Benjamin Johan Nachtigal was born 1 March 1887, the 4th child of Johan David and Helena (Decker), probably in Menziliski, Ostrog County, Volyn Governorate, Russia. As a youth, he was baptized by his father, a minister of the Lilewa congregation. [1]
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| The village of Leeleva (Lilewa) showing the house of John Nightingale (Johan David Nachtigal) towards the lower left, in Menziliski. |
Benjamin grew up in the tiny village several miles south of Ostrog. Menziliski was situated in a clearing in the forest just south of the small town of Kuniv. The boy probably spent a lot of time working as day labor for nearby farming operations, cutting wood in the forest, or spinning and weaving linen. For a year or two, he probably would have attended school at the Andreas Ratzlaff house in Lilewa, learning to spell words on a handheld slate. The house where he lived was made of logs cut from the forest and had a simple dirt floor. Jewish peddlers from Kuniv frequently traveled the roads near the village, as did as Polish Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox folks. Once in a while, Gypsies camped in the nearby forests and even Muslims could be seen coming from Yuvkivtsi to Ostrog. Benjamin oftentimes went with his father to sell linen in the fairs at Kuniv or Ostrog.
One of the factors that influenced his childhood was the fact that he was a firsthand witness to the erosion of the Mennonite community of Ostrog County. By the time he was 25 years old he had witnessed no less than 30 Mennonite families of the Lilewa Mennonite congregation leave Volhynia for USA. He watched 3 of his brothers leave for USA, as well as his Decker grandparents and 2 aunts and uncles. Other close family relatives left Volhynia for villages of the more prosperous Molotschna and Chortitza Colonies in New Russia. When he was a just a small boy, one of his Decker uncles left for Siberia. He himself stayed in Volhynia to watch after his aging parents, who by the early 19-teens moved to Alexandertal Mennonite Colony near Samara. By this time the Mennonite community in Ostrog County which had once numbered in the thousands, dwindled to single digits. A great many of the Mennonites had been replaced by German Baptists. Benjamin’s younger sister and brother also stayed in Volynia during this time but by the mid-1920s, they had also moved to Crimea and Canada.[2]
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| Benjamin Johan Nachtigal, near Warsaw, on his wedding; 1913 |
On 12 March 1913, at 3:00 in the afternoon, Benjamin was married to Anna Ebert, (b1893, daughter of Zacharias and Anna (Bartel)). Anna was from the village of Markowschisna near Deutsche Kazun. The wedding may have taken place in the church at Deutche Kazun and perhaps Benjamin became acquainted with his bride through contact with the Low German Mennonite community at Lindenthal in Zhytomir County. Benjamin traveled to Kazun for the wedding and even had his photo taken for the occasion. After the wedding, the young couple came back to Ostrog and made their home either in Lilewa or Menziliski, where the groom’s parents lived.[3]
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| Shepetivka County in the 1920s. Ostrog was on the other side of the border, in Poland [4] |
Four sons were born to the couple: Ewald (1913), Adolf (1915), Richard (1917), and Daniel (1919). During the Russian Civil War, Ben was called away to serve in the White Army where we believe he was a medical officer. After the war, the Lilewa area was collectivized and the villages Lilewa, Michalivka, Dertka, Jadwanin, and Sivir, were organized into one collective.
