The Bessarabians, settled in West Prussia, shared the fate of the flight with millions of Germans. Just like the rest of the German population in the eastern part of the realm, the Bessarabians received the order to evacuate (a better term would have been the permission to flee) as the battlefront approached in the second half of January 1945. Evacuation was ordered much too late in the settlement areas of the Bessarabian Germans. The farmers could already hear the cannon shots being fired as they set their trek into motion for the West. In many villages the order to flee came too late. People left behind faced a wave of bloodthirstiness, plundering and rape, as well as deportation to Siberia for forced labor.

Here, I can only present a general overview, since the individual situations in the districts and villages of West Prussia differed as the situation of the battlefront changed rapidly. (There are many books written on the subject, however, for people wanting to know more about it.)

The winter of 1945 was especially hard. Temperatures of minus 20 centigrades were common. Most Krasna people had to leave their farms around January 29, 1945. They packed the bare essentials and bundled up their children ranging from infants to adolescents and under featherbeds, packed some groceries and animal feed and left. Often village treks formed. The Krasna people of the individual villages in West Prussia attempted to stay together with their friends and neighbors, and miraculously, some relatives were reunited en route.
They traveled west through ice and snow. Since the military had the right of way on the main roads in Saxony, the refugees had to make way and use the icy side streets. Often the roadways were filled with horses, wagons and people.

The Polish servants, whom the German authorities had forced to accompany the wagons of their masters, took this opportunity to flee. Many a Bessarabian woman had to guide the wagon herself for days, even weeks. Sometimes the roads were solid ice. Wagons slid into the ditches and overturned. Horrible scenes took place: broken wagons, luggage in disarray, searching moothers and crying children, deperate old men and the dead and those frozen to death at the edge of the roads. One cannot describe the horror and the cruelty of it. The suffering was beyond comprehension.
For some these conditions ended the travel by trek. The lucky ones were evacuated by ship across the Baltic Sea. This happened to the family of Elisabeth Söhn of Krasna. ¹⁾
Incredible human suffering ensued when the column of the fleeing people got in between the military front lines, were overtaken by the enemy or attacked by low flying air craft.
Women and girls were raped, many were beaten to death or shot. Others were deported to Russia into forced labor camps. This also happened to people from Krasna. We do not know how many of them suffered. One woman, Mrs. Faustina Bachmeier wrote about her deportation to Siberia in an unpublished report.

Image 115: A Trek of Refugees Fleeing on Icy, Snowy Roads

The treks bound for the West took the route into the northern German flatlands. They went mostly int Mecklenburg, Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein. In the spring of 1945, after six or eight weeks on the road in the trek, Krasna people arrived in the areas of Bremen, Hadeln Land, Verden, Aller, the area of Hildesheim-Helmstedt, the district of Bremervörde and the area around Hamburg-Harburg. Some people went elsewhere. They were all housed on farms in various villages.
Some of the people of Krasna remained in the area which later became East Germany, mostly around Mecklenburg. Some of the were initially farming as “new farmers” independently as a result of the East German agricultural reform, but soon they had to relinquish their farms again. The German reunion after 1989 demanded a new way of life for the people of Krasna who had remained in the former East (of Germany).

Bessarabians, who were located in the Soviet occupied areas of Germany or Austria, in Morovia and Bohemia, were forcefully repatriated to their land of origin or deported to the Soviet Union. Some of the people imprisoned by the western allies were taken to the Soviets, who sent them to Siberia. This happened to the Krasna man Kaspar Ternes. ²⁾

During the flight and in prison, 1,144 Bessarabian Germans perished, some of them had to have been from Krasna, their number is unknown.

After the war ended at the beginning of May 1945 and all of Germany was rubbish and ashes, it was twice as hard for the Bessarabian Germans, who had no contact points in the old country and no way to get any help or find temporary shelter. Most of them ended up in settlement camps in Poland without ever having seen or experienced Germany.

In the places where they first arrived, there was no opportunity for work or for earning a living. This is not a surprise considering how the refugees were distributed over the individual German regions.

