The Widow's Trail of Tears from Eichenfeld to Adelsheim
.
A Litany for a Memorial Service by John W. Martens
presented by the author on September 25, 1997
on board the MS Viktor Glushkov on the Mennonite Heritage Cruise


.Part One - The Lament of Katharina
.

Site of mass graves at Eichenfeld
.
The August before last my first-born, Wilhelm, died in Odessa. In "Sanitätsdienst" caring for those with typhus he fell claim to that dread affliction. He died alone, by the Black Sea, far from family and friends. Now Wilhelm, my husband is no more, his ravaged body, lying naked on the cold, wet ground by the straw stack, washed by last night's rain. My second son, Peter, he too died last night, on his thirtieth birthday. He lies naked by the second straw stack. My third son, Heinrich, by the third straw stack, dead at twenty-one. We cannot even grant them dignity of burial!

.
With forty-four sisters who also suffered my fate, our hearts broken, our spirits crushed, our bodies bruised, our womanhood violated, some of our number infected with social disease, our children pale with fear, hearts filled with terror from the carnage they have seen, we struggle on to Adelsheim. We have no home, our families torn asunder, we go we know not where.

Oh God! How much more must we endure? Take us to yourself we pray. Our anguished souls can bear the burden of this life no longer! Oh Lord, have mercy on us.

In this vast and fertile land of steppe and Dnieper, much and much more inhumanity is yet to come. Five to seven million native sons and daughters of this beautiful, bountiful land - a lingering death by starvation, a fate yet worse than Eichenfeld. And tens of millions more in Stalin's satanic grip as the Yavarnitski Reparation Exhibit so graphically attests: 1941 alone 1,560,000 dead. That is all of Manitoba and half of Saskatchewan, all in one year!

One hundred thousand at Babi Yar and tens of millions more in lands both East and West by Hitler's hand from hell. The victims of Yalta escaped and were then betrayed by those who knew not what they did. Hunger, cold, fear, despair, and psyches forever scarred - or else death. Is there no hope? Is there no hope!

Indeed there is! Hope and healing and strength to carry on even in the most horrible of times. In the thickets now covering the mass graves at Eichenfeld there lies the symbol of that hope. A wooden cross, once white, its history we may never know, its base decayed, is hugging the leaf-laden soil.

.

Part Two - A Prayer

We thank you God, for that hope and sustaining strength
for the faith of our ancestors
for deliverance and healing.
.
We thank you God, for glasnost and perestroika and Ostpolitik
for the fall of the Berlin Wall
for the collapse of the Curtain of Iron
for the reconciliation of nations of East and West.
.
We thank you God, that we can make this pilgrimage
without any fear of the KGB.
We thank you God, for the freedom and the joy
expressed by the Gerlitsa folk singers
who launched us on this great adventure,
our first night on the mighty Dnieper,
and for the freedom from fear and the freedom from want
so many of us now know.
.
We thank you God for the soul-mate attitude of our leaders and guides,
for their patience, understanding and sensitivity with us and our varied quests,
sometimes for intense private moments,
in this rich rhapsodic symphony of soul experience
that has been the last eight days.
.
For the bonding that has happened among us,
without regard to ethnic or church affiliation, age or gender.
We thank you God for your redeeming and enduring love
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
For healing and sustenance and peace.
.
The horrors of Machno and Stalin and Hitler have come and gone
but the love of God endures forever. Amen.
.
John. W. Martens
on the Dnieper
September 25, 1997
.
Notes

The references in this litany of sorrow and despair, hope and joy and thanksgiving are factual. The foregoing was part of the Mennonite Heritage Cruise Memorial 1997 Service on the Dnieper, September 25,1997, about four hours downstream fiom Zaporozhye and was composed on the M.S. Viktor Glushkov. The person speaking in the first part is Katharina Krahn Harder (1868.01 .25-1939.09.03) based on the writings (Esther Patkau, 1980: A family album; Patkau/Harder) and interviews with her daughters Katharina Harder Patkau and Helena Harder who experienced most of the tragedy and the walk to Adelsheim with their mother. Katharina Krahn Harder's eldest son died in the "Sanitätsdienst" in Odessa (1917.08.06); her husband and two other sons died on October 26, 1919,along with over 80 others at the hands of Machno's irregulars in the village of Eichenfeld, Yazykovo Colony. The walk from Eichenfeld to Adelsheim on the morning of October 27 included about 45 widows and 200 orphans.

The Heritage Cruise group that went to Yazykovo (97.09.22) actually visited the mass grave site, found the white wooden cross and drove the trail from Eichenfeld to Adelsheim. They also interviewed a 95-year old resident of Eichenfeld, Safron Tretyak, who was able to recall in clear detail the everts of October 1919. His account of events agreed very closely with the accounts of Katharina and Helena Harder.

(In 1998 John Martens returned on the cruise and led a memorable "Widows Walk" from Eichenfeld to Adelsheim. The weather was bright and the group traversed the 2 kilometres quickly. John has since joined the cruise as a Resource Leader in September 2001 and continues as a valuable cruise professional. The "Widows Walk", now part of authenticated Mennonite historical folklore, has been re-enacted on several occasions.

The references to Hitler and Stalin were triggered by the group's visit to Babi Yar (97.09.19) in Kiev and to the Dmitri Yavarnitski Reparation Exhibit in Dnepropetrovsk (97.09.24). Ostpolitik refers to the initiatives of former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt who negotiated the beginning of mass migration of German-speaking persons, including Mennonites, from the former USSR to Germany, a movement still in progress. Glasnost and perestroika refer to Gorbachev's policies of beginning the opening up of the former Soviet Union. Yalta refers to the 1944 Yalta Conference and an agreement between Stalin, Roosevelt aid Churchill that led to the forced repatriation of many Soviet citizens including many thousands of Mennonites who had fled to western Europe during War II.

John W. Martens of Victoria, BC is the son of Helena Harder Martens and the grandson of Katharina Krahn Harder. He can be contacted by E-Mail.

See also Eichenfeld Grave List
See also Gerhard Christian Hamm - my father, by Marguerite Bergman

Return to main Cruise page