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Rempel, Alexander, 1915-1985
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Dates of existence
1915-1985
History
Alexander (Sascha) Rempel was born on June 8, 1915, in Chortitza, South Russia, as the oldest child of Jacob Rempel and Maria Suderman. His father, Jacob A. Rempel (1883-1941), who had studied at the Evangelical Ministers' School (Predigerschule) in Basel, Switzerland and the University of Basil, was a teacher in the Chortitza Zentralschule in South Russia, when Sascha was born. For a short time during chaotic times of the Russian Revolution and subsequent civil war, the family moved to the Sudermann family estate, where Alexander's mother died in 1918.
Jacob Rempel, Alexander's father, was called and elected as an Ältester (Bishop) with the ordanation being performed by Isaak G. Dyck on 2 May 1920. A little later, Jacob made his home base the village of Grünfeld in the Barotov-Schlachtin settlement. Here Jacob married his first wife's sister, Sophie Sudermann. Together they had six more children, two of whom died young due to starvation.
In September of 1929 the church was closed and the family need to re-locate. They went to Moscow with plans to emigrate but for unknown reasons they were not allowed to leave the Soviet Russia. In November 1929 Alexander's father, Jacob, was taken away and jailed while the family was ordered to return to Grünfeld. Jacob was released and imprisoned numerous times.
From 1934 to 1936, Alexander and Jacob, his father, lived in Ak Metchet in Central Asia. In 1936 they were both arrested, charged and sentenced to death. Jacob was charged jointly with other Mennonites, of attempting major acts of sabotage on behalf of Germany against the Soviet Union i.e. attempting to blow up railway bridges, etc. etc..., all concocted. Alexander was charged for providing economic aid to his father. At one point both were sentenced to be executed by shooting. Jacob's sentence was later commuted to 10 of prison, but he was nevertheless executed on 11 September 1941 in the city of Orel, south west of Moscow. Alexander survived severe interrogation and torture and eventually came to Germany in 1942. These events colored the rest of Alexander's life. Alexander had promised his father that his life would not be forgotten, and though he studied engineering in Berlin, he also painstakingly researched and collected the relevant materials from family, friends and colleague, in order to keep his promise. In 1963, he immigrated to Canada, and lived at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario until his sudden death in 1985.
He was an avid researcher who devoted much of his life to Mennonite studies, but unfortunately due to his illness and sudden death of a heart attack, little was completed or published. In 2005, the story was published under the title, Hope is our Deliverance: Aeltester Jacob Aron Rempel: The tragic experience of a Mennonite leader and his family in Stalin's Russia by Alexander Rempel and Amalie Enns.
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Niagara-on-the-Lake (Ontario)
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GRANDMA ID: 406312
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Sources
Peter H. Rempel. "Alexander Rempel (1915-1985): Reflections on his Life and Work". Mennonite Historian (December 1986): 5-6.