THROUGH THE RED GATE Documentary

[Music] our most profound stories sometimes come to light in the humblest of circumstances this time a suburban Canadian attic in 1989 and the discovery of an old and long-forgotten box its contents however so remarkable they would change the course of one man's life and forever alter our perception of the past Oh Papa is so sick he can no longer get up if our dear Papa should die what will become of us more than 700 letters dating back to the 1930s now finally given voice their haunting story a largely untold tragedy of near epic proportions our beta is still not to be found lisa has frozen her feet if we do not soon get help and we are staring death in the face written in German gothic script on scraps of paper now faded and fragile the letters are a powerful testament to the incarceration of millions of people many of the Mennonites in the notorious Russian gulag I cannot describe how II have already vet for our son thousands of tears have already flowed from his dear mother's eyes a shocking real-life account of one of the darkest and most defining chapters in the history of the Mennonite people in the late 1780s Russia's rich and fertile land was a dream come true for the road-weary Mennonites not only had they escaped the poverty and persecution of Western Europe they had arrived in a country full of promise and promises in return for settling the land they were granted self-government and freedom of religion and since pacifism was a cornerstone of the Mennonite faith they received exception from Russia's military service for generation upon generation the Mennonites thrived in their new home growing their abundant crops cultivating their flourishing communities the colonies grew both in industrial strength and farming methods and institutional infrastructures that were set up they built schools they built everything that was necessary for a prosperous life and the Mennonites became known as a very industrious successful farming agricultural people peter bargain was born in russia in 1922 peace and prosperity had given way to civil war and famine some Mennonites chose to leave the country but for Peter and his family the close-knit community of tiga was home everybody knew everybody everybody knew everybody's business if something somebody sneeze at one end of the village you too know it on the other end type of thing because there is no communication line like the gossip line and that was very prominent people knew each other and many were related Peters cousin Maria lived in the neighboring community of Alta now they were both over five hundred people in our village it was not very big but it was a very nice place you know and the children there I mean didn't have any choice but in winter what we did we played in bad they are free had about dozen cows and and horses more horses yet and you know he had only one lantern at the front and then we played hide music we were lying on the cows running under the horses who we had so much fun when we were finished you are sitting and Abad and were eating they called it my cuca that was sad floors were pressed and there were pieces and there was this the shells and and just a little bit of that inside they had it for food for animals but we broke off and were sitting and eating that and enjoying yourself but even the smallest pleasures soon would be taken away January 21st 1924 marked the death of the Soviet Union's charismatic leader vladimir Ilyich Lenin and the start of one of the deadliest and most repressive regimes in history when Joseph Stalin first gained power he continued some of Lenin's progressive policies including allowing Russian farmers to employ workers and sell food on the open market but as the farms expanded so did the private commerce an economic model that conflicted with communist ideology Stalin was convinced that industrialization was the only way the country could protect itself from capitalism so he came up with a plan a five-year plan which he introduced in the spring of 1929 it called for huge increases in the production of coal iron and electric power and in order to feed the growing ranks of industrial workers the farmers who grew the food were required to join state collectives Stalin wanted these people for other labors he wanted them on the collective farm to do the work and that pertained not only to the Mennonites we were a very small element within the Russian population there may have been what a hundred thousand Mennonites in this this area and there were millions of Russian peasants who were struck at the same way it wasn't aimed at our people particularly but since they happened to be landowners it hit them particularly hard because they were so progressive and because the Mennonite communities were largely self-sufficient they were often a target for the Red Army in search of supplies like grain not turned over to the collective but instead secret it away as a hedge against the encroaching hunger they came and swept everything away they delenn didn't leave us anything everybody had to bring everything to one place you know you were not supposed to have any animals anymore all the cows had to go and one one bond they belong to the commune and all the horses they took everything away some resisted the collectivization of their land like Peter bargains father who was Reeve of teeka in 1929 November the 7th dad came home from work and he said to mom we gotta go we gotta go now they've got a warrant for my arrest if they arrest me I'm toast and in an hour we were out of there the table was set for supper and everything was in order