Mennonites at War: The Aussiedler
Andrea Klassen, Guest Author
Senior Curator, MHV Johann and Katherina Janzen received this medal (accession no. 2010.3.1) for the 100th anniversary of Podolsk, their village in the former Mennonite settlement of Orenburg, Russia. The two world wars resulted in extreme turmoil for the Janzens, which continued for many decades. The Janzens were forcibly relocated and conscripted to work in a Soviet coal mine during the Second World War until 1953. They were finally able to return to Podolsk in 1954. (Credit: Jerry Grajewski, Grajewski Fotograph Inc.)
A couple weeks ago, we explored how war, violence, and the threat of military participation shaped the first three waves of Mennonite migration to Canada. We ended the column by asking what happened to those Mennonites who remained behind in the Soviet Union. As you may recall, our narrative of Mennonite migrations to Canada ended with the statistic that 35,000 Mennonites were evacuated out of