Volga Children in Bethel

This is a link to an article entitled: “Wolgakinder in Bethel” by Hildegard Kuhlemann.  This article appeared in the 2004 edition of the Jahrbuch für Westfälische Kirchengeschichte. It details the orphaned children that were assisted by the German charity known as Bethel…documnting their trip from Russia to German in the 1920’s.

Hildegard alerted me to the link where her article is available in pdf form.

 

 

List Of Volga German Refugees: Minsk to Frankfurt/Oder Dec. 9, 1922

Here is the list of Volga German refugees that travelled from Minsk to Frankfurt/Oder Germany, on December 12, 1922.

This is the original list, as published in the German newspaper: “Der Wolgadeutsche”.

The Journal of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia (AHSGR) published a complete english translation in the 1982 Spring & Summer editions.  Those are available at their web site here.

Clemens Blatt: Report of the Visit to the Heimkehrlager at Frankfurt/Oder Aug 1924

Report of a Visit to the Heimkehrlager at Frankfurt at the Oder

 

By Raymond Ullmann, member of the Executive Committee of the Catholic Welfare Service for Russia.

(Translated by Hugh Lichtenwald from Clemens Blatt: 1 August 1924)

 

Homecoming Camp Frankfurt at the Oder: The place of refugees of our beloved compatriots who have fled the hearth and home of their native land in Russia. Whose heart is not stirred to some extent and will not admit to sympathy for the path these refugees have chosen and the dying and suffering of our brothers and sisters? And at the same time filled with admiration for all their strength, perserverance, courage and stamina that they put forth daily in the struggle with every emerency and renunciation?

  There is perhaps nowhere as right here an abundance of material required by the historian for a tale of woe about the refugees from Russia. Future generations will probably place a laurel wreath here where they are resting in their final sleep in the cemetery of the Homecoming Camp, and in this quiet place they will rest forgotten in the two hemispheres of the world.

  But the purpose of my article is not to write the above mantioned history or to collect material for it, but only to clearly describe my last visit to the Homecoming Camp which I undertook on behalf of the Catholic Welfare Service with Rev. Fr. Alois Kappes who recently arrived from Russia and wanted to see “his people,” the dear children, previously of his Parish, to greet them, to bless and encourage them in the struggle for their existance and their future.