Ben Klassen - Early Life

Early Life

Klassen was born on February 20, 1918 in Rudnerweide, Ukraine to Bernhard and Susanna Klassen. He had two sisters and two brothers: Sarah, Katie, Korni, and Henry; four, six, ten, and twelve years his senior, respectively. When Klassen was nine months old, he caught typhoid fever and nearly died. His earliest memories were of the famine of 1921–22. He remembered his father rationing to him one slice of dark bread for dinner. Klassen was first introduced to religion at the age of "three or four." Klassen recalls his mother praising him for the "verve and loudness" with which he sang hymns.

When he was five, the family moved to Mexico, where they lived for one year. The first stop on their trip was in Moscow, where Klassen was introduced to electric lights and ice cream. The next stop was Riga, Latvia, then on to Berlin, Germany where they stayed for some time. They stopped in Cologne where his father and brothers went to see the sights, including the famous Cologne Cathedral. Next, the Klassen family went to Paris, where they again went sight-seeing, visiting the Eiffel Tower and other famous landmarks. From Paris they took a train to their embarkation point across the Atlantic, at La Rochelle, France. Klassen recalls his voyage across the Atlantic Ocean as his first encounter with Black people, oranges, bananas, and pineapples. The Klassen family arrived, after more than a week, at Havana harbor, where they stayed at a boarding house for at least two weeks. After that, the family boarded another train and embarked for Vera Cruz, Mexico. From there, they went north to Chihuahua where the family met with other Mennonites to decide where to go next. In 1925, at age six, he moved with his family to Herschel, Saskatchewan (in Canada). He attended the German-English Academy (now Rosthern Junior College).