MEMORIES OF HUCK

Katharina Urbach

Translated by Jo Ann Kuhr

Dear Friends,

One cannot write down our history because we were displaced people from 1941 on. We had no home, were stamped as enemies of the people. We can only praise our Savior Jesus Christ that we are now supported in Germany with clothing and also daily needs. We are valued as brothers and sisters, no longer as enemies of the people. I thank you for your work, wish you health, God's blessing. United in the Lord. Russian Germans. With heartfelt greetings. Katharina Urbach

My Home Town

I was born in the village Huck, Kanton Balzer, Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of the Volga Germans. My maiden name was Katharina Zitterkopf, daughter of Johann Georg Zitterkopf, born on 20 September 1917.

In the village were a church and a prayer house. They were served by the schoolteacher by the name of Heinrich Rusch. Baptisms, confirmations, communion, and weddings were performed for us and a few other villages by Pastor Wacker. He lived in Norka. In the winter, church services were held in the prayer house because of a shortage of heating materials. The church was closed in 1935, forbidden by the state. This edict came from Lenin. In 1937 the church was turned into a club. Movies were shown, theatrical performances, and dances for the young people. After work at the kolkhoz, the young people and married men and women gathered. They had games and singing. It was directed by the Young Communist Workers.

In the village there were a few businesses: general stores, yard good stores, shoe stores, weaving shop. Then a dairy was established with various milk products, mainly Holland cheeses. There was also an MTS (Machine Tractor Station). Belonging to it were Donhof, the Russian villages Old and New Topovka.

In 1927 the prayer house was turned into a seven-year school. (Rural elementary school) I completed this school. Director of the school was Alexander Eckerdt until the deportation of 1941. This was by the decree from the Supreme Soviet, Stalin and Kalinin. It was published on 30 August. On 1 and 2 September 1941, the people were transported to the Volga by oxcart. The village was surrounded by soldiers and NKVD men with weapons. We were said to be traitors, spies, and diversionaries. The soldiers took our goods and gave us a receipt and with the panic which they spread. "You will get everything back, also the cattle." The first deportees were sent to the Krasnyy Yar district and later to the fisheries on the Jennesii River in the steppe and in the forest. They had to make shelter in earth huts. Many people died because of illness and the poor care. Two parties went to Komi Republic and Tomsk-Novosibirsk and Altai Districts, to the areas which had not yet been settled.

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