Personal stories of Mennonite migration : a journey from Ukraine to Canada

Abstract

Without a doubt, the Bolshevik Revolution altered the course of world history. Millions of lives were affected by the policies enacted by the communist leadership. German-speaking Mennonites living in Ukraine were one group that was particularly affected by Bolshevik policies, and more than 22,000 Mennonites would emigrate during the 1920s from the Soviet Union to Canada and other Western countries to escape persecution. Among those who fled the rapidly deteriorating conditions in the Ukrainian countryside were my paternal grandmother's parents, Henry Koop and Margaret Enns. This thesis will discuss this major wave of Mennonite immigration, focusing on how Mennonites were targeted for persecution because of their German heritage and their relative wealth. Using the stories and accounts of my great grandparents and their families' struggle to escape, I hope to place my family in larger historical context and illustrate through their experience the danger and uncertainty faced by Mennonites trying to escape the Soviet Union during the 1920s.