Talk about displaced persons, members of the Southern Nevada Chapter of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia share a heritage of ancestors who fled Germany for Russia, only to be persecuted there and flee to places including the American Upper Midwest, from which some of their descendants found their way to Las Vegas.

"It's a fascinating story," said Larrie Schmidt, chapter president. "Our people are legendary in Germany. We're known as the Volga Germans in Germany."

The Volga is in Russia, and that's where the story starts. Schmidt said his ancestors were part of a group that left Germany between 1763 and 1767 at the invitation of Catherine the Great of Russia, who was trying to bring some enlightenment to her backward countryside. Schmidt said his ancestors left in 1763.

"There were 3,000 original families, and we were one of them," he said.

Under the empress' reign, the resettled Germans were pioneers of sorts -- Schmidt likens them to the emigrants who helped settle the American West -- but after her death they were outcasts, and many returned to Germany or moved on to other places, sometimes just in the nick of time.

"Thank God my grandparents came (to America) in 1906," Schmidt said, "because what happened was that World War I stopped the emigration. Right after World War I, the Communists took power and wouldn't allow them to leave. The hatred was especial after Germany invaded Russia" in 1941.

Many of the Germans in Russia were rounded up, Schmidt said.

"They put them in cattle cars and shipped them to Siberia," he said. "Many thousands died en route. Those that survived ended up in gulags."

Communication was cut off, Schmidt said, adding that his grandmother didn't know what happened to her sisters in Russia until Nikita Krushchev came to America in 1959.

"As a gesture of goodwill, he allowed the German Russians to send letters out to their relatives," he said. "That's how my grandmother found out that her sister was still alive in Siberia. We found out their fate -- and it was a horrible fate."

To learn more about their ancestors and their suffering, the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia was formed in the 1960s.

Another of the organization's reason for being, Schmidt said, is "pride, the same reason the Indians band together. Your ancestors suffered such great cruelty that you form these historical organizations not to prolong the memory of the cruelty but to honor those who endured it."

The Germans in Russia, he said, were "unique not so much that they suffered cruelty in a foreign land, but they had left Germany because of all the cruelty there."

The headquarters in Schmidt's hometown of Lincoln, Neb., "provides tremendous research facilities," he said. "They helped me track my ancestors back to the year 1700."

Schmidt said the Las Vegas chapter, which is about a year old, has about 15 members.

"We feel certain there are a lot more of us here," he said. "There are a lot of Nebraskans here."

The group generally meets once a month.

Membership is open to all descendants of the Germans in Russia. For more information, call 731-5860.