the dog was on its chain the horses were still in the barn put together what we could get blankets or whatever not very much into a buggy with our uncle Abram bulbs driving petted across the fields towards Orlov where our grandparents live and we stopped there they came because you weren't too safe to go by to my grandmother that was to be my mother happy it's a goose for supper and we were all eating together and I remember it so much because my little sister was one year old she was sitting on a high chair beside mother and mother had a plate and she had what do you call it Magan if she had cut it in pieces it was so hard hard meat she grabbed one piece and put in their mouth and it got stuck in her and we thought she was all blue already my dad took her and pushed it down with a finger and saved her that way and that's why I always remember that when we had that last supper because of that that but they were all there and we had a good meal but that was said we knew because one uncle went already and he didn't see them anymore so he knew it was the same thing [Music] under the cover of darkness Peter and his family made their way across the harvested fields by three o'clock in the morning we were on our way we were fleeing that that that sense came but we were in a hurry and we weren't coming back and we missed the first railway station dad says if they're going to be looking for me they'll be looking for me at the first railway station so they missed that one and went to the next one which turned out to be true because he learned later that in within hours they were looking for dad and they checked the first station and nobody had showed up so they didn't bother going to the second so we managed to get away just one day after Peter bargain and his family fled Teagan his eight year old cousin Lina and her family prepared to follow undone a museum on Sarika far Sarika she told us that the borders are closed and the train has already left so we couldn't leave Papa said well we have to leave and as children we were so happy and joyful because we were going to Canada you stopped in the fantasy varnish just isn't but while on that trip they stopped Papa and put him in jail he was on the healthy and mama took us back to our home never saw you come leda's father was just one of thousands apprehended for resisting the state's appropriation of his land and refusing to become an informer as land owners they were called cool acts which in Russian means tight fisted by arresting the collects Stalin had thwarted their collective punch Peter's father had narrowly escaped imprisonment now the bargain family found themselves in a run-down Shack on the outskirts of the capital I remember our life in Moscow in this little shanty where stayed was the the home of a Jewish tailor and he let us have this room and it was sort of divided you go into the supposing it's a sort of a Shack you go in the middle and then there's a small hall and on the left-hand side is our room the large room where the Ben Clausen's my uncle and we were across the hall was another room and that was we learned later and this I heard I wasn't aware of it at the time but was occupied by well what we see a lady of the streets as she was known that's the way she made her living she was just a common prostitute in the village and she of course knew what was happening because at this time the authorities were going all around these villages wherever they we're on Moscow in Moscow and these authorities came to our house our Hut a knock on the door and this lady answered the door and they asked you know evidently who was there and who wasn't or whether it was anybody around she I guess denied it but she wanted to steer them away so she she invited them in and I guess they had quite a party cuz that's what the folks said they had quite a party and the fellows were feeling so good after they left you know they had to drink and whatnot everything else they forgot all about their duties and she sent them on their way and then she looked in to make sure we were okay so we are our life to that lady whoever she was god bless her Peter bargain and his family had eluded capture but they knew that their only real hope of survival lay in leaving Russia Peters father had to somehow secure all the necessary papers dad had to get an exit visa permission to leave Russia he had to get a passport he had to have also permission from another country an entrance visa a country that would accept us when we left Russia so he worked with a group of university students he says trying to get these papers and it was very difficult because they were working with the German Embassy trying to get Germany to accept them because Germany was the only country that would because these were mostly german-speaking people but the authorities the Russian authorities had put a cordon around the German embassy and wouldn't allow anybody in but eventually they managed to get one guy into the embassy they sneaked him in and he got the permission for who whatever was involved and dad was one with also Uncle Ben and his family and he got the the entrance visa into Germany approved so he had that document now he had to get the exit visa and the passport but to get those you had to go to your local authority and you had to have what is called a family list on that fabulist you would have to give all your personal data and that says how am I going to get a family list you're supposed to get this from the place where you lived and I lived there but they're after me if I just mentioned my name to these guys I'm dead duck you know how am I going to