Greta

Greta is a member of the women’s group confronting the choice of whether to leave Molotschna Colony. Her significance emerges through practical details rather than a long personal account: she argues that leaving has no disadvantages, faces Klaas’s claim on her team of horses, and has a buggy used to carry essential supplies. These episodes place her at the crossing point between the women’s collective decision and the demands imposed on them within the colony.

Family and the colony’s crisis

Greta is Klaas’s mother-in-law. When he returns from the city, she tells him that many horses are sick and that a veterinarian from Chortiza Colony has recommended quarantining them for two weeks to prevent the infection from spreading. Her intervention is concrete and precautionary: she reports both the animals’ condition and the veterinarian’s advice, offering a reason to keep the horses apart.

The larger crisis makes the horses and the women’s decision inseparable from the colony’s power structure. The remaining men have gone to the city to post bail for the imprisoned attackers, hoping the men can return while awaiting trial. Peters says the women will then be expected to forgive them; refusal means the women must leave for an outside world they know little about. The women have only two days to organize their response. Greta’s exchanges take place against this compressed timetable, as communal expectations press into family and working life.

The decision to leave

During the women’s deliberations, Greta’s answer to the question of whether there are disadvantages to leaving is that there are none. The response is brief, but decisive: it presents departure not as an option weighed against a list of losses, but as the choice she supports under the circumstances. When the group turns to timing, Greta asks whether they agree to leave after dark, so they can pass the Chortiza and Hiakjeke colonies without being seen. Her proposal connects the decision to a practical concern about the journey and the visibility of the departing women.

The plan is not simply an abstract vote. Agata has secured food to pack in her buggy that night, while the narrator prepares other provisions and conceals a map by wrapping it around a large block of cheese and covering it with brown paper. The Co-op Safe is placed beneath the back seat of Greta’s buggy, alongside onions, soap, and pieces of wood intended for traction if the wheels become stuck in mud or for kindling. Greta’s vehicle thus becomes part of the group’s means of carrying both necessities and resources into an uncertain departure.

Horses, authority, and the limits of control

Greta’s report about the sick horses receives no respectful discussion from Klaas. He turns back to her and announces that he is taking her team. The moment contrasts her informed account of the animals’ condition with his unilateral claim over them. It also gives the departure debate a material dimension: the women are planning how to leave while the men’s authority remains active in the ordinary affairs on which travel and livelihood depend.

Greta’s role is not described as a direct confrontation with Klaas, and the evidence does not establish what happens to the team afterward. What it does establish is the tension between her knowledge and his decision, set beside the use of her buggy in the women’s preparations. The same household resources that are subject to male control are also implicated in the collective effort to leave.

Who can go

Near the end of the preparations, Greta checks whether Cornelius is ready and whether his wheelchair has been packed. She learns that he will not be joining the group: his mother has chosen to remain, and he has no choice but to stay with her. The exchange shows that the departure plan cannot bring everyone along, even when the group considers a person’s mobility needs and asks after the practical arrangements.

Greta’s place in the narrative is therefore marked by both resolve and constraint. She supports leaving, helps turn the plan into a route taken after dark, and is associated with a buggy carrying supplies; at the same time, Klaas claims her team, and Cornelius’s circumstances reveal the unequal choices facing families. Her contribution is rendered through these grounded decisions and objects, which make the women’s departure a material undertaking rather than a declaration alone.