USA. Faith Mennonite Fellowship: www.LottMennonite.org : Meetings: About Us: Contact: Map: Podcasts: Audio: Live . The economics of genocide continued to link Ukraines Mennonite colonies with the Holocaust: Himmler ordered that clothes and household goods taken from Jews in Auschwitz and Lublin be sent to Halbstadt, Chortitza, and other settlements. 3. To use this feature, use a newer browser. Understanding Hamms wartime activities also helps to clarify the significance of Mennonite Central Committees European refugee operations. Long-lost datebooks of Holocaust architect Heinrich Himmler from 1943 through the end of the Second World War have recently resurfaced and been published. Please complete the captcha to let us know you are a real person. Notizen ber die Unterredung des Reichsfhrers SS Heinrich Himmler mit dem Verteter der Rulanddeutchen in der Ukraine, Sdruland, Professor Dr. Benjamin Heinrich Unruh, Karlsruhe/Baden, an Sylvester 1943 im Hauptquartier Himmlers, in dessen Wohnwagen, n.d., Nachla Benjamin Unruh, box 2, folder 7, MFS. We are excited that Jesus is still changing lives! You need a Find a Grave account to continue. Quick action by Mennonite churchmen ensured that by 1939, members were once again admitted to the SS clan community, albeit with some suspicion. In a very literal sense, Hamm was MCC, a paid employee and spokesperson. to try again. Chapel Hill Mennonite Fellowship - FaithStreet 26. The rewards of studying Hamms complete wartime trajectorynot just what he wanted others to learn afterwardsare substantial. Below are some key data points from the Exempt Organization IRS Business Master File (BMF) for this organization. 15. The author was unsparing in his conviction about whom to blame: This is how the Jewish Bolshevik beasts destroyed German families [during communist times]. When Bolshevism emerged victorious, Hamm lost his farm near the Ukrainian city of Zaporozhe. Peter Longerich, Heinrich Himmler: A Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 533, 537. 27. Hamms letter came to the attention of the leadership of Germanys two largest church conferences via Benjamin Unruh to Vereinigung and Verband, October 18, 1943, Vereinigung, box 3, folder: Briefw. Change). We care for creation and all of Earths inhabitants, and we strengthen our connections to them. Currently, we require either an Accountability & Finance beacon or an Impact & Results beacon to be eligible for a Charity Navigator rating. Letters and material goods soon arrived both for the Hamms and other Mennonites in the area. Faith Mennonite Fellowship Company Profile | Lott, TX | Competitors One path is to ask why this story has not been widely told until now. Tracking Heinrich Hamm and his wartime activities has taught me that catching a Mennonite Nazi is hard work. Eight months later, the director of a Mennonite Central Committee refugee camp in Gronau, near the Dutch border, invited Hamm to be his deputy. Get directions on Google Maps. Biblical Mennonite Alliance - GAMEO Cart ID: Not Assigned, Copyright 2023 | EIN 13-4148824 | Bridge ID 3108588923, Total Revenue and Expenses - No Data Available, Salary of Key Persons - No Data Available, IRS Published Data (Business Master File) - Data Available, Data Sources (IRS Forms 990) - Data Available, How to Donate Food and Prevent Food Waste. Your new password must contain one or more uppercase and lowercase letters, and one or more numbers or special characters. This book describes the emergence of the Amish-Mennonites as a movement separate from the Old Order Amish, beginning in the 1860s. loading and try your donation again. Faith Mennonite Crawford - YouTube 531 Raleigh Rd. This invitation came on the recommendation of an SS officer and longtime scholar of Mennonites named Karl Gtz, whom Himmler planned to install as the head of the Overseas Department of the Ethnic German Office after the war. The head of Germanys largest Mennonite conference reported on the rejection of this marriage by Himmler: The communication of the decision landed like a bomb in the ministerial assembly in Kalthof on June 16, 1938, especially since numerous respected members of the Mennonite ministry wear the swastika on their breast with pride and joy as [Nazi] Party members. Emil Hndiges to Daniel Dettweiler, Benjamin Unruh, Ernst Crous, Abraham Braun, and Gustav Reimer, June 23, 1938, Vereinigung, box 2, folder: Briefw. Given the repression of Christianity in the Soviet Union in the proceeding decades, perhaps the author no longer identified with what had likely been his childhood faith. Hamm reported that he and fellow refugees from Ukraine had been well received in Wartheland: Upon arrival, we experienced unexpected love and a moving reception. You are welcome to join us Sundays at 9:30am here at church or via Zoom! There was a problem getting your location. Faith Mennonite Fellowship (Lott, Texas, USA) - GAMEO Closer inspection reveals Hamm was neither a lowly laborer nor does he seem to have opposed war profiteering that actually did occur in Epps factory. Until Unruh received his invitation to visit Himmler in November 1942, he had been trying unsuccessfully through civilian channels to receive permission to travel to Nazi-occupied Ukraine to meet with Mennonite coreligionists. I and my family came to a camp Preussisch-Stargard in the Danzig area. Most published literature I had read about Mennonites in Ukraine claimed that they had not been particularly antisemitic. Hamm continued working in Dnepropetrovsk after the Nazi invasion of 1941. Uncountable, nameless dead No one asked who they were, where they came from, nothing was recorded.15 One wonders about the goal of this private postwar accounting. Faith Mennonite Fellowship | Charity Navigator Profile And what about Berg herself? 