top of page
Historic
Videos
These videos document various aspects of our Germans from Russia ancestors. They really tell their story of how they persevered so we as their descendants could live today.
A German Russian Girl's Life in Kazakhstan
by Lena Wolf
I grew up in Aktobe/Aktjubinsk, Kazakhstan. Many people were sent there during World War II. Not just Germans, but also Polish, Czech, Romanians, Belorussians, Russians, Ukrainians, Tatars, Chechens, Armenians, etc. Atkobe has about 500,000 people.
We'll Meet Again in Heaven
by Prairie Public, North Dakota
This thirty minute documentary is a searing chronicle of a forgotten genocide and a lost people, whose "... misery screams to the heavens." The lost people are the ethnic German minority living in Soviet Ukraine, who wrote their American relatives about the starvation, forced labor, and execution that were almost daily fare in Soviet Ukraine during this period, 1928‑1938.
Children of the Steppe Children of the Prairie
by Prairie Public, North Dakota
Germans From Russia: Children of the Steppe, Children of the Prairie was the story of the agricultural pioneers whose quest for land and peace led them across several continents and shaped them into a distinctive and enduring ethnic group.
Russia's Ethnic Germans: Why They Stayed at Home
by DW, a German public broadcast service
Since 1950, some 4,5 Million people have immigrated to Germany - most of them from Russia's ethnic German community. Hundreds of thousands of them settled here after German re-unification. But some chose to stay in Russia or ultimately returned there. During the Second World War, many ethnic Germans were forcibly settled in the Siberian city of Omsk. We report on the everyday life of the few who remain there.
At Home on the Prairie
by Prairie Public, North Dakota
Since 1950, some 4,5 Million people have immigrated to Germany - most of them from Russia's ethnic German community. Hundreds of thousands of them settled here after German re-unification. But some chose to stay in Russia or ultimately returned there. During the Second World War, many ethnic Germans were forcibly settled in the Siberian city of Omsk. We report on the everyday life of the few who remain there.
Germans from Russia: Wolgaheimat Legacy
Written and Produced by Elena Sofinskaya,
Volga Media Group, Saratov State University
This is the story of Volga Germans. About 1.2 million Germans called Russia their home. The Thirty Year European War (1618 - 1648) didn't give its citizens ample land to farm, and religious persecutions over two centuries led many to seek happiness in the new world. Some found this in Russia which had both free space and hidden treasure.The Russian government paid for all travel expenses. They were exempt from all government service.
Harvest of Despair: The 1933 Ukrainian
Holodomor Famine Genocide Documentary
by The Ukrainian Famine Research Committee
In the 1930's, the Soviets used engineered famine as a weapon in the North Caucasus, Volga Basin, and Ukraine. The Soviet Secret Police sealed off these areas, no one can get out or bring food in. In less than 2 years (1932-1933), 10 million people died - 7 million in Ukraine, 3 million were children. A family was given 2 loaves of bread a month.
Childhood Memories
by Prairie Public, North Dakota
Germans from Russia children growing up in rural South Dakota during the Great Depression were no strangers to hard work. When that one-room school house bell rang in the fall, it was like a vacation from the daily grind of farming. They knew that education was their ticket to a better life.
A Soulful Sound:
Music of the Germans from Russia
by Prairie Public, North Dakota
In the 18th and early 19th centuries, thousands of German-speaking peoples established major German settlements in Russia, first along the Volga River in the north, and secondly along the Black Sea in South Russia and nearby Bessarabia. Eventually, many migrated yet again, this time to North and South America. Throughout their travels, these Germans, now Germans from Russia, maintained their traditional religious music, their lullabies and folk songs, their vocal and instrumental music alike.
Home in Russia, Home on the Prairie
by Prairie Public, North Dakota
What causes a region--a place--to imprint itself upon the people who are born and live there? What is the connection between landscape and memory? What is forgotten and what is remembered? Prairie Public's newest documentary in the Germans From Russia series shows how a territory can endure in the minds of the descendants of those inhabitants after years, even after generations, have passed.
Schmeckfest
by Prairie Public, North Dakota
Schmeckfest: Food Traditions of the Germans from Russia preserves memories of prairie mothers who left no records of their lives, but who are remembered daily in the recipes and rituals of food preparation. The documentary was awarded a bronze Telly Award.
Gutes Essen:
Good Eating in German Russian Country
by Prairie Public, North Dakota
Gutes Essen: Good Eating in German-Russian Country is Prairie Public's newest documentary that celebrates the food culture of the Germans from Russia who emigrated to south central North Dakota beginning in the 1880s. Visit the kitchens of ten local North Dakota cooks who make strudels, sauerkraut, kartoffel-kurbis strumbas, fleischkuechla, borscht, rahmnoodla, pickled beets, stirrum, knoephla soup, and kuchen. Spend a morning at the historic Model Bakery in Linton where kuchen is hand crafters, and tour Grandma's kuchen, Ashley North Dakota's small town business. Learn the tricks of making sausage at Schmitt Locker in Napolean and the Supervalu in Zeeland. Explore the chuch fair and supper in Strasburg and the 91st Sauerkraut Days in Wishek. The food is great, but the stories are even better.
bottom of page