Description: Chortitza oak
Date: 1936
Location: Chortitza, Russia
MLA filing: Russia - Villages
Original size: 25.5 x 19 cm
Source:
Photographer:
Note: On Mar. 6, 2009, we received an email from Deborah Erbacher in Canada with this note— "Paul Hann of Fortuna, California wrote to me on August 15, 2002 (address at that time, 1194 Crestview Dr. Fortuna, CA 95540-3202) and gave me the following information about the photo. I am indirectly related to Paul through his step-mother Helena Neufeld Von Kampen Hann. Paul writes. "Let me first answer the question about the boy sitting on the limb of the old Loewen oak. Yes, that's me (long ago). This picture was taken by a friend Rudolph Zaft - a photographer (also a Pastor [Seventh Day Adventist Church] who baptized me in the Dneiper River in 1943. Under that "special" oak branch is his wife with child. Then the boy in black is Arthur Zaft, Henry (my deceased 1/2 brother) and in the white dress is Helen, my stepsister who was very close to the Braun sisters. By the way, Arthur Zaft is living in Kelowna, B.C. He is a retired Pastor. On the far left (under the oak tree) are the Neufeld siblings."
Note: What is probably the same photo is published in N. J. Kroeker, First Mennonite Villages in Russia 1789-1943, Khortitsa—Rosental (Vancouver, BC; Kroeker, 1981), p. 232. It has the caption "1936. The big oak and a gathering of Mennonites. Sitting in front, Tina Loewen. On the branch, Paul Hahn." The print of the photo in the Mennonite Library and Archives seemed to be cropped so that the two children on the left and right edges of the photo are missing. They can be seen in the version printed in the Kroeker book.
