# Jacob Siemens and the escape across the Amur

1930–1934 · Overview

After the Russian Revolution, Mennonite families had settled along the Amur River in eastern Asiatic Russia. The photographed account places Jacob Siemens at the head of a party of more than two hundred people who left that region in December 1930. Their route to safety lay across the frozen river into China.

The crossing was the beginning of a longer journey. The refugees eventually reached Harbin, where they joined other groups who had fled earlier. The source gives Siemens’s name as the leader of the river crossing but provides no birth date, death date, or fuller personal biography. His profile is therefore centered on the particular act of leadership the account records.

Between 1931 and 1934, Mennonite Central Committee helped members of these refugee groups find new homes in Paraguay, Brazil, and the United States. The episode connects personal courage and group migration with the developing work of organized Mennonite relief. It belongs within the church’s history of helping displaced families rebuild their lives across national borders.



- [Supplied timeline photograph IMG_9366, caption N](https://github.com/trueChristian/history.truechristian.church/blob/main/sources/church-history/photos/IMG_9366.jpg)

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Page: https://history.truechristian.church/en/people/jacob-siemens/

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