Records
The painting is by my cousin Edmund Goldade. It is of a forced labor camp in Siberia, due to his ethnicity, he was incarcerated in this camp in 1941
This section presents a synopsis of a period in the lives of ethnic Germans who remained in Russia during the twentieth century. During this time, they were subjugated to massive repression, to a level that was a clear case of ethnic cleansing and genocide. For a number of years, I have been working with several researchers in Odessa to retrieve NKVD (People’s Commissariat for State Security) and MVD (Ministry of Defense) arrest records. These records provide a wealth of information on the fate of many of our ancestors and relatives who were living in Russia during this period.
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The Russian Revolution began in1917 and ravaged Russia until 1920. However, the revolution left its lasting consequences on everyone. With the emergence of power, the Communists began to collectivize and socialize all aspects of the Russian society.
In order to achieve their goal of total collectivization, the communists in the late 1920s began to eliminate private enterprise which included all private farms and small businesses. To execute this scheme, the Communists declared that anyone who had achieved any level of success, i.e. accumulated some possessions through determination and hard work, would now be labeled a “kulak”. In the general bureaucratic Russian jargon, the term kulak meant tight-fisted or one who takes advantage of another. While such arrests took place throughout Russia, these arrests had a drastic effect on the ethnic German and Ukrainian minorities.
The result of these arrests was a clear case of ethnic cleansing. The arrests of the kulaks began in the late 1920s and continued into the early 1930s. One of the major problems with the term and use of kulak was the absence of a definition explaining the level of prosperity which elevated someone to the kulak status. Therefore, under this definition anyone could be subject to an arrest. Additionally, the arrest of kulaks had a trickle-down effect: As one level of prosperous workers was eliminated, the next level would then be attacked. The result of this action by the Soviet Government was that an entire social class was eliminated.
The period of arresting kulaks was followed by the years known as the Great Purge, and in some cases is also referred to as the Great Terror. This was a period of political repression and persecution throughout Russia. During the early 1930s to 1941, the Secret Police, a shortened term for the “People’s Commissariat for State Security”, known as the NKVD was relentless in arresting people. The peak arrest years of this campaign were 1937 and 1938. The majority of people arrested during this period were charged with fabricated violations such as being saboteurs, religious activists or the catchall phrase as being an enemy of the State/People. Additionally, in most cases the sentence of the arrested was predetermined before a trial was ever held. Evidence was not required for these arrests, and a malicious tip from an anonymous source was sufficient cause for an arrest. This entire campaign was another clear case of ethnic cleansing and genocide.
During this period hundreds of thousands of people were executed in Russia and countless other people were sent to labor camps and to the infamous Gulag prison system. The term Gulag is the acronym for Glavone Upravlenie Lagerei, which in generic terms means prison in English
In 1941 Hitler invaded Russia. The paranoid Stalin in turn deported all of the Germans from the regions of the Volga, Caucasia, Crimea and such areas to points in Siberia and Kazakhstan. All of these Germans were placed in forced labor camps. I do not have any ancestral connections to the areas of the Volga, Caucasia, and Crimea. Therefore, I have not researched the arrests of these people and do not know whether the arrests stopped when they were placed in the labor camps or whether the arrests continued.
When Hitler invaded Russia in 1941, he, along with the help of the Romanian Army, controlled most of the area of current day Ukraine. The ethnic Germans (known as the Black Sea Germans) living in this area were allowed to remain in their villages. However, when the German Army was forced to retreat in 1944, the German Authorities evacuated these German civilians, first to Poland and later to Germany. After WWII, in 1945, Stalin, acting under the agreed terms of the Yalta and Potsdam treaties, had his Armed Forces gather many of these Germans under the pretense of repatriation and telling them that they would be allowed to return to their homes. However, in a circuitous scheme, he had them deported to labor camps in Siberia, Kazakhstan, and other Asian countries.
