From Reformation times until the end of World War II--a full four centuries--the Vistula River basin provided a homeland for numerous Mennonite communities. The large majority of these people had their roots in the Low Countries; they had come to seek religious freedom and economic opportunity in the lands along the Vistula. This brief introduction is designed to suggest some of the remarkable legacies left from four centuries of Mennonite settlement. ~from the Foreword