Mennonite Weekly Review

AKRON, Pa. — Peter J. Dyck, who led Russian Mennonite refugees out of Germany after World War II in a dramatic opening act to a life of service with Mennonite Central Committee, died of cancer Jan. 4. He was 95.

Peter J. Dyck was an ambassador for Mennonite Central Committee and lifelong servant to people in need around the world. — Photo provided by MCC

Dyck, who lived in Scottdale, was a storyteller, pastor, author, ambassador for MCC and lifelong servant to people in need around the world.

Born in Lysanderhöh, Am Trakt, Russia, on Dec. 4, 1914, Dyck was a child when the Russian Revolution ushered in the start of the Soviet Union. At 6 years old, he almost died of typhoid and hunger that accompanied the famine of 1921.

Dyck and his family were rescued by food shipments sent from Mennonites in Canada and the United States, a kindness he would not forget. Six years later his family, including eight siblings, fled Russia and settled in Saskatchewan.

During World War II, he served with MCC in England. Motivating his decision to work with MCC was his memory of the food aid he received as a child. The food had come through a newly formed MCC.

“I knew these were people that do good… . They fed our family. They fed our community. Now they are asking me to go and do something like that for others? To me, it would almost have seemed immoral not to say yes,” Dyck told historian Robert Kreider, editor of Interviews with Peter J. Dyck and Elfrieda Dyck.

In 1944 he married Elfrieda Klassen, a nurse who also was serving with MCC in England. She too was a Russian Mennonite refugee who moved to Canada.

When the war ended, the Dycks moved to the Netherlands to direct a massive relief effort. Dyck was later knighted by Queen Juliana of the Netherlands in recognition of MCC’s feeding and clothing program.

In 1946 the Dycks set up refugee camps in Germany for thousands of Mennonites who had fled the Soviet Union. Over time, they led 5,500 Mennonites by boat to South America, predominantly Paraguay.

This experience provided content for Dyck’s stories and was the basis of the book, Up from the Rubble, which he co-authored with his wife in 1991.