Flight from the Red Hell

Foreword

My father of German descent, Heinrich Neuwirt, was born on March 22, 1902, in Katharinenstadt, Russia, near the Volga River. My father’s manuscript is the only information I have about his former life before he met and married my mother, Charlotte Giehmann. From his manuscript, I learned he was married before and had children in Russia. This is all I know about any extended family. What I do know is, my father was a remarkable man who spoke five languages and learned to memorize great volumes of information, including people’s names. People would contact him about their relatives from Russia, hoping he would have information for them. My father wrote his manuscript with a view to having it published in book form, sold in America, and receiving enough in the way of royalties to move his family to America. That was his hope and his dream. Sadly, he died on March 4, 1953, when I was only 5 years old. He was killed when a truck ran over him while he was riding his bicycle. After reading my father’s manuscript and knowing what I know, I have concluded that his death may not have been an accident. Prior to his death, my father was able to have a small portion of the manuscript publicized in a German Newspaper. Afterwards, some men from Russia tried to convince him to return to Russia, but he refused. As a little girl I remember being told about another incident where some men tried to force my father into their car, but he managed to fight them off and flee. Now only God knows the truth about my father’s death.

My husband Doug and I have a close friend, Larry Gunst, who is also of German descent, having German relatives who formerly lived near the Volga River in Russia. Larry Gunst is connected to a group of German Americans with relatives from Russia, some of whom have even written books about their accounts. When Larry found out I had a manuscript, he went to great lengths to ensure that the manuscript was properly translated. He made contact with Robert Russell, Director of Beulah Williams Library at Northern State University in Aberdeen, South Dakota, who was instrumental in this process. Robert connected Larry with Ginny Lewis, Ph.D., Professor of German at Northern State University. Larry personally paid Dr. Lewis to begin translating the manuscript, and my husband and I paid the rest when we realized the manuscript was in the process of being translated. Dr. Ginny Lewis did an excellent job in translating what I could never do myself. It is very rewarding for me to know that my two sons and our grandchildren now have translated copies of my father’s manuscript for themselves because of her work. It is most rewarding to realize my father’s story will be passed onto our family and to those who will read his story.

Acknowledgments

Two individuals played a crucial role in prompting and facilitating the translation of Die Flucht aus der roten Hölle by Heinrich Neuwirt. Robert Russell, Director of the Beulah Williams Library at Northern State University, first proposed to me that I should consider undertaking this challenging translation project. Thanks to his encouragement and persuasion, my enthusiasm for the endeavor took off. Larry Gunst, a friend of the Bera family and strong advocate for Germans-from-Russia studies, first brought the manuscript to Robert Russell’s attention, and has since played an active role in supporting the project of translating and publishing the manuscript. Helga Bera and her husband, Doug Bera, have responded with enormous kindness to my requests for information and offered unwavering support for the project, as well as steadfast trust in me as the individual responsible for making this English-language version of Neuwirt’s manuscript a reality. I owe a tremendous debt to each of these individuals.

Virginia L. Lewis

Translator’s Introduction

The account you are about to read offers a rare, personal glimpse into the life of a Volga German who experienced everything from the Russian Revolution of 1917 to capture by the Germans as a penal soldier on the Russian front in 1943. While first-person accounts of the terrors that went hand-in-hand with life under communist dictatorship in the Soviet Union are not rare, such an unflinching account of the struggles experienced by an ethnic German who plainly saw through the government manipulation and deception that brought about his persecution is truly unique. In Revolution on my Mind: Writing a Diary Under Stalin, Soviet scholar Jochen Hellbeck presents examples of the many first-person accounts written by Soviet citizens who were in the process of “forging the revolutionary self” by using their writing as a means of realizing “themselves as historical subjects defined by their active adherence to a revolutionary cause.”¹ The dichotomy between these many first-hand accounts with their apologist bent and Neuwirt’s autobiographical account of his desperate efforts to resist persecution under the Soviets could hardly be greater. While the diary authors presented by Hellbeck strain western assumptions regarding “liberal subjects: individuals in pursuit of autonomy who cherished privacy as a sphere of free self-determination” (Hellbeck 3), Neuwirt’s narrative conforms strongly to this “liberal subject” model and will therefore satisfy those readers who are keen to understand how life in a totalitarian society affected citizens who believed firmly in the natural and inalienable rights of human beings.