CONVENTS, CHURCH INSTITUTIONS
SHELTERED THOUSANDS REFUGEES
(Note to film and TV producers and intrepid entrepreneurs: The following segment covers aspects of the Holocaust that have been grossly under-reported or totally ignored. The material is ripe for a TV mini-series or a documentary film by a resourceful church group, foundation, History Channel or an enterprising individual.)
WHEN THE NAZIS launched their roundup of refugees in Italy late in 1943, Nathan Cassuto, the chief rabbi of Florence, urged Jews to leave town or go into hiding. Several years later, while testifying at the Adolf Eichmann trial, the rabbi's sister recalled: "My brother went from house to house to warn them to hide themselves in convents or in little villages, under false names." Hundreds of Florentine Jews took his advice and survived.
Convents, monasteries, orphanages and other church institutions throughout occupied-Europe were some of the very few "ready-made" safe harbors that Jews could turn to when escaping Nazi raids, arrests or terror. There was "room at the inn" for refugees who found shelter and protection at these church havens that stretched from Poland to Belgium and France, Italy and the Balkans.
These religious institutions also provided sanctuary for countless Jewish children whose parents were shipped to labor or death camps. Being hidden in a convent or orphanage, the children were assured of shelter, food and access, when required, to medical attention. Their identities were usually masked with Christian names as a safeguard during Gestapo searches and interrogations.
CHURCH INSTITUTIONS in Poland were among the first to open their doors to the flood of children thrust upon them by desperate refugees facing deportation. It is estimated that at least 190 convents in Poland offered asylum to thousands of children of refugees. In Otwock and Pludy, suburbs of Warsaw, the convents of the Sisters of Maria's Family were active in rescue efforts as well as hiding and feeding of many refugees. In other convents, the Ursuline Sisters and the Franciscan Sisters in Warsaw and Laski, took in children from distraught parents. And in Pruzany, nuns rescued scores of Jewish women by disguising them in the habits of their order.
Irena Sendler, the Warsaw social worker who rescued more than 2,500 Jewish children from the ghetto, accomplished her incredible deeds with the active assistance of the church. "I sent most of the children to religious establishments," she recalled. "I knew I could count on the Sisters." Sendler also had a remarkable record of cooperation when placing the youngsters: "No one