get this this this list he says and then to get it signed and sealed by the local authority how am I going to get this thing filled up and it suddenly occurred to me says he was walking the streets into that man what's the matter with me I was the Reeve of this district I said he says I filled out more than enough of these things for friends of mine in the past years what's the matter with me I can make my own list I know how to do it I have the papers I could I know the protocol I know the procedure I'll make my own list I'll make it for myself I'll make it for Uncle Ben and his family which he did now local authority well you've got the local authority was the authority where you lived well now we lived in this little village we didn't live over there anymore so I'll have to take it to this village Authority which he then did he says okay I'll go there and see if I can get the signature of the Chairman and the seal of the district and then I could get my other papers in we're free so he went to this office and he walked in there's this mr. secretary comrade secretary sitting on the side so yes what can I do for you well comrade I'd like you to have these have your chairman sign these and put the seal on that this is the family list you know that we were supposed to oh let's see yeah well okay you know he says uh I'll give you the seal I have it here but the Chairman is in the office next door here and he'll have to sign this before I put the seal on it so why don't you just go in and and see him and see if he'll sign it okay dad turns around he looks at the wall and what did he see his poster his wanted poster on the wall of this office but he went and he knocked on the door and somebody's come in he walked in and here's this young communist has feet on his desk you know and talking to two other guys an animated conversation over some something and he just looked up and he says yes what can I do for you and dad says well the comrade secretary sent me in here he'd like you to sign these papers oh and he just reached over and he took me he signed it in the mean time he was talking to these guys he was in the midst of a big conversation of some kind and he so couldn't be handed back and dad took it he says thank you comrade and he turned around he walked back he gave it to the secretary who looked at it yeah it's okay so he took out the sealed and he put a seal on it and dad took it and said thank you very much comrade and walked out yeah he collapsed about half a block away you know he just had to pause in and get his self-control back armed with the signed and sealed documents the bargains arrived at the central train station but their escape was still far from certain well we boarded the train in Moscow in a very crowded station and it was packed with people because you couldn't reserved anything if you were there and were able to get on you could get on the train and go and if you didn't get on that train left and after let's say it was scheduled to stop for three minutes and that's what it stopped and then after three minutes had moved of course you never knew whether the train would go in the right direction or not because often people would load up and the train was redirected and would end up in Siberia or some gulag that has happened time and time again because of those 20 thousand people that were around Moscow at that time five thousand got out at that time fifteen thousand didn't get out they either were sent back home to nothing because all their property had been confiscated or they were sent directly from there into the gulags I think it's over daddy and a half travel from Moscow to the Latvian border at the Latvian border there's a beautiful sense a very formidable gate of wrought iron looks like wrought iron with a red star on it and everything there and that marked the boundary between the two countries we stopped just before this gate it was called the red gate because there's a big red star on it and at that point everyone had to get out of their cars unload their baggage open their bags or whatever they carried with them have them inspected by the authorities everything taken away like any money or jewelry or things of that kind the women had to undo their hair so that they could hide nothing in their hair and the women in those days wore usually long hair with pigtails and big buns you know so that you could you could hide a robin's nest in there if you wanted to so they were thoroughly examined to make sure that they could take nothing then when we were all unloaded and examined and so on were allowed back on the train and then the question still remained is this train going to proceed or is it going to go back because there had been occasions in which train loads had been sent back to Moscow because they had evidently found something but they didn't agree with so the train was sent back and the people sent into exile or whatever happened well it went forward we did cross through the red gate until that and then when it got to the Latvian side and stopped and the door opened and a Red Cross nurse came on she says in German then ladies and gentlemen you are now in Latvia suddenly a lonely boy starts singing nun dong cat Allah God now thank we all our God with heart and hand and voices their mighty things has done and him our heart rejoices and somebody else picked it up and suddenly there was a roar everybody singing nun dong kadala got you know I'll never forget that scene that people rushed out of that train they looked around they ran out they kissed the ground at least they knelt you know and the joy we're out we're in