Schleswig Holstein had taken in the majority of the refugees. There every third person was a refugee. Lower Saxony was next. There every fourth person was displaced. The numbers declined the further a person went south. Prior to 1950, the French Zone admitted only a few refugees, since the provisional French government did not accept many refugees prior to 1950 with the reason that the provisional French government had not been part of the original agreement.

From 1945 on, the former Federal German Government had striven to come to an equlaization. In the effort of reuniting families and distributing the refugees equally over the area of the federal republic, beginning in 1950 refugees were permitted to leave Lower Saxony and Schleswig Holstein and to settle in the Rhineland/Palatinate (Rheinland Pfalz area). Difficulties in professional and labor conditions also convinced Krasna people to move to West Germany.

A decisive factor to realize this desire was the later bishop of Limburg, Walter Kampe. ³⁾ Prior to the Resettlement, he had been a pastor in Emmental, the daughter colony of Krasna and had occasionally substituted in Krasna, as well. His intervention secured many Krasna people a new home in the northern part of Rheinland Pfalz (Rhineland/Palatinate). There is a note to this efect in his memoirs. ⁴⁾
I realized (1947) how much they suffered from the dispersion in the diaspora. Back then the French Zone had not admitted refugees. I saw my close friend Josef Mayen, who was a district councilman at the time and asked him to assist my former parishioners to get settled there when time permitted. It happened two years later. This is the reason why the Catholic Bessarabian Germans are almost all located in the area around Andernach. They found lucrative employment there in the existing industry and became active members of the parish communities. They were hard working and thrifty and soon owned their own little homes or built homes themselves. Thus, I had the opportunity to visit them frequently and celebrate the holidays with them. Until today, now fifty years after the Resettlement, I still maintain many friendly contacts…

This action led to some concentration of Catholic fellow countrymen of Krasna in the county of Rheinland Pfalz (Rhineland Palatinate), mostly in the are around Mayen and Neuwied, where most of the survivors of Krasna and their descendants still live today. They have come full circle. They emigrated from the Saar-Pfalz region in 1784/1785. (See also 1.3, The Origin of the German Colonists of Bessarabia) Afer living on foreign soil for almost 130 years, they now live again in the general area from whence their ancestors once left for the East.

Some of the Krasna residents remained in Lower Saxony, where they frst arrived after their flight. Another part of the refugees of Krasna immigrated to the USA, Canada and South America after the War.

The time after the war demanded an enormous integration effort of the Bessarabian Germans, who arrived in the Federal Republic of Germany and in the German Democratic Republic. The native population kept their distance at first, as they did with all the displaced refugees. It has to be noted, however, that the situation was not easy for the locals, either, who had received orders to take total strangers into their homes.

Renate Severin, who published an excellent article about Krasna people ⁵⁾) states in her introduction: The community of Ochtendung received refugee families in August of 1950. These families had stayed a few days in a camp in Münstermaifeld and were distributed from there into the surrounding communities. At this time, just five years after the war, housing was still scarce since many of the people who were bombed out during the war in the cities had moved into the countryside and taken up the limited space there. The newcomers were not welcomed with open arms in Ochtendung. “They are from Bessarabia” was the explanation, but hardly anyone knew where to look for this mysterious “Bessarabia” on a map…

The people of Krasna, who had lived and worked back home as independent farmers, which was the majority of them, had a hard time to readjust after the war. With very few exceptions, they had to give up the idea of owning their own farms. This situation demanded of them to reorient themselves into the industrial and trade occupations. In view of their background, this was not easy for the Bessarabian Germans. The new beginnings were easier in view of their cultural “capital” of hard work, independence and the pioneering spirit of the colonists. Of course, most of the older people never rose beyond the status of industrial worker. It was a hard lesson to learn that the once so dependable foundation of landownership did not matter much after the Flight and the Resettlement. The Besarabian Germans began to strive for higher education, a tendency which has continued since and led to a total restructuring of the professional aspects of their descendants.