Any sane human would have considered that having placed these people in labor camps would have been sufficient repression. However, such was not the case with Stalin. Even though these people were in the labor camps, the arrests continued; again under the litany of fabricated charges. The most common charge during this period was that the individual had betrayed the motherland by living in the area controlled by the invading Germans. My research shows that these arrests took place from 1945 and continued into the 1950s. The sentences from the arrests of this period varied greatly. They ranged from a short term loss of some privileges to extended work requirements, with the harshest being terms of 10 to 25 years in the Gulag.
I have been fortunate that for the past several years, with the help of researchers in Odessa, I have been able to retrieve the names of ethnic Germans who were arrested and also many of their arrest records. During the Soviet era, the documentation of these arrests had been kept in the files of the USSR Committee for State Security (KGB) Odessa Region Department. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the Ukrainian Security Service Administration (USBU) took control of these documents. Through the hard work of groups such as the Institute of Ethnic Research and other researchers in Odessa, we now have access to many arrest records, most of which are archived in Ukraine. In cooperation with these generous individuals in Odessa, I have been able to obtain the names of thousands of ethnic Germans who were arrested throughout Russia. The authorities in Ukraine are releasing this information relating to these cases. Unfortunately, Russia is much less forthcoming in releasing such information, which is making it most difficult to research such matters.
In order to keep some cohesiveness and clarity of these records I have grouped and am presenting the names, in four separate categories which are described below. If you decide to search for or research a given surname, do keep an open mind and remain flexible with all possible spellings and name variants. There are numerous reasons why the spelling of a name changed, as an example which is most correct -- Maier, Mayer or Meyer?
The list of Category One consists of the names of 4,700 ethnic Germans who had lived and were arrested in the Odessa Jurisdiction and were arrested during the period of the late 1920s to 1941. These 4,700 names can be found in my book, Our Relatives-The Persecuted. These arrests were conducted by the People’s Commissariat for State Security (NKVD). Additionally, the book also contains copies of the actual arrest records for over forty of my relatives. For the sake of time and space efficiency, I have not repeated the names on this web site. If you are interested in this list of names, you may refer to the book.
The list of Category Two (the NKVD arrests) consists of approximately 11,000 names which have been extracted from a list of over 60,000 ethnic Germans arrested throughout Russia. I have narrowed my list to people who lived in the current areas of Ukraine and Moldova. These arrests occurred from the late 1920s to 1945 and were conducted by the, People’s Commissariat for State Security (NKVD). Copies of arrest records conducted by the NKVD can be found in my book, Our Relatives-The Persecuted.
The list of Category Three (the MVD arrests) consists of approximately 4,500 names. These names were extracted from a list of over 20,000 ethnic Germans who, were arrested while in the labor camps after 1945. I have narrowed my list to the people who had originated from the Kutschurgan villages. These arrests were conducted by the Ministry of Defense (MVD). Copies of arrest records conducted by the MVD can be found in my book, The Sander Family History.
The list of Category Four (Filtration camp registration list) consists of approximately 5,000 names. These names were extracted from a list of over 50,000 people who, after the war, were forcibly apprehended by the Russians in Germany, Austria, and Poland. To follow the Russian terminology, these people were repatriated (sic) and upon their apprehension they were taken to a “filtration camp”, where they were processed and assigned to forced labor camps in areas such as Siberia and Kazakhstan. I have narrowed my list to the people who had originated from the Kutschurgan area. These people were processed by the Russian Military and the Ministry of Defense (MVD). Copies of arrest records conducted by the MVD for people taken to the filtration camps can be found in my book, The Sander Family History.
I am sure that many of you will find this information depressing. Unfortunately, it was part of the lives of our ancestors and relatives who lived in Russia during a period of repressed human rights. I hope that you will find this intriguing and captivating information beneficial to your research. I also wish to thank Mr. Alexey Köhler and The Institute of Ethnic Studies for conducting this research and making it available.
Additionally, his generous statement validating the authenticity of the research and his approval for my use of the information. However, please be advised that the posting of this information on this web site does not authorize the reproduction, reposting or the use of these names for personal gain.
Category One, (the list of people who were arrested in the Odessa region) the entire list of names and many arrest documents can be viewed in my book, Our Relatives-The Persecuted.
