The stones cry out

This article by Mennonite historian John B. Toews is adapted from a talk he gave following a May 14, 2005 memorial tour of B.C.’s three oldest Mennonite cemeteries: Yarrow (1931), South Poplar (South Abbotsford, 1938), and Greendale (1947). A representative group of about a dozen gravestones were selected in each cemetery and a family member presented a short tribute at the site.

These photos of the Eichenfeld commemoration event in 2001 (described by Toews in his talk) are by Charlotte Penner.

In May 2001, my wife Lillian and I participated in the unveiling of a memorial stone dedicated to the memory of some 82 victims of the Makhnovite reign of terror in South Ukraine during 1919. This particular massacre (there were others) took place in a village then called Eichenfeld and today known as Novopetrovka.

Following the massacre Mennonites abandoned the village. It was later resettled by local Ukrainians. Some persons in attendance that day were descendants of the men who raped and murdered so mercilessly.

Also present were descendants of the victims who came from Canada and the U.S.  By being in Novopetrovka 82 years after the massacre we were saying, in a sense, that the memories of former misdeeds were still very much alive.

We wondered, would the villagers show up? Some people walked through the village before the ceremony and there was no one in sight anywhere. It was eerie.

We were in for a surprise. Normally when we unveil monuments there is a moment when a cloth is pulled away. In this case, we arrived to find the monument already draped, not by a cloth but by field flowers, peonies, and irises.

The Novopetrovka villagers had raided their gardens and offered this spectacular floral extravagance. I think they were saying that they too had not forgotten. Somehow all of us gathered there sensed that painful memories were healed, that past sins were forgiven, that reconciliation had taken place.

Some guests expressed concern that the sizeable stone monument might be vandalized. We were reassured by one of the village women who simply commented, “Anyone who touches it has to deal with us, the women of the village.” (I told myself I would not want to be that person because here was a force to be reckoned with!)

Significance of monuments

This event said something about the significance of a monument to the dead, about the importance of a stone. On that day, May 27, 2001, we declared that the Eichenfeld Mennonites of long ago were not forgotten in death, that their memory was sacred and instructive, that remembering brought healing and forgiveness.

Each year I try to go back to my birthplace – Coaldale, Alta. – to visit my sister, sister-in-law, and friends. I always take time to visit the Mennonite cemetery next to the former Mennonite Brethren Church, now the Gem of the West Museum. Why do I go there?

Those gravestones cry out to me. They evoke memories of the past, memories of grandparents, of Mother and Dad, of my sister and brother, of aunts, uncles, and cousins. I walk past the gravestones of my parent’s friends and the many ministers who served the Coaldale congregation during my childhood and youth.

Here lie the people who shaped my young faith by their friendship, encouragement, teaching, and example. A Mr. Heidebrecht lies buried there. I have a teenage memory of standing alone in that large church unnoticed by him, our church caretaker, singing hymns as he cleaned the church. I felt I had been in God’s presence and when I see his gravestone I say,  “Thank you Mr. Heidebrecht.”

We have been shaped by the dead. We cannot forget or ignore them, for they moulded and formed us. I think past generations understood this far better than we do. Every year in the church they celebrated a Totentag. It was a Sunday during which the departed saints of that year were remembered. Their names were recited, passages of Scripture were read, prayers were spoken. The congregation affirmed that they had fought a good fight and kept the faith.

Remember and learn

Each of us brings private memories to an occasion of commemoration. Some may be uplifting; others are hurtful. God put all of us in a specific place, and in a complex way we interact with others in that locality. If we can embrace the people who shaped us, the past they represent can be a healing experience. If we reject and run away from that past, it will haunt and incapacitate us.

Unfortunately graves and gravestones seem to have little meaning in North American society today. There are those who argue that life as we know it has no deeper purpose, no set principles, no beginning, no end. In this line of thinking, the past and persons of the past have no relevance in our lives.

But the gravestones cry out, “Remember and learn.” Paul wrote Timothy, “I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice” (2 Timothy 1:5). For us it could be a grandfather or a father or an uncle or aunt or caring neighbour or Sunday school teacher who lived the gospel and cared for our souls.

