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The Borosenko Memorial

by Margaret Bergen

Margaret Bergen at the Borozenko Memorial, October 5, 2002.

In September 2002, I joined the Mennonite Heritage Cruise in order to be able to participate in the dedication of a memorial stone in the former Mennonite village of Ebenfeld, Borosenko Colony, now the Ukrainian village of Iljanifka, in memory of the victims of the massacres of the villages of Ebenfeld and Steinbach.

One cold December night in 1919, a band of Machnovites brutally massacred all the families in the villages of Ebenfeld and Steinbach – 67 men, woman and children in Ebenfeld, 54 in Steinbach. Only a very few people escaped. The dead were hurriedly buried in mass graves by several men from neighboring Mennonite villages.

The Mennonite cemetery in Ebenfeld still exists. It is surrounded by acacias, and has been maintained by the Ukrainian family on whose property it is located. They describe it as “sacred ground”. They know the exact spot of the mass grave.

Two years ago I approached Harvey Dyck regarding a memorial stone for the mass grave in the Ebenfeld cemetery. I took on the financial responsibility, and Harvey did all the preparatory work. He engaged Paul Epp, Toronto, to design the stone which was made in Ukraine by Aleksandr and Elena Pankew. He met with the Ukrainian family in Ebenfeld on whose land the cemetery is situated and the local administrators to obtain permission for this project, and he set up the program for the memorial service.

The memorial service was held in the Mennonite cemetery in Ebenfeld/Iljanifka, on October 5, 2002. The memorial stone had been set up beside the mass grave. The service was well attended by local Ukrainians who stood respectfully and reverently in a semi-circle in the cemetery. It was also attended by two bus-loads of people from the Mennonite Heritage Cruise, as well as two bus-loads from the Zaporozhye Mennonite Church.

The memorial stone is circular, representing the continuity of the past, present and the future. The inscription is in German and in Ukrainian. Mourning viewers must walk around it in a circle to read it, thereby participating in the gesture of continuity and its message of hope. The incisions on the stone are similar to those of a millstone. This humble artifact represents the simple agrarian life of those being commemorated. The anchor at the centre of the memorial is the historical Tsarist and Russian Mennonite symbol of Christian faith and hope. The inscription on the memorial stone reads as follows:

In trauernder Erinnerung an Mennonitische Opfer des Massenmordes in der Nikolaithaler/Nowosofiewkaer Wolost während des Buergerkrieges 1919. Ebenfeld/Uljanowka 4. Dezember, 67 Männer, Frauen und Kinder im nahestehenden Grab bestattat. Steinbach / Kuzmizkoje 5. Dezember, 54 Männer, Frauen und Kinder im gewesenen Dorf bestattet. Anderswo in der Wolost, 17 Männer, Frauen und Kinder. Darum lasset uns dem nachstreben was zum Frieden dient, Römer 14, 19. Im Geiste der Versöhnung von den Verwandten der Opfer und der Internationalen Mennonitischen Memorial Gesellschaft im Jahre 2002 errichtet.

In his opening remarks, Harvey Dyck gave a brief history of that violent time. He then stated that we were gathered to lament the violent deaths of the villagers and to ensure that these dead not be forgotten.

I spoke briefly since this was a very perpersonal journey for me because my uncle Johann Bergen, was one buried in this mass grave. The burial, more than 82 years ago, was done hurriedly, in an atmosphere of panic and great fear by several men from nearby Mennonite villages, without any regular Christian Mennonite funeral ceremony. The mutilated bodies could not be washed. There were no coffins for the 67 massacred victims. There were no hymns, no sermon, no prayers. There were no mourners left to mourn. Through this memorial service we honored the memory of those who died giving them the funeral denied them in 1919, through words, hymns, prayers and the reading of their names.

Zinaida Slavinskaya from Ebenfeld / Iljankfka and I from Winnipeg unveiled and dedicated the memorial. John Bergen prayed for forgiveness for the perpetrators of these massacres, for reconciliation, and for God’s blessing on those who now reside in these villages where our people once lived. The hymn “Bless the Lord O My Soul” followed.

Svetlana Bolyleva, director, Institute of Ukrainian and German Studies, Dnepropetrovsk National University, spoke on “Those Evil Days’. The fratricidal civil war which followed the 1917 Russian Revolution, caused the collapse of law and order, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people of every nationality and faith who had lived side by side with Ukrainians for generations. The memories of those unspeakable crimes linger in the hearts of the relatives. So let us Ukrainians and Mennonites preserve these memories.

Pupils from the local school then sang “A Gift of Life”. Helmut Epp, pastor of the Petershagen/Molochansk Mennonite Church, Molotschna Colony, spoke on the topic: “Let us keep Peace”, where he emphasized that one should not meet evil with evil, that one should be ready to forgive, and that peace was more than the cessation of armed conflict. It means that one needs to live in harmony with God and with fellowmen

This was followed by a minute of silence, a prayer, and the laying of flowers on the memorial stone on behalf of the relatives, on behalf of the Ukrainian villagers, by village children and by local and foreign guests.

For the memorial service represented a closure – a service to remember and to reconcile. The innocent Mennonite people who were massacred here in Ebenfeld and in Steinbach and in other villages in the Borosenko Colony, now had the funeral service that was denied them in 1919.

We came here in a spirit of reconciliation and to honor those who had suffered a horrific death.

Margaret Bergen lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

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