The Clock is Ticking

These days my maternal grandfather, Abram Kroeger, is on my mind. My mother lost her father in 1937, when she was 16, so I never met him. However, we have a few photos, and my mother has told me his story.

My grandfather came from a family of clockmakers who took their clockmaking business from West Prussia to Russia where they set up a clock-manufacturing business in the village of Rosenthal, Ukraine. This history is documented in a book entitled Kroeger Clocks, by Arthur Kroeger, which I featured in a blog post in July 2012. As the Mennonite population in tsarist Russia expanded rapidly, there was an increased demand for clocks.

Arthur Kroeger writes, "Traditionally, Mennonite clockmakers produced clocks by employing members of their own family. The older sons learned from their father, and the younger sons and female members contributed their skills by doing the painting and artwork on the clock dials. These clocks were beautiful works of art." (p.35)

Kroeger clock (1873), as depicted in Kroeger Clocks, p.157

Sons of clockmakers worked for their fathers until they were married. However, if a son married a farmer's daughter with land of her own, he usually left clockmaking and went into farming. That was the case in my great-grandfather's family: he had several daughters but only one son. My grandfather, as the only son, inherited the farm from his parents. 

My grandmother was proud to be married to a landowner, especially since her family of origin, with several sons, was landless and emigrated to Canada in the early 1920s.

However, owning land proved to be my grandfather's tragic demise. The eventual outcome of events after WW1 was not foreseen, since agriculture was flourishing and Russia had a robust economy and seemingly endless resources. All this came to a halt as the result of the Bolshevik takeover. (Kroeger Clocks, p.55)

The Kroeger family, still intact in 1934

The Kroeger family in 1936, just before their father disappeared 

(My mother's little brother, Gerhard, died in 1934 of dysentery [Rote Ruhr].)

It was shortly after the picture above was taken that one evening, just at bedtime, a black van (often referred to as "the Black Raven") appeared at my grandparents' home. My grandfather (the most peace-loving man) was accused of planting dynamite with the intention of blowing up a bridge. The police took him away and the family never saw him again. They accused him because they wanted to confiscate his land.

Years later, my mother's uncle from Russia visited my parents in Canada. He had been imprisoned with my grandfather but somehow managed to escape death. My uncle told my mother the last time he'd seen him, her father was in a cell just able to stand; he was being interrogated and beaten and his face was all bloody. When my mother heard this, she went into the bathroom, locked the door and wept.  

My grandfather is on my mind these days because of what I have heard on the radio and read in the Winnipeg Free Press lately. Below is a link to an article by Bill Redekop:

https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/u-of-w-fellowship-will-help-fund-research-of-kgb-files-on-mennonites-who-vanished-during-stalins-ukraine-purges-475247193.html

In the article, Royden Loewen (chair in Mennonite Studies at the University of Winnipeg) writes about "this dark and hidden chapter of Mennonite history." Apparently the KGB archives of those missing persons are now being made available to scholars by the Ukrainian government, "perhaps as a snub to Russia."

I ask myself if our family will ever find out exactly what happened to my grandfather. It would be good to have closure.

In light of what happened to my grandfather and to many other innocent victims like him, I would say that we need to be vigilant in order to safeguard our democracy. Recent news points to Russian involvement in the American election process as well as in other areas. Russia's leader is hungry for world control.

Below follows an article about Russian links to the NRA, "one of the most politically polarizing organizations in the U.S." and a key part of Trump's conservative base.

https://www.npr.org/2018/03/01/590076949/depth-of-russian-politicians-cultivation-of-nra-ties-revealed?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20180301

To my mind, this news of the bullying tactics of the NRA is somehow connected to what happened in Russia to my grandfather and many people like him, and it frightens me.

Could what happened to my grandfather happen here in North America? 

Perhaps it is already happening, and with great regularity!

To those families who recently lost their nearest and dearest in a place they thought was safe, does it matter who pulled the trigger?