s.
Unfortunately, we are not in a position to illustrate our paperwork by photographs: as we mentioned on the first pages, the people were chased away from their home villages without having enough time to pack up important documents and family pictures.
All photographs kept by our interlocutors today, were already taken in the presence.