Andreas Ratzlaff family emigration; crossing the border

This map clearly shows the border area between Radziwilow, Volhynia, Russia, and Brody, Austria-Hungary as it appeared when the Ratzlaffs left Russia in 1907.  The railroad tracks are the black line passing from top right to bottom left on this map.  The distance between Radziwilow and Brody by direct route on the road is a little less than 7 miles.

Marie (Ratzlaff) Penner in her memoirs indicates that the family paid 300 rubles for a Jewish guide to smuggle them safely across the border.  Marie says they hid in barns during the day and walked at night.  The children were warned to be quiet and make no noise walking through the dense woods.  Border guards had been bribed so the Jewish guides could take the baggage over the border on the road with a horse and wagon.  They must have walked a long time as Marie remembered being extremely fatigued by the time they made it across the border.  My Grandfather, Albert Ratzlaff, who was not born at this time yet, told that in the end the guides wound up stealing most of the family’s baggage.

The main border immigrant station was at Radziwilow, just outside the train station.  The plan the Ratzlaffs were obviously following was to escape across the border on foot.  For reasons I’ll discuss later, they didn’t want to go through the proper procedure of inspection and administration and pass through the Radziwilow border station legally. 

They would have wanted to detrain before they arrived in Radziwilow, so they would have got off at a previous station and walk from there.  In 1907, the first station to the east of Radzivilow was near Iwanie Puste, shown on this map toward the top right.  By 1920, another station had been built near Michailowka, but in 1907 Iwanie Puste would have been the closest the Ratzlaffs could have got to Radziwilow without actually entering that town by train.  The distance from Iwanie Puste to Radziwilow is about 14 miles, with an additional 7 miles to go to reach Brody.  That may be the route they took as Marie implies the walking journey over the border took a few nights to complete.  On a modern map, Radziwilow will be marked Radyvyliv and Iwanie Puste, Pustoivanne.  Here’s a picture of the border crossing in Radziwilow that the Ratzlaff’s avoided as it looked in 1905.