Latvia the bargains made their way to Canada on what would be the last train out of Moscow and while they continue to follow their faith those left behind were denied even their religion they started with churches they didn't want us to have services anymore no Sunday school and my mother took the Bible and was hiding it an attic and then she went always up to reading it there because the school they asked us do you have a Bible do you pray and oh he was so scared Maria's father wealthy by communist standards was arrested and tortured before being banished to a gulag prison camp in the frigid north left alone Maria's mothers struggled to provide for her three young children like like this children in Africa big stomachs and thin legs and then we found out and in neighbor village there was a cheese factory he could get them way and then every day I went got a job of way and then three times a day he got a little glass of way at 6 o'clock 8 o'clock in the morning at 12 o'clock 6 o'clock my little brother and sister they were sitting at watching the clock I was turning they didn't play nothing big they were too weak and that kept us alive many were sent to Stalin's infamous gulang including Lena and her family now reunited with their exiled father that happens ask Karachi they relocated us they sent us to where it was very cold Papa's brother Papa's brother my uncle he was 16 years old at the time skis heated method once to salmon and they sent him and Papa and Papa with us to do your cousin for requirement of our gross up Arak Varda we arrived at Luna barrack and many people like us already there they gave us sections the sections were 2 meters by 2 meters for 9 people all of us six children and his brother went and Papa they put that down Piper who was sick he was very sick he was laying in the corner and all of us children we were laying practically on on top of each other we had nothing so we wrote begging letters to Canada the farming community of Carlisle Saskatchewan became home to the bargains in the spring of 1930 it was then that the letters began to arrive I think we have one or two letters that are dated in 1929 and then in 1930 they really started him a letter from cousin Lina was one of the first I really do not like writing letters now Papa is so sick he can no longer stand up so sick he is if our dear Papa should die what will become of us in many regions contact with the West was a criminal offense but the Mennonites continued to find a way any way to reach out I don't know where the paper came from I think that my parents took newspapers from the outside and cleaned them so we could write on them whether paper came from I don't know the Mennonites overcame every barrier to tell their heartbreaking stories like this one from Peters uncle we find it hard to cope with so many obstacles which are thrown in our path and the most difficult is that it has to strike our child my thoughts are with her in prison how that poor child will already have begged and wept if only she does not sink into the depths of despair but only is her body being ruined but her whole being soul and spirit are being brutalized and killed if writing the letters posed a risk getting them out of the gulag was more difficult still how they got out I I can't explain it except in many ways there are indications that they would get someone else to mail them or go to a different station there were some routines that they could follow in which there was a greater chance of them getting out than if they used the normal channels of getting out and a lot would depend upon the local authorities as to how strict they wear and how strict the censorship was the higher position guards of the police did read our letters redundant to us for that reason we couldn't write openly what was eating at our hearts instead our parents told us to talk through the flowers most the letters were very careful in what they said and how they said it much of it disguised in a way that the reader would understand because they had common background experience whereas somebody not acquainted with it would not understand what was being said you could call that reading between the lines but it's actually even a little more than that and German they call it talking through the flowers in one letter and I think it was grandma Regehr that wrote and we have enough to eat and we have a lot of we have a lot of SB and we have enough to wear and we're very happy and content and it's just as nice as you know as it says in second Corinthians chapter 4 verses 7 to 9 you look up SB and it means sour bread that's what it meant in German you look up 2nd Corinthians 4 which says that we are being persecuted we die every day but we are not killed you know and it goes on about the misery and their being stamped on but we do not lose faith because we know what we believe so this is exactly opposite to what was being said in words they know that the reader to whom they're writing will know Scripture and we'll have scripture to look up on but they also know that a communist censor wouldn't dare have a scripture in his desk to find out what that reference was if they were caught they'd be shot day after day those condemned to the gulag labored away under deplorable conditions there's a letter in there with with a sketch of where my my cousin Tina never Gere who were in exile drew a picture freehand of the place she was working and it's a smelter she was 12 years old she was pushing carts of ore and things like that in in a mine and in a forge you know this is what they were doing until they worked them to death or they drop dead