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A Space for Memory

By Daniel Oscar Plenc

In a place formerly called Barranca Blanca, near the confluence of Gómez and La Ensenada creeks, in Libertador San Martín, Entre Ríos, Argentina, there is an undeveloped plot significant for the memory of the community and its foundational institutions. Today, it belongs to the campus of the Universidad Adventista del Plata, about three kilometers of its lecture rooms and administration buildings. Everything began there, for the town and the institutions, although there was nothing or next to nothing in the place for about 120 years (except for a minuscule plaque that commemorates the site where it stood the humble abode of Russian-German farmer Reinhardt Hetze and his family).1

It was precisely Reinhardt Hetze (1851-1939) who, in the small port of Diamante, Entre Ríos province (about 20 kilometers from his home), received the first lay Adventist missionary Geörg [Jorge] Heinrich Riffel (1850-1917) and his family, coming from the United States of America with an evangelizing mission. Evidence indicates that Riffel (also a Russian-German farmer) and Hetze had met in Russia and had been in contact since a while ago.2 Hetze, emigrant from Russia in 1887, had certain knowledge of Adventist doctrines, although he had not embraced them until that point.3 The truth is Hetze picked up the newcomers with his Russian car and accommodated them in his house located in Barranca Blanca.4 That Friday (date unknown) of February, 1890, marked a beginning for South American Adventism, for the emergence of the first Adventist church in the Southern Cone of America and for its institutions.5 Hetze had received letters from his brother, Gottlieb, resident in Kansas, and Jorge Riffel, announcing his coming. Hetze wrote: “I lived two leagues away from Aldea Protestante, near Diamante. When I heard he had arrived, I hitched up my horse and went to see him… On the second day, people came to my house. There were 60 people present....”6

Jorge H. Riffel arrived to “the neglected continent” and was, together with his first convert, Reinhardt Hetze, an apostle of South American Adventism.7 In 1894, Frank Westphal (1858-1944), first Adventist pastor sent to South America, gathered the first believers and organized the first church in the rural area surrounding Crespo, Entre Ríos, on September 9, 1894, with 36 members.8

The ancestors of Jorge H. Riffel came from the Canton of Valais, in the valley of the Upper Rhône, in Southwest Switzerland. His adherence to Protestantism took them to the North of Switzerland and on to South Germany. Along thousands of German immigrants, they took part in the call of Empress Catherine the Great (1762-1796) and moved to the banks of the Volga River in Russia in the 1770s. A hundred years later (1876), Jorge H. Riffel, his wife, María L. Ziegler (1852-1910) and his son David (1873-1937), boarded a ship to South America. First, they settled in Río Grande do Sul, Brazil, then in Entre Ríos (1880), Argentina; later still they moved to Kansas, in the United States (1885), where they adopted Seventh-day Adventism (1888), and from there they moved definitely to the Argentine Republic (1890), establishing residence in Aldea Jacobi, near Crespo, Entre Ríos.9 Riffel convinced another three Russian-German Adventist families to accompany him in his South-American missionary project (the Fricks, Yankes and Zimmermanns).10

In the house of Reinhardt Hetze, together with his wife María Gerlach de Hetze (1856-1911) and his children, David, Santiago, Alejandro, Amalia, Catalina, Julia, Emilia and Hanna, probably was where the first Adventist meetings in South America were held.11 Hanna Hetze de Bernhardt remembered years later that Jorge Riffel talked about Adam and Eve.12

Then, all that core moved to Aldea Jacobi, beginning the first Adventist church.13 In that very place it was agreed in 1898 the creation of Colegio Camarero, then Colegio Adventista del Plata, today Universidad Adventista del Plata, under the leadership of pastor Frank H. Westphal. Jorge H. Riffel and Reinhardt Hetze were connected with the organization and development of the church and its institutions in Libertador San Martín. Riffel was member of the Executive Committee of South American Union-Conference of Seventh-day Adventists (1906) and both of them were members of the committee that created the River Plate Sanitarium and Hospital (1908).14

Colegio Camarero appeared by the decision and support of a small group of Adventists gathered in Crespo on Monday, September 26, 1898.15 It was there that Jorge Juan Lust (1856-1929) donated 17 hectares of land in Colonia Camarero for the establishment of the college. Since then, the September 26, 1898 has been adopted as the date for the foundation of the educational institution and the same date is taken as the founding of Libertador San Martín.16

However, it was in Barranca Blanca where the flame was kindled of all that later development. In that place where nothing stood (only a small partially destroyed plaque that students of the School of Theology placed in 1996), the management of Universidad Adventista del Plata erected a worthy space for thought and remembrance.17 In this place, in 2008, the educational community from Universidad Adventista del Plata held a thanks-giving meeting on the 110 years since the humble beginning of the institution. Surely many people will return to that site in the future in search of their roots and the inspiration needed to achieve their lofty goals. Barranca Blanca will probably be one of the “seven stations” of the historical Adventist circuit that is being developed with help from the Argentine Union, its institutions in Libertador San Martín, the Central Argentine Conference, and the Crespo-Ramírez pastoral district. Those “seven stations” might be: (1) the Port of Diamante on the Paraná River, where pioneers disembarked since 1890; (2) the house of Reinhardt Hetze, where the first Bible study meetings were held; (3) the Universidad Adventista del Plata Visitor Center, where the largest number of visitors will surely arrive; (4) the Roberto Habenicht Museum, of the City of Libertador San Martín, a memorial to the founder of the River Plate Sanitarium and Hospital; (5) the “Crespo Campo” Site Museum, where the first church is still in place; (6) the cemetery of Aldea Jacobi, where many of the pioneers and the first Adventists are buried; and (7) the parish cemetery of Libertador San Martín, where many early pioneers and Adventists rest until the coming of the Lord.