Because of their energy and thriftiness the Krasna people were part of the builders of own homes, a trend that began in West Germany in the 1950's. Many of them began firms, which today (2007) have already been passed on to their children. Others, mostly the younger generation, became engineers, doctors, teachers or high ranking government officials. In short, the Krasna people managed to succeed.

Today, they are fully integrated into their new homeland. Many of the Krasna descendants still speak their native dialect as well as that of the native population. They belong to the local clubs and serve perhaps as the mayor or a council member of their communities.

The author of the Alt-Elft Chronicle, ⁶⁾ who also spent a majority of his life in Bessarabia, sums it up, in agreement with this author: Life and circumstance in Bessarabia was not always so bright and carefree as the nostalgia of the past makes us believe. No, in the 126 years we spent there, we suffered, had our worries and hard work as our constant companions of the colonists until the Resettlement.

On the other hand people, whose cradle stood in Krasna, and who are still alive today, often have good memories of their youth and childhood. They loved living there, where their families were still intact and their parents cared for them. They were not extavagant and during Rumanian times they did not realize to the full extent how much their futures were threatened.

All in all most of the Krasna people would agree with the statement of an old resettler: I believe that 99% of our fellow countrymen are grateful and happy about the resettlement today.

Since the end of the Cold War, not only many people born in Krasna but also their descendants have since visited the old home village.
See also: 9, The Village of Krasna since the German Exodus until Today

Although Krasna peope are settled in several regions of Germany in a heavy concentration. The national group does not exist as a living unit anymore, although (2007) Bessarabian Germans still practice their traditions.

Connecting again with the old village community began at Pentecost of 1948. Back then, a youth assembly was held in Haßbergen, near Nienburg in Lower Saxony. In spite of the poor traffic connections, many youths of the former village of Krasna went there.

During the following years many Krasna people from Lower Saxony had moved to Rheinland Pfalz (Rhneland Palatinate), which is open to all the Bessarabian Germans, not just the Krasna people. Development was mainly positive, in spite of the ups and downs common to all human endeavours. It has weathered all storms and can now already look back on 60 years of existence. One can read more about the structure and work of the association in the following publications:

• Festschrift 170 Jahre Krasna, 100 Jahre Emmental, 1984 (Commemorative Issue, 170 Years of Krasna, 100 years of Emmental, 1984)
• Festschrift 50 Jahre Umsiedlung der Bessarabiendeutschen, 1990, (Commemorative Issue, 50 Years after the Resettlement from Bessarabia, 1990)
• Erinnerungen an Bessarabien 60 Jahre nach der Umsiedlung, 2001 (Memories of Bessarabia 60 Years after the Resettlement, 2001)

The Fellowship has its own flag as a symbol of its unity and tradition. On one side can be found the coat of arms of the Bessarabian Germans, on the other side the image of St. Andrew, who was revered by the Bessarabian Germans as the patron saint of Russia and Southeast Europe.
Since 1980 the Fellowship has its own home in Mühlheim-Kärlich, where small and larger groups of the members meet regularly. It is known today by the name of “Bessarabiendeutscher Verein, Landesgruppe Rheinland-Pfalz” (Bessarabian German Association, Regional Group of Rhineland Palatinate).

A few years after this Fellowship was organized, a second group was formed, the Kulturkreis und Beratungsstelle für ehemalige Krasnae, Emmentaler, Balmaser, Largaer und andere Landsleute aus Bessarabien (Cultural Circle and Advisory Office for Former People of Krasna, Emmental, Balmas, Larga and other Fellow Countrymen from Bessarabia). This group is especially interested in functioning as the information platform for these Catholic communities. It also has a web site: http://www.bessarabien.info/.

These associations continue to serve an important function. Each helps in its own way to preserve the collective memories, traditions and the history of Krasna. They have publish useful materials. They practice song and dance from the homeland, hold cooking classes and organize trips, even to Krasna, or Krasnoe, as it is called today. See next section