Beschrijving
During the First World War, a large group of German settlers in Volhynia and surrounding areas of western Russia became early victims of the 20th century’s epidemic of ethnic cleansing. Seen by many Russians as spies and tools of Kaiser Wilhelm, they were easy scapegoats for Russia’s military failures and were unceremoniously sent eastwards to the Volga, Siberia, and elsewhere, many to die along the way from hunger, exposure, and epidemic. At best, two-thirds of them returned to Volhynia after the war, only to become victims of an increasingly oppressive Soviet regime. Their removal to the west by the retreating German army in the early 1940s provided relief, but brought an end to their localized existence as a culture of \
