The Mennonites’ ‘Great Trek’ from the Occupied Regions of Ukraine to Warthegau in 1943–4

Abstract

The German troops’ large-scale retreat on the Eastern Front was accompanied by a substantial population outflow from the occupied regions of the USSR. The German Mennonites (approx. 35,000 people) preferred to obey the occupiers’ order and evacuate to the west in the autumn of 1943. Several thousands of them were transported in echelons directly to Warthegau and the region of Danzig. The remaining part of deportees had to sustain a difficult and dramatic route in the convoys. The Nazi leadership planned to use them as settlers or labour force on the annexed Western Polish lands. After the end of the Second World War, most of the Mennonites were forcibly repatriated to the USSR; others succeeded in emigrating to Canada or Latin America.