One family’s real-life drama

Journey Into Freedom Edith Elisabeth Friesen. Winnipeg: Raduga Publications, 2003. $34.95.

It is 1931. A young mother with a baby and four young children has just been forced out of her home by the authorities. Her husband has been deported. Everything has been confiscated and even her right to work has been withdrawn.

This is the opening scene of Edith Friesen’s Journey Into Freedom. Friesen allows her two aunts, her uncle and her mother to tell the story of what happened next. Through conversations among the four siblings who are left (the baby died in infancy), the story of their survival in Stalinist Russia, their subsequent flight to Germany and finally their immigration to Canada is told. Friesen fills in the context of the conversations with the history of the time and other events and people who influenced the outcome of this story.

The Dyck family finds new safe places to live in Soviet Russia, only to find their safety disrupted by more violence. The family is separated, then reunited in Germany. How this comes about, and the risks they take to get there, is incredible. They settle in Germany for a few years, living in refugee camps and working for a living, until they learn that repatriation to Russia is a distinct possibility. They then pursue immigration to Canada. They find a distant relative to sponsor them, and within months have paid off their “Reiseschuld” (travel debt). Throughout the story it is their faith in God which undergirds them and sees them through.

Friesen does an admirable job of keeping the voices of the siblings fresh and interesting. Her research into the history of that time is thorough and adds much to the dialogue. It’s a good read. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The book is available from Mennonite Books, Winnipeg; McNally Robinson, Winnipeg; Mennonite Heritage Village, Steinbach, Man.; Mennonite Historical Society of B.C. and from Raduga Publications, Winnipeg.

Susan Brandt is interim editor of MB Herald.