Certificate, 2003
Karl Wassiliewitsch Schmik (correctly: Schmück) was born in 1877; according to the certificate, he lived in Kalatsch-Rajon (district) of the Stalingrad region before his deportation. His ancestors came from Isenburg near Göding and set out for the Russian Empire in 1863. Between 1898 and 1902, he served in the Russian imperial army. Until the beginning of collectivization, his family lived in the German colony of Grimm, after which he moved to Sarepta and finally to Kalatsch, where he worked in agriculture. From there, the family was deported to Kazakhstan in September 1941. In contrast to his son, Karl did not have to perform forced labor due to his advanced age. The document originates from the donation of his granddaughter Katharina Schmück, who was born in 1949 at the place of exile in East Kazakhstan and came to Germany in 1993. Since 1982, Germany has remembered the deportation of Soviet citizens of German nationality during World War II on August 28 with the ‘Day of the Russian Germans’. Most of the ancestors of the group somewhat inaccurately referred to as ‘Russian Germans’ came to the area of the then Russian Empire even before the founding of the German National State.
