Harvest of Despair: Life and Death in Ukraine under Nazi Rule by Karel C. Berkhoff

Author:Karel C. Berkhoff [Berkhoff, Karel C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-10-21T16:00:00+00:00

The Young Generation

There was one group in Nazi-ruled Soviet Ukraine that left behind little doubt about its views on the future and on "Soviet rule." This was the young generation; those born in the 192os and 1930s. Young ethnic Germans-or at least the males-generally sympathized with Nazism. Strange as it may sound, even traditionally pacifist Mennonites "admired all things German uncritically and were unable to distinguish between good and bad," one of them recalls. "We had been under the Communist whip too long."133 His generation adopted the Nazi salute ("Heil Hitler!"), and hundreds of Mennonites ranging in age from seventeen to forty volunteered for administrative, army, and police work. As a man who joined the First Ethnic German Cavalry Regiment at Gnadenfeld remembers, "the principle of non-resistance was forgotten and the men felt it their duty to assist in the struggle against the fearful oppression we had been subjected to for so long."114 Such people acted arrogantly vis-a- cis the Ukrainians, whom they called Russians. As the police veteran puts it, "We Mennonites had been suppressed for mane years and our ethnic background had been made a matter of reproach. We had been called ugly names, had been oppressed in untold ways and our young people very seldom had been admitted to the institutions of higher learning. It was therefore not surprising that under the Germans our people were inclined to be somewhat domineering towards those who had for so long oppressed and rebuked them." There were "some, but very few" acts of

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