© Mennonite Heritage Centre, Winnipeg, Manitoba (Last updated July 14, 2009)
Anna Peters was born on 11 June 1919 in Neuendorf, Chortitza, South Russia to Abram and Margarete Peters. She received very little education due to the conditions of the time in the 1920s. Her father was arrested and exiled to Siberia in 1930 when she was 11. The family was evicted from their home in Neuendorf. At age 13 (1932), her mother died, and Anna largely had to fend for herself. Her oldest sister Maria and her husband Jacob Bergen emigrated from Russia in 1923, settling in Graysville, Manitoba and later moved to Stephenfield, Manitoba. Her brother Jakob Peters, escaped Russia in 1928 across the Caucausus to Persia (Iran) and then found his way to Brazil and back to Germany by 1933. This brother eventually was stationed with the German invasion troops as a translator in Orel, Russia, from where he would visit the family in South Russia. In 1942, her brother Jakob Peters accompanied her to Berlin, where she worked in a German household and began to study nursing in Danzig. Anna Peters emigrated from Germany to Canada in 1948. In 2009 she was living in Abbotsford, BC.
This fonds has mainly the correspondence (1945-1948) between Anna Peters in Germany, her sister Maria (Peters) Bergen in Canada and her nephew John Bergen, at first in Oldenburg, Germany, later back in Canada, and her niece, Margaret Bergen in Canada. Anna's first letter to her sister Maria Bergen after the war was sent along with a Canadian soldier stationed in Wiesmoor, who was returning to Canada. No correspondence was yet allowed between Germany and Canada at the time. Maria was able to send a letter to her son John Bergen, who was in the Dental Corps, as a member of the occupation forces stationed in Oldenburg, Germany, and through him contact could be made and letters received. For several months all letters from Anna Peters (Germany) to her sister Maria (Canada) were forwarded via John Bergen in Oldenburg, Germany.
There are also three letters which pre-date the 1945-1948 period -- one written by Anna's brother, Anton Peters in 1934, another by her father Abram Peters in 1933, and one by Anna herself as a 13 year-old, describing their dire circumstances having the last potatoes, etc. taken by the communists and begging for a dollar (1933).
Inventory file list and some background notes.
Jakob Peters fonds (Vol. 5425: 1-7)
The letters were in the Bergen family possession and in the possession of Anna Peters who brought some to Canada in 1948. Margaret Bergen translated the letters. Other family members assisted with typing some of the transcriptions.
German with English translations
Arranged and described by Alf Redekopp, July 2009.
None to access
Margaret Bergen, Winnipeg
Acc. No. 2009-036
Volume 5425
Letters to Bergen relatives in Germany and Canada. 1945-1948.Letters to Maria (Peters) Bergen (1898-1983) in Canada from relatives in Russia (i.e. from from Anton Peters (1906-1938), sister Anna Peters (1919-) and father Abram Peters (1874-1962).
- Anna Peters (Germany) letters to her sister Maria Bergen (Canada), nephew John Bergen and niece Margaret Bergen; and letters she received from the same. 1945-1948. 46 letters (some photocopies and some originals). NOTE: Includes background information about writers and recipients as well as a list showing extant of originals (which exist in photocopy only and which are missing). NOTE: files 2 & 3 contain transcriptions and translations of 64 letters.
- Anna Peters (Germany) letters to her sister Maria Bergen (Canada), nephew John Bergen and niece Margaret Bergen; and letters she received from the same. 1945-1948. 64 letters (71 pages) (Typewritten German transcriptions).
- Anna Peters (Germany) letters to her sister Maria Bergen (Canada), nephew John Bergen and niece Margaret Bergen; and letters she received from the same. 1945-1948. 64 letters (133 pages) (Handwritten English transcriptions).
- Anna Peters, age 14, describes their circumstances living with her brother, having their last potatoes, etc. taken by the communists, begs for a dollar -- 1933. (Original, transcription and translation)
- Anton Peters describes his circumstances. 1934. (photocopy, transcription and translation)
- Abram Peters to his married children John and Maria Bergen in Canada. 29 Nov. 1934. (photocopy, transcription and translation)