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| Benjamin Johan Nachtigal in his military uniform |
Times were tough; churches in the county were destroyed, schools were consolidated, languages other than Russian were forbidden. Riots occurred and both citizens and government officials were killed. Volhynia was a dangerous place; many dark, terrifying nights passed as various ethnic groups and partisans rained down violence upon one another. One summer morning in 1925 the violence visited Benjamin’s family. While walking home along the road to Dertka, his wife Anna witnessed an attack upon innocent villagers by local partisans. Afraid for her life, she crouched under some bushes by the side of the road, hiding under her shawl. Later that day she was found, deceased, her body curled up under the shawl. She had literally been scared to death and died there by the side of the road.[5]
As the 1930s began, life did not get easier in Volhynia. In winter 1930, in next-door Pluzhne, an uprising occurred which engulfed more than 20 nearby villages. The rioters demanded an end to the destruction of churches, an end to dekulakization, and an end to the communist regime. The Soviets bludgeoned the uprising; 49 villagers were killed or arrested while upwards of 2,000 were arrested.[6]
Benjamin re-married to a local woman named Olga and they lived there for another 11 years until Germans in Shepetowka County were rounded up and deported to Kazakhstan. 400 German and Polish families were evicted from Pluzhne Volost, where the Nachtigals lived, in March of 1936. Benjamin, together with Olga and his sons Adolf and Richard (Ewald had been conscripted into the Red Army and Daniel had been beaten to death by a neighbor), were loaded onto a train of cattle cars and traveled almost 2,000 miles to Kokshetau, Kazakhstan. They traveled with only what they could carry, relying on the kindness of locals to provide food and water.
40 trains, each containing 600-900 Volhynian deportees, arrived at the train station at Tayinsha (Тайынша), North Kazakhstan Oblast, in the spring and summer of 1936. The deportees were organized onto existing kolkhozes and lived under deplorable conditions. Buildings had no roofs or windows, shipments of food took months to arrive, starvation was rampant. In 1943 son Adolf was convicted as a spy and imprisoned at Jezkazgan (likely one of the camps of the Steplag system; Adolf was a very unfortunate name to have in Russia in 1943) to work in the mines. Son Ewald was executed at a Gulag camp somewhere in Krasnoyarsk. Benjamin himself was likely conscripted into the Labor Army.[7]
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| Benjamin Nachtigal, late in his life, with wife Olga and unknown younger lady (step-daughter?) |
Benjamin wasn’t forgotten by his brothers in USA. In 1953, the brothers pooled a good amount of money together and mailed it to Benjamin. The thought was that Benjamin could use the money to bring himself and his family to North America. The money, however, was discovered by the KGB. Benjamin was afraid for his life and turned it over to the local government. The money was then contributed to the building fund for an orphanage in a nearby town or village.[8]
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| Konstantinovka, circled in red, northeast from Kokshetau in Chkalovo District of Northern Kazakhstan [9] |
Benjamin lived out his days in Kazakhstan, dying in the tiny village of Konstantinowka (near Chkalovo/Чкалово) on 2 March 1970, 1 day clear of his 83rd birthday. The descendants of Benjamin and Anna were flung across the world; from Estonia to Germany to Moscow to Jezkazgan to Oregon and California.
[1] See John David Nightengale Family Record, Hattie Mae Nightengale, 1976; Descendants of John David Nightengale, Johanna Rempel, 2012; Genealogical Registry and Database of Mennonite Ancestry, CMHS, GM21-01 Jan 2021.)
[2] Post-1875 Volhynian Immigrants; Rodney D Ratzlaff; December, 2019.
[3] Civil Records for the Mennonite Congregation of Deutsch Kazun, Poland: 1868 – 1913; Translated from Russian to German and condensed by Wilhelm Friesen, Detmold, Germany; Edited and Indexed by Glenn H. Penner.
[4] Українська: Волинська губернія, фрагмент мапи Української соц. рад. республіки, адміністративний поділ після 12 квітня 1923 року.
[5] Валерій Ковальчук; Двічі в одну річку; нариси з історії підрадянської Заславщини; ЗАСЛАВ, 2005; Personal interviews with Ludmila Nachtigal Heitz, granddaughter to Benjamin J Nachtigal.
[6] Uprising of the peasants of the Shepetivka district (1930); https://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Повстання_селян_Шепетівської_округи_(1930).
[8] Descendants of John David Nightengale, Johanna Rempel, 2012.
[9] N-42-4; Soviet military topographic map series 1.50000.
photos courtesy of Ludmila Nachtigal Heitz