1943, MFS. [1] Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate, or jump to a slide with the slide dots. 1943, MFS. Gtz, who had known Unruh since 1934, apparently tried to establish a meeting between Unruh and Himmler for November 1941. Hamm emphasized his gratitude for the comfort he found during these lean times through worshiping with fellow Mennonite refugees and other Christians. Temporarily housed near the city of Litzmannstadt in the wartime Wartheland province, Hamm wrote to a contact well connected with other Mennonites across the Third Reich. By using this site, you agree to its use of cookies. We seek ways to promote peace and justice and to strengthen our relationship with our Seward neighborhood. When people are invested in and benefit from the status quo, they care more about maintaining the status quo than the price others have to pay in order for their interests to continue. The highest importance was placed on the resettlement, he reported, which should be executed very generously.21, Unruh welcomed Himmlers vision of bringing thousands of Mennonites from the Americas for colonization in Eastern Europe, alongside other German-speakers from locations as far-flung as Palestine and Italy. See for example Hans Werner, Integration in Two Cities: A Comparative History of Protestant Ethnic German Immigrants in Winnipeg, Canada and Bielefeld, Germany, 1947-1989 (PhD diss., University of Manitoba, 2002), 111-112. Hamm coordinated this aid, disbursing dozens of food packets from North America to fellow refugees. See Marlene Epp, Women Without Men: Mennonite Refugees of the Second World War (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000), 218; Elizabeth Heineman, The Hour of the Woman: Memories of Germanys Crisis Years and West German National Identity, American Historical Review 101, no. Franz Harder to Deutsches Ausland-Institut, Forschungsstelle Danzig des DAI, and Kurt Kauenhowen, October 10, 1943, German Captured Documents Collection, reel 290, LoC. Quoted in Diether Gtz Lichdi, Mennoniten im Dritten Reich (Bolanden-Weierhof: Mennonitischer Geschichtsverein, 1977), 141. Would you come with me? Benjamin Unruh to Abraham Braun, February 23, 1944, Nachla Benjamin Unruh, box 4, folder 21, MFS. In one photo he wore some semblance of a uniform which I came to realze placed him as a member of what was known as the Sudeten Volks FreiKorp, which was a Partisan organization that created havoc for the Czechs and even carried out assassinations and acts of sabotage. After the fall of the Third Reich, she had incentives to downplay former links to Nazism and instead to emphasize her own suffering. Himmlers meetings with Hitler yielded a bevy of new ordinances for Ukraine. In 2012, my post said I love this picture! Note: The absence of a rating does not indicate a positive or negative assessment; it only indicates that we have not yet evaluated this organization. 135, November 19, 1941, R 58/219, Bundesarchiv, Berlin, Germany. It reminds me of my Grandma Toews (who wasnt a midwife, but the demeanor and appearance seem similar). Unruhs separation from Berg and the other Mennonites in Ukraine had lasted for two decades. Pennsylvania, In a nutshell, each host church in FFH provides a safe, consistent place for families to stay and rest while they save money and focus on obtaining permanent housing . Home Page [lottmennonite.org] His report to Nazi officials mentioned other people with names common among Mennonites, but the document referred only to Ethnic Germans, not to Mennonites explicitly. 8. Why Aren't Donated Clothes Always Given Away for Free? Information about your use of this site is shared with Google. Himmler himself would soon make an appearance. It subsequently appeared in print as Heinrich Hamm, Die Umsiedlung der Volksdeutschen aus Dnjepropetrowsk im September 1943, Nachrichtenblatt des Sippenverbands Danziger Mennoniten-Famlien 8 (December 1943): 3-4. This photo was not uploaded because this cemetery already has 20 photos, This photo was not uploaded because you have already uploaded 5 photos to this cemetery. All are welcome. It is unfortunate that this article misses an important ironyHimmler celebrate[d] Berg as a midwife, who brought over 8,000 Ethnic German children into this restless world' when in reality, as Marlene Epps research has shown, Mennonite midwives also recorded delivering the babies of their non-Mennonite neighbours. His embrace of Mennonites in Ukraine during the Second World War, conversely, stemmed from a new belief that members blood could prove valuable for the new Aryan order that the Nazis hoped to build in Eastern Europe. I doubt that there were few inEurope who came away from WWII unscathed. I suspect many if not most of us under the terrifying cultural and political forces of Nazism would act in self-interest and contrary to our own