or died of disease or whatever but you read the letters and it was just a matter of time before people would would die like Uncle Jake e yah she died short order this letter written by Peters aunt is stated January 24th 1932 I have very dangerous and hazardous works as well I must chop down trees in the forest it is often very cold and an average of one meter of snow so that you often sink into the snow up to your hips not so long ago a young girl was killed by a falling tree and crashed into the snow so far that only the corner of her dress was visible and so we are full of fear from one day to the next so often they'd get a letter and then mom would sit at the table we'll be eating and she would be crying her heart out and we could never figure out was it mom why are you crying well God letter from Grandma and she's not very well but they would never tell us what was really going on what was going on was a living hell for Peters extended family although Maria's father had been released in 1936 in order to service the farm machinery back on the collective his relative freedom was short-lived ten months later they took Herman when he came and said goodbye to us he said to me you have to help mom you are the oldest and when he stood in front of my brother says my dear son we won't see each other anymore you knew it Maria's father and Lina's father perished in exile Elena's brother died in prison her sister was locked up for nine harsh months but it was the arrest of her mother who was then paraded in front of the children's school which remains seared in Lena's memory in every in every sled was it man the policeman was a gun in the dog they took all the mothers they took the mothers from the village and since we couldn't go with our mothers we yelled mama mama mama where are you going mama only replied go home we couldn't go with her then they drove by and they were gone with the man with a gun and a dog watch out that's how it was well Lina struggled to care for her younger brother her mother endured repeated torture at night a police officer would shout for my mother who was over 40 years old at the time he said she burned 200 hectares of forest and she poisoned 200 cows cows cows and that she had to sign a confession she said she wouldn't sign because she hadn't she hadn't done anything I don't even work there so he beat her and the next night he shouted for her again and again he said she burned 200 hectares of forests and poisoned cows this went on it went on for several nights in nights in a row and then finally she said she would sign whatever he wanted she said she didn't do it but but they had beaten her so so often and said that they would hang her so she signed she was sentenced to one year and six months in jail after eight months she was released by one of the men who said to her you signed the confession never ever sign anything like that again even if they beat you she said what could I have done you all beat me he said just go through that gate and never tell anyone that we beat you be quiet about it that's how it was in 1937 the letter slowed to a trickle by 1938 they had stopped Stalin's reign of terror may have silenced them but the Mennonite people would not be broken they saw the misery they saw the starvation they saw the torture and you wonder how in the world can their faith sustainable what comes through loud and clear in the end you get everything which decide is there faith in God for 50 years the letters lay untouched the story's silent It was as if they were waiting for the one man fated to find them in 1989 we were living in Kelowna and we were visiting in Manitoba and we were visiting my brother and he said you know Peter I got a box upstairs it's in the Attic it's been there since mom and dad died I put it up there because the box with all sort of papers and letters in it I don't know what to do with it just cluttering up the police and I'm just cleaning up but you have a look at if you wanted to can have it if not I'll throw it out so I said well take a look at it so he got this box full of all this stuff and I just looked at the top letter and it was written in German gothic script dated 1930 I couldn't believe it I said Frank do you know what you got here no he says I didn't look at it I said I'll take it Peter and his wife Anne spent the next three years translating the hundreds upon hundreds of letters who would sit around the kitchen table and cry very often particularly over some of the letters and just amazed at what what we were finding and what we were understanding well that's when we began to understand our story suddenly this past history became alive it's terrible when you think of it that men can do that to other people and the name I don't care what kind of ideology you have but that's what they had to go through and I know you know their story is no worse I suppose that much that is happening today in many parts of the world but the inhumanity of man to man can reach unbelievable depths [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you

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Views: 182,446

Rating: 4.836627 out of 5

Keywords: Russia Gulag, Mennonite Russia, Russia-European History, Stalin Reign, non-fiction, human geography, socio-historical, Russian Mennonite History, Stalin's Gulag empire, Crimes Against Humanity, Joseph Stalin, Stalin Gulag prison camps, Stalin's Gulag 1930's, Maria Regehr, Peter Bargen, Ruth Derksen Siemens, Russian History, 1930's Russian History Gulag

Id: RMCinTCAl7s

Length: 45min 22sec (2722 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 13 2019