To Canada - a short description of the need to leave

This excerpt was taken from Chronicles and Geneology of the Abram Edmund Klassen Family, compiled by Isaac P Klassen, David Friesen and Helena Braun, published January 1988.  Any significant additions/edits have been added in Italics.  Spelling and grammar has been corrected without notation.

The Mennonites prospered in Ukraine.  Their young men served as conscientious objectors in the forestry service, "Forstei".  During Wold War I, many were pressed into the military corps, not to bear arms, but as medical aides. After 1917, the Russian Revolution broke out and the Communists took over the country.  The Mennonites were robbed, taken prisoner, sent to Siberia (other sources say Kazakhstan), and some were murdered.  Many died of hunger.  Help came from North America both in emergency food supplies and in open doors for immigration.  Diligent representatives worked these miracles with the help of God.  Between 1922 and 1929 about 22,000 of the approximately 100,000 Mennonites in the USSR emigrated to Canada and the United States.