convictions. EphrataPA | IRS ruling year: 1986 | EIN: 23-2326017. While Unruh intended to contact Himmler about the matter, it is unclear whether the SS chief ultimately interceded. The author of this letter was clearly a Mennonite. I wonder if Mennonites today feel the weight of their tainted history or if they feel any responsibility to reconcile that history with their stated beliefs. Himmler and other leading Nazis saw these local people as a master race that had previously been repressed by Jews and communists under Soviet rule. Some Mennonite families in Ukraine had also moved into houses made available by the murder of previous Jewish residents. In the winter of early 1945, Soviet air raids wrought havoc on nearby large cities like Danzig, driving city dwellers to the countryside even as others arrived pell-mell from the east. Living Water was started in 1994 as a outreach church of Faith Mennonite Fellowship located in Denver, Pa. 1937 Jul-Dez., MFS. Unruh pressed Mennonites case as part of two delegations to the Nazi Party headquarters in Munich.7 Such efforts contributed to a ruling that Mennonites can also be members of the NSDAP.8 Yet issues persistently arose, especially opposition in various Reich services to exempt Mennonites from swearing oaths. But wartime records do not corroborate this story. We believe in supporting our immigrant neighbors, and currentlysponsor and support two refugee families. 24. Himmler insisted on both unusual blood purity and intense ideological commitment from female as well as male members of his SS clan community. In 1938, he clearly felt that The foundations of the Mennonite sect are in no way reconcilable with the worldview of the Schutzstaffel.11 Yet four years later, he had amended his position. 19. Stevens, Lancaster County, It is also clear that after the war, Hamm tried to distance himself from this responsibility. All are welcome! 3 (1954): 162-168. They abandoned Berg and the other residents of the home for the elderly. Himmler met Berg during a six-day tour of southeastern Ukraine that spanned late October and early November 1942. Over three days at the Hochwald bunker in East Prussia from December 31, 1942 to January 2, 1943, Himmler dined or otherwise conferred with Unruh on six occasions. 11 For instance, a handwritten remark on a letter from Franz Harder to the German Foreign Institute identified Hamm as a confidant of Karl Stumpp, who led a Dnepropetrovsk-based commando of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories. It had a pantheon of deities that included Donar/Thunar, Wuotan/Wodan, Frouwa/Frua, Balder/Phol/Baldag, and others shared with northern Germanic paganism. On December 31, 1942, Himmler met at 2:30pm with Werner Lorenz, Horst Hoffmeyer, Benjamin Unruh, Konrad Meyer, Heinrich Wiepking-Jrgensmann, and Herman Wirth. They lived in or near Dnepropetrovsk (1941-3), Litzmannstadt (1943), Stutthof (1944-5), several refugee camps in Denmark (1945-6), Birkenfeld (1946-7), and Gronau (1947-8). Since 1942, Harder had been helping Hamm to compile a genealogical list proving his Aryan ancestrya document useful for Hamms wartime employment in Nazi-occupied Ukraine as well as his eventual application for German citizenship. Denver, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, USA, Stevens, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, USA, Ephrata, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, USA, Drag images here or select from your computer. Hamm signed other documents on MCCs behalf while working at the Gronau refugee camp. Conservative Mennonites - Wikipedia This account already exists, but the email address still needs to be confirmed. The reach of the far right is often longer than we think. As this article and many others are now uncovering, Mennonites of the Ukraine welcomed the Nazi occupation of Ukraine, collaborated with them and benefited greatly from that relationship. Guessing when a historical person may not have been telling the truth requires familiarity with what scholars have already written. One of Mennonite Central Committees star witnesses was a refugee named Heinrich Hamm. The Ethnic German Office provided her with a cow and a house in Halbstadt, and when the SS evacuated this colony to a more westerly part of Ukraine in 1943, officers found a new house for Berg. Benjamin Unruh to Emil Hndiges, November 18, 1943, Vereinigung, box 3, folder: Briefw. But he disparaged complainers as racial dregs. Himmler, Der Dienstkalender, 603-604. The email does not appear to be a valid email address. April 1942, quoted in Benjamin Unruh, Nachrichten aus Ruland, May 22, 1942, Nachla Christian Neff, folder: Briefwechsel 1942, MFS. The SS began evacuating German settlers in 1943. This elderly woman told Unruh of her great joy in being liberated from Soviet rule. Please wait a few minutes and try again. By the time Poland expelled her to western Germany in mid-1946, Berg had little incentive to talk about Himmler, dead for over a year.27 Yet she appreciated renewed contact with dear, good Beny.28. It has included influential leaders within the Mennonite denomination, including in its best-known humanitarian aid organization, MCC. Benjamin Unruh to Gerhard Hein, July 25, 1943, Vereinigung, box 3, folder: Briefw. We recognize that not all metrics and beacons equally