Their gravestones say, “you belong, you have a heritage of faith, you have a past and a direction for the future.” Gravestones make us pause to give thanks for those who were faithful. In the words of Psalm 78 they urge us to tell the next generation “the praiseworthy deeds of the LORD, his power, and the wonders he has done.”

Eichenfeld Eighty-two years after the murders of 76 men and 6 women in the village of Eichenfeld, Ukraine on the night of October 26–27, 1919 and following days, the victims were given a memorial stone as well as a service of commemoration. The service included hymns, speeches, prayers, and the reading of their names and ages. All the victims but one had been hastily buried in 12 mass graves. Among the dead were five itinerant workers of a tent mission that held evangelistic meetings in Russian and Mennonite villages. The massacre, carried out by a large band of anarchist forces led by Nestor Makhno, was part of a wider swath of turmoil, grievance, and destruction that followed in the wake of the Russian Revolution. The stone also commemorates other Mennonite victims of the civil war period in the Nikolaipole volost – 136 in total. The memorial’s designer, Paul Epp, said he tried to capture the “sense of grief, dignity, and remembrance” he saw in photographs of Mennonite victims of violence, “reposing in their coffins, often slightly tilted, perhaps to benefit the camera.” The grey granite slab represents the coffin these victims never had. “The position of the granite slab situated low to the ground requires that the observer bow his head in viewing it,” Epp said. “This seems to me the most appropriate posture.” The memorial includes a listing of villages and numbers, as well as the statement that the stone was “erected in a spirit of reconciliation by relatives of victims and friends of the Mennonite story.” —from Nestor Makhno and the Eichenfeld Massacre by Harvey L. Dyck, John R. Staples, and John B. Toews

Kristin Braun of Winnipeg was just 23 when she was killed in an automobile accident Dec. 9, 2003. She was buried in a corner of the Arnes, Man. cemetery, near her grandparents’ cottage and the site of her childhood tree fort. The vivacious nursing student, who was active in her church as a youth sponsor, loved The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. She had been reading her way through them for the second time. For her gravestone, Cristin’s parents selected a stone from the Lake Winnipeg marina and had a text (adapted to the singular) from the final Narnia book, The Last Battle, inscribed on it. It reads: BUT FOR HER IT WAS ONLY THE BEGINNING OF THE REAL STORY. ALL HER LIFE IN THIS WORLD HAD ONLY BEEN THE COVER AND THE TITLE PAGE: NOW AT LAST SHE IS BEGINNING CHAPTER ONE OF THE GREAT STORY, WHICH NO ONE ON EARTH HAS READ, WHICH GOES ON FOREVER AND WHICH EVERY CHAPTER IS BETTER THAN THE ONE BEFORE. “This is what we’re striving for,” says Cristin’s mother Colleen. “And Cristin has reached it.” Each year on the first weekend in August, the family of the late Martin and Maria Hamm gather at a little cemetery near Elie, Man., to honour their parents and grandparents by mowing and cleaning up their burial place and then enjoying a picnic together. Last August, the ritual gained a new dimension with the unveiling of a cairn on which were inscribed the names and dates of the seven persons buried on the site. The small cemetery was established in 1935 after the death of Olga Klassen (1898–1935), one of a small group of Mennonites living and worshipping together on farms southwest of Elie. She was temporarily buried at a nearby Hutterite colony until arrangements could be made for a more permanent location, donated by Albert Mann (hence the name Mann on the cairn). The secluded cemetery, bordered by a fence, is surrounded by a thick grove of trees. In time, the Mennonite group dispersed, and with the widespread use of the automobile, the remaining families could travel to more distant churches. Most of the MB families of the Elie group joined the Newton Siding Church, now Community Fellowship Church. Maria Hamm (1897–1964) was the last person buried in the little graveyard. Pictured are the 5 members of the Hamm family who live in Manitoba (l–r): Jake Hamm, Martha Kroeker, Victor Hamm, Lydia Kroeker, Martin Hamm. —from report by Marianne Mann