-
OADoopsgezinden, vluchtelingen en kolonisten1
Het Hollandsch Doopsgezind Emigrantenbureau (1924-1938)
- Amsterdam University Press
- Source: Doopsgezinde Bijdragen, Volume 51, Issue 1, sep. 2025, p. 61 - 90
-
- 01 sep. 2025
Samenvatting
In 1924, the Hollandsch Doopsgezind Emigrantenbureau (HDEB) emerged from a spontaneous relief effort by Doopsgezinden (Dutch Mennonites) in Rotterdam. Initially, they received Mennonite refugees from the Soviet Union who passed Rotterdam on their way to the Americas. After Stalin’s emigration ban in 1930, they provided extensive construction aid to refugees who settled in Brazil.
The HDEB archive is not yet public and is only described in broad outline but contains material that is useful to the history of the Russländer. It provides information about the support of Doopsgezinden for emigrants and victims of famine, the experience of spiritual and national kinship between Doopsgezinden and Mennonites from the Soviet Union, and the latter’s susceptibility to Nazism. This article aims to provide an impression of what the archive can offer researchers in terms of further research opportunities by providing a global history of the HDEB’s main activities, namely: support for refugees in transit in Rotterdam (1924-1929), actions of the last groups of refugees from Siberia (1929-1931) and assistance in building a colony in Brazil (1931-1938).