predict a charitys success. The 1943 letter convinced me that Heinrich Hamm was not only a practicing Mennonite; he was a denominational leader. Faith Mennonite Fellowship cannot currently be evaluated by our Culture & Community methodology because we have not received data from the charity regarding its Constituent Feedback or Equity Practices strategies.Note: The absence of a score does not indicate a positive or negative assessment, it only indicates that we have not yet evaluated the organization. A gulf looms between what we believe we know about peaceful Mennonites in the twenty-first century and what historians have begun revealing about the entanglement of a substantial minority within that same community with National Socialism during the 1930s and 40s. Gerhard Wolfrum to Benjamin Unruh, February 28, 1944, Nachla Ernst Crous, folder: Briefw. 17. Ibid., 277-281. Our goal is to show [] Himmlers meeting with Benjamin Unruh two months later concerned plans to import Germans from abroad and to murder or expel other peoples so that much of southeastern Ukraine would be a pure German territory along the lines of the Halbstadt colony. The building was in need of renovations and we are slowly getting the . 2 (2010): 275-278. When German armies invaded the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941, they discovered hundreds of thousands of German speakers living in Ukraine, including some 35,000 Mennonites. From late 1941 through mid-1942, Himmler enthusiastically read the reports of his functionaries as they murdered Jews and distributed aid to German speakers like Helene Berg. On Unruhs meeting with Himmler, see Benjamin W. Goossen, Chosen Nation: Mennonites and Germany in a Global Era (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017), 147-156. 13. I went to a book I own and to my old posts on Facebook to find the picture I posted there in 2012 of who I think is the same midwife, and that I now see Brent Wiebe posted above. Like tens of thousands of other Mennonites who had experienced the Nazi occupation of Eastern Europe, Hamm was from Soviet Ukraine, and he had retreated westward with German troops in 1943 to avoid again coming under communist rule as Stalins Red Army advanced. Meanwhile, he redoubled efforts to ensure the region would be totally Germanized, that is, totally settled.22, Nazi losses on the eastern front thwarted Himmlers dreams for a racial Gotengau in southeastern Ukraine. Indeed, Hamms wartime writings show that he considered his support for the most heinous crimes of Hitlers state to be directly related to his own efforts to aid fellow Mennonites. By early 1944, Hamm and his wife, Anna, had moved from the formerly Jewish summer camp near Litzmannstadt to the coastal town of Stutthof, two hundred miles to the north. Also, FCMF will no longer be a hosting church, but we will remain a supporting church for FFH. FIRST TIME GUESTS What to expect We welcome you to join us for worship, the heart of our life together at Faith Mennonite Church. There was no difference in the way these various national groups were treated.2. An Invitation To Faith: The Mennonite Fellowship| John Andrew Hostetler [M]uch, much blood of innocent women and children flowed on Epps land, Hamm told his sons. Unruh made his first financial donation to the SS in 1933, but another decade would pass before he met in person with the notorious head of this violent organization.4 During this period, Unruh chose to remain stateless, never applying for German citizenship, which he felt might harm his ability to advocate for downtrodden Soviet Mennonites on the international stage.5 He became the official representative in Germany of several major denominational aid organization abroad. 4 Martha Biehle to Herbert Emerson, August 9, 1946, AJ/43/31, AN. You're faster than our page! Berg herself reported meeting with an Einsatzgruppe member (Among the first Germans [to arrive during the 1941 invasion] was SS-Mann [Heinrich] Wiens, originally from Muntau [Molotschna], who must once have been your student.), and she deployed casual antisemitism in her correspondence with Unruh. We worship online and in-person. Update 6/7/2020. Ruling of NSDAP Kreisgericht Celle I, May 12, 1938, quoted in Goossen, A Small World Power, 204. About Us - Rochester Mennonite Fellowship Laureen Harder-Gissing provided documents for this essay, specifically. This means families will not be staying in our church, but we will be providing food and . Emil Hndiges to Benjamin Unruh, Ernst Crous, and Abraham Braun, August 17, 1943, Vereinigung, box 3, folder: Briefw. English Faith Mennonite Church - Minneapolis, MN | Minneapolis MN - Facebook Five years later, Hamm had become an MCC employee, helping to run a large refugee camp in occupied Germany. His use of the word gassing suggests this possibility, since bodies of refugees could have been cremated, whereas exhausted Jews would have been gassed. Hamm later expressed regret for the death and dying that pervaded the Epp factory in Stutthof. Mennonite privilege. Live - lottmennonite.org Was Hamm helping himself forget about Jews worked to the bone in Epps factory by recalling refugees he and Epp tried to save? The precipitating case concerned a proposed marriage between SS member Heinrich Krger and a Mennonite woman, Erika Driedger.
