[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Volhynia 19-teens and voluntary movement

[Richard Benert]

My computer has been in the hospital for almost a week, so I've missed all the
recent messages relating to the 1915 "deportation".  With regard to Edie Adam's
question about people voluntarily leaving Volhynia, it is true that her family
was not unique in doing this.  I don't think anyone knows how many left Volhynia
for the "east" voluntarily, but restrictions on buying land and rent increases
no doubt compelled some people to try their luck in Siberia or in central
European Russia.

There have been questions about WHEN the deportations started.  It is true that
they began in Poland in the fall of 1914 (the war began in August), but
proceeded sporadically until the generals and governors met in January, 1915, to
establish firm rules and guidelines.  In February, the Governor General of
Poland ordered the deportation of all German colonists from his region, setting
a February 20 deadline.  But it wasn't until June 12 that General Ianushkevich
ordered the expulsion of German colonists from Volhynia.  It then proceeded over
the course of the next month, as the war front moved eastwards.

Any stories of people being forced out of their homes before June or July, 1915,
are of great interest, and they must represent some special cases.  Eric Lohr
points out that Russian military commanders and civil officials were quite fond
of expelling individuals whom they considered security risks, and this began
happening as soon as the war began.  Germans (and others) were sometimes
denounced as "spies" by anyone bearing a grudge and sent to the interior, and
their property sequestered. or expropriated.  Whether this might apply to the
cases of "deportation" before 1915 I have no idea.

There's another possibility, of course.  The human memory is sometimes faulty,
as I think we'd all admit.  Virginia, the date of 1913 for some of your family's
departure for Kaluga is a bit suspicious, since the story (as you've related it)
has the two men conscripted "immediately" upon arrival there because of the
German-Russian conflict "that had just broken out".  But the war did not begin
until August, 1914.  They may well have been conscripted in 1913, but if the
war's having broken out already is part of the story, then I think the 1913 date
could be an error.  This would still leave the problem, though, of why they
would have been forced to leave, say, 9 months before most Volhynians.

In response to Mike McHenry, no, unfortunately, there is no history of the
deportations in English.  An attempt has been made in German (in the Wolhynische
Hefte, numbers 3,4 and 5, in the 1980s, but it's very sketchy and is based on
individual family stories, which at this point is about all we've got to go on.
Someone who knows Russian has to get into the archives over there, and also read
contemporary accounts in Russian newspapers and in the records of the various
relief agencies, if they still exist.  This isn't likely to happen tomorrow.
But have I mentioned "A Whole Empire Walking", by Peter Gatrell?  This recent
(1999) book is the only account in English of the whole refugee problem in WW I
Russia, and it's very interesting, if somewhat "scholarly".  Our Germans were
but a drop in the bucket of possibly 5-7 million homeless people contending for
care, space and jobs in central and eastern Russia.

Dick Benert
----- Original Message -----
From: "E.Adam" <ejadam at yahoo.com>
To: <ger-poland-volhynia at eclipse.sggee.org>
Sent: Monday, July 05, 2004 3:44 PM
Subject: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Volhynia 19-teens and voluntary movement


> Hello: Having read now of the forced resettlement in 1915, I wonder if anyone
else has
> knowledge/experience with Volhynian Germans voluntarily leaving?
>
> My great-grandfather, as the story goes, was among a group of Germans in
Volhynia who purchased
> land in Russia proper and founded a couple German villages around 1910. They
moved near Bryansk
> and Zhisdra; he and several others (including a Repsch) founded a village
called
> Chromolin/Chromily that continued to exist at least until 1941; the German
army stumbled across
> the villages there and were surprised to find Germans, whom they sent west.
Coincidentally back
> into the area they came from in Ukraine/Volhynia. That was near Shitomir and
Annette.
>
> He was David Adam; I believe he left at least nephews and nieces (children of
brother Johann Adam)
> in Volhynia when he took his family and left for Russia. David was already in
his 50s.
>
> Thanks!
> Edie Adam
> ejadam at yahoo.com
>
>
>
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