Reinhardt Hetze, his wife María Gerlach and his children in 1901.

1 See Brown, “A Historical Study of the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Austral South America”; Howell, El gran movimiento adventista; Peverini, En las huellas de la Providencia, 35-38; Daniel Oscar Plenc, Misioneros en Sudamérica: Pioneros del adventismo en Latinoamérica [Missionaries in South America: Pioneers of Adventism in Latin America] (Florida oeste, AR: Asociación Casa Editora Sudamericana, 2008).

2 Robert G. Wearner, “Centenario de la iglesia adventista en la Argentina [Centenary of the Adventist Church in Argentina]”, La Revista Adventista 94, No. 9 (Sept. 1994): 23; Santiago Bernhardt Hetze, “Yo soy el mismo ángel [I am the Same Angel]”, La Revista Adventista 82, No. 11 (Nov. 1982): 13.

3 Apparently, Reinhardt Hetze knew Adventism in Europe through his brother Gottlieb Hetze (Hetze, “Yo soy el mismo ángel”, 13).

4 See the obituary of Reinhardt Hetze in Carlos Becker, “Necrología [Obituary]”, La Revista Adventista 40, No. 7 (July 1940): 11.

5 E. H. Meyers, secretary of the Publishing Department of the South American Division of Seventh-day Adventists, believed that Riffel and Hetze did not know one another (Meyers, Reseña de los comienzos de la obra en Sudamérica, 7). See also Mario Rasi, “Progresos de la Escuela Sabática en la Unión Austral [Progress of the Sabbath School in the Southern Union]”, La Revista Adventista 52, No. 3 (March 3, 1952): 3.

6 Reinaldo Hetze, “Cómo empezó la obra en Entre Ríos [How the Work Began in Entre Ríos]”, La Revista Adventista 33, No. 3 (Jan. 30, 1933): 16.

7 Adventism spread from North America to Europe (1874), Australia (1885), Africa (1887), Asia (1894) and South America (1890). Westphal, Hasta el fin del mundo, xi.

8 Joseph W. Westphal, “The Beginnings of the Work in Argentina”, Review and Herald 97, No. 33 (Aug. 12, 1920): 6; Meyers, Reseña de los comienzos de la obra en Sudamérica, 7. Frank H. Westphal, his wife María Thurston and his children Carlos and Elena arrived to South America in September of 1894 (SDAE [1996], see “Westphal, Frank Henry;” Wearner, “Centenario de la iglesia adventista en la Argentina”, 20).

9 The knowledge of Adventism spread through German evangelist Louis Richard Conradi (1856-1939). Riffel, Providencias de Dios…, 188-204; Carlos Becker, “Necrología: Riffel”, La Revista Adventista 37, No. 13 (June 21, 1937): 15; Robert Wearner, “The Riffels: Planting Adventism in Argentina”, Review and Herald 161, No. 37 (Sept. 13, 1984): 4-6. About the family history of the Riffels, see document: “Descendientes de Juliana María Weiss y David Riffel [Descendants of Juliana María Weiss and David Riffel]”, in the Ellen G. White Research Center, Universidad Adventista del Plata, Libertador San Martín, Entre Ríos, DF 3023-e.

10 See Wearner, “The Riffels: Planting Adventism in Argentina”, 4-6.

11 Some have called this first meeting in the Hetze’s house the “first Sabbath School in South America” (Wearner, “The Riffels: Planting Adventism in Argentina”, 4-6; Hetze, “Yo soy tu ángel”, 13; Wearner, “Centenario de la iglesia adventista en la Argentina”, 23).

12 Wearner, “Centenario de la iglesia adventista en la Argentina”, 23.

13 Ibid., 20-23.

14 Westphal, “The Beginnings of the Work in Argentina”, 6.

15 The story written by the mentor of the college can be read in Westphal, Pioneering in the Neglected Continent. For a brief description of this educational institution, see Pablo C. Rodríguez, Cien años educando: Origen y desarrollo de la Universidad Adventista del Plata [One Hundred Years of Education: Origin and development of the Universidad Adventista del Plata], pamphlet in the archives of the Ellen G. White Research Center, Universidad Adventista del Plata, Libertador San Martín, Entre Ríos, Argentina.

16 See Wensell, El poder de una esperanza que educa y sana.

17 The humble abode of Reinhardt and his family disappeared long time ago (Wearner, “Centenario de la iglesia adventista en la Argentina”, 23; Robert G. Wearner interviewed Hanna Hetze de Bernhardt on February 2, 1964; letter from Juan Riffel to Robert G. Wearner on April 8, 1984). In that place still stands an ombú planted by Hetze in 1892, at the back of what used to be the backyard of his house. Under that tree, Hetze and his wife used to have moments of prayer. In 1982 the place was recognized and bricks of the old house where searched for by brothers Santiago Bernhardt Hetze and Alejandro Bernhardt Hetze (grandsons of Reinhardt Hetze) and professors Humberto Raúl Treiyer and Rafael Rifel from Colegio Adventista del Plata (Hetze, “Yo soy el mismo ángel”, 13).