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Fonds is arranged in the following series:
1) Seven interviews which became research material created for the Mennonite Historical Society BC practicum in 2006 - (1 file) - Box 191
The interviews were conducted with people from the Fraser Valley in 2006 and included questions asking about the reasons for their moving to the Fraser Valley, daily and community life, role of the church, the second world war, health care, youth, role of women, among other questions.

The Great Trek is a feature length documentary film of the Mennonite experience and exodus from Russia 1939-1945. It is about World War II and the Russian Mennonites who were part of a migration of people, not only of many individuals, but of entire populations. The movement began with the resettling of ethnic Germans after the annexation of the Baltic States in 1940 by the Soviet Union. After the outbreak of hostilities between Germany and the USSR, entire ethnic German colonies were uprooted and moved east. When the Soviet armies forced the German retreat beginning in 1943, all ethnic Germans were evacuated from Ukraine by the retreating German forces. Among them were 35,000 people of Mennonite origin and background.

This films consists of two parts – the first covering 1939-1943 and the second 1943-1945. Each part begins and ends with an introduction and closing comments by Mennonite historian, educator and editor Gerhard Ens. In this documentary, Otto Klassen has assembled a collage of documentary and newsreel footage made by German information services of the time and still photographs from the archives of the Federal Republic of Germany in Coblenz, private archives and from the archives of the Mennonite Heritage Centre in Winnipeg to tell a story. The archival film footage gives the film an immediacy that narration and re-enactment cannot. The realism and horror is almost overpowering at times. Producer and director Otto Klassen has released both English and German versions of The Great Trek.

Also included with the moving images is a script, sequence summary and shot list, Correspondence related to archival footage acquired from German archives and reviews and congratulatory correspondence.

The papers and photographs in this collection include Lois Gunden Clemen's relief work in France under Mennonite Central Committee from 1941 to 1944. They also document her work as an educator and author, her Conrad Grebel Lectures, her work with Women's Missionary and Service Commission and other Mennonite-related organizations, her involvement with American Association Of University Women, and correspondence with her future husband Ernest Clemens.

Information regarding the World War II experiences of Henry C. Penner, a Mennonite from Wrickler, Manitoba who was arrested for resisting the draft in 1944. Tapes and transcripts of interviews conducted by Leonard Gross with Henry and his son Leonard Penner are included, as is correspondence between the army and Henry’s uncle George Penner concerning the arrest and subsequent court martial. The records of the court martial, some miscellaneous notes and pamphlets, and slides of documents are also included.

At the Asia-South Pacific Congress on Evangelism, Jap. delegates lay a wreath expressing their grief at the suffering caused by the Jap. armies in the Second World War. Not found in CM. Related article in CM 16-46-1/2. This photo is missing.

This series contains an assortment of useful items in several folders and in a scrapbook. Most noteworthy are the clippings (1945-1950 and materials related to World War II and Mennonite Contentious Objector (CO) status in Canada. The clippings come from newspapers and magazines such as the Red River Valley Echo, Steinbach Post, Mennonite Weekly Review, and The Winnipeg Free Press. The clippings deal with religious issues and issues pertaining to the history of Mennonite in Canada and Latin America. Many of the history clippings deal with the emigration of Mennonites to Paraguay in 1948. There is also a file related the Echo Verlag series of historical books.

This fonds contains the diary of Jakob Guenther starting on the 16. Jan. 1945 when he was conscripted into the German army. It continues during the period that he was a Russian prisoner of war in Romania from the end of the war till 19 February 1946. The last entry is dated 20. Sept 1947 written in Canada, expressing his longing to be reunited with his wife and daughters, or at least to have confirmation of their well-being.