By 1925 things were very difficult politically. In 1918, Sara married a clergyman, Nicholai Pauls. One February, Peter's brother-in-law, Nicolai Pauls, a clergy, preached. That Sunday during their noon meal, the police broke into their home on the pretense of looking for guns. Finding no guns, with pistols facing him from either side, they forced Nicolai out into the yard to shoot him. God was at work and protected this young minister jamming the guns. They tried to shoot Nicolai again, and again God intervened on the Pauls behalf. The police, now very angry and frustrated, got back onto their horses and rode away. Nicolai went back into his home and told Sara that for their safety, it was time to move to Canada.

The Wiens Pauls Family 1925 Back row: Margaret, Justina Wiens Siemens, Tina, Peter and Sara Wiens Pauls Seated: Kornelius Siemens, Maria Eck Wiens Pauls, Njessa, Peter H. Pauls, and Nicholai Pauls

Peter with his brothers-in-law Approximately 1926-27 in Canada. Back row: John Enns, Nick Pauls, Kornelius Siemens Front Row: Peter Wiens

Peter (16) and Margaret (22)

Peter and his sister, Margareta, still single but engaged to John Enns at this time, also wanted to go to Canada, but their parents didn't want to let them go because they were both so young. Peter was now 16 and approaching the military draft age. Even though the Mennonite young men were exempt from the draft, he wanted to leave while he still had the opportunity to do so and escape the unsettling military conditions.

To ease their parent's mind, Nick and Sara offered to sponsor them both and help them along as much as possible. Together with Nick and Sara, their four children, Heinrich, Maria, Peter and Nicolai, aged 1 thru 6, arrived on the shores of Quebec on June 6, 1925.

Their mother, Maria, wanted to emigrate with them as well, but her husband was not ready to make such a big decision, although he did help them financially. The parting of the Canada bound children from all family ties in Russia was sad. After much prayer, the parents let them go. The parents understood their need of Nick and Sara to leave because of the threats to Nick's life. From this time on until their departure, Nick was a marked man and could be taken away at any time. This group was among the first of the Mennonites to leave.

Between the years of 1922 to 1930, 25,000 Mennonites left Russia to escape the grip of spreading communism. Most of them (21,000) settled in Canada while the rest went to Paraguay, Brazil and Mexico. The last wave of immigrants did not happen until the years of 1941 thru 1943. This wave consisted of 35,000 participants, but only 12,000 successfully managed to reach other nations.

Whether they left or stayed was really a matter of conscience. Some of those who stayed were too comfortable in their ways and didn't see any real threat invading their lives while others felt that God had called the Mennonites to Russia for a purpose, and therefore for these, it was the will of God to stay.

Those who left felt that more than the loss of their military service exemption, which was honored until the late 1920's, was at stake. They would also lose their right to operate any undisturbed church activities, which included their own institutions caring for the sick, disabled and the old. They wanted the right to teach their children Christian values, as they saw fit, which was very important for the survival of the Mennonite church.

Two writers, Philipp Cornies and B.B. Janz, said it best in 1922 when they explained why so many people chose to leave Russia while they could at this time.

Perhaps the biggest reason Mr. Pauls, Peter's stepfather could not make the decision to leave was because he felt that things were not as bad as they seemed. On the contrary, things got progressively worse after 1925. Daughter Justina and her husband, Kornelius K. Siemens, their two children, Kornelius and Nellie, left in 1926. By the early 30's, the borders were closed and no one else was allowed out with very few being allowed to leave in the 40's.

When Peter's half sister, Njessa was ten years old, the remaining family left behind in Russia was forced to leave their home along with all of their possessions to go to a resettlement camp in Siberia. Their stepfather, Peter Pauls had been sent away once in 1929. In the summer of 1931 they were again relocated. Thus, this was the plight facing Mennonite families left behind for one reason or another.

Another story that was told as why their parents did not leave with the children when they could was because Mr. Pauls had been persuaded by another of his brothers to stay and that maybe he would still have time to leave later on. Perhaps his brother too, felt that there was no real threat facing them in staying. Either way, we will never know. Every effort was made on the part of Nick and Sara to bring them over but to no avail. Unfortunately, Mr. Pauls was taken away twice and disappeared for the final time in 1937. Before his final disappearance, men were already being taken from their villages and sent to the central part of Siberia to settle in the forests there.

One day all the men from the village that the Pauls' family lived in, failed to come home. Political security was so tight that when the women inquired about their husbands, they were simply told that if they asked for their husbands again, they would be taken to the same place. The police left only the women and children behind to fend for themselves. Maria Pauls was never the same after this and died on her 68th birthday on September 27, 1947. Her daughters, Tina and Njessa took care of her from that time on until her death.

Although they may been sent into Siberia, it is believed that all these men were placed in a box car and locked in. Gas was then poured over the car and light on fire burning the men alive. This was common in some cases.

Another story that goes about is that they were taken out and shot. Yet another possibility that happened was that he was thrown into prison and later died around 1943. At any rate they never saw their families again. Because of all the possibilities of what may have happened, the exact date of his death is not known.

With their husbands forcibly removed from the scene by the communists, a weak link was created in the homes of these women. They did not gain the freedom they expected. Every able bodied person was required to work - refusing to comply was considered a crime punishable by being imprisoned. Consequently the women were stretched beyond their limits and 'permanently exhausted' trying to mind not only the home and children but also pulling long hours in some factory or building railroads doing the jobs usually given to men.

There was a great deal of logic in the thinking of the communists to move in this direction. With the primary wage earners (the fathers) out of the way, the women, with absolutely no preparation, were forced to be both father and mother. They would now have their hands more than full causing the religious instruction of their children to suffer the most.

In this fashion, the government would be able to eliminate the influences of Christianity in the young. They could undermine the values of the family's Christian principles, weakening the impact of the church and thus paving the way for the next generation of young people to reject Christianity by filling that void with something more appealing. This generation would then become the founding foundation of an antireligious society which was important to the success of the establishing and survival of communism.

While Lenin's government guaranteed jobs, housing, food and health care which on the surface seemed good, it also had its adverse effects. One Russian citizen who survived this period said "we lost our past, our history, our religion and our moral values".

If the government did not like what one leader was doing, they would simply remove him, rewrite history the way they wanted their citizens to see it and erase the offending name from all history books. In this fashion both Stalin, and Khrushchev became classified as nonpersons as far they were concerned. They were treated as if they never existed. Current Russian history books indicate that there was no real recognized leadership after Lenin's death in 1925 until 1964 at which time Leonid I. Brezhnev was elected.

However, man's plan did not completely succeed as they forgot to reckon with the fact that God's power superceded the governments. The Bible tells us that the Lord foils the plans of nations and places hindrances and frustrations in the purposes of mankind (Psalms 33). Many years later visitors from Russia to Canada related to their hosts how fortunate they were that they could pray together around the table.

The only way that Russian believers could pray with their children was to go behind a large woolen blanket in a corner and whisper their prayers with their children. Neither were they allowed to talk about God with their families anywhere. Open prayer, Bible reading and attending church are just some of the privileges that people today simply take for granted when Russian believers were willing to pay the ultimate price for these privileges - loss of lives and property.

Index Page

Previous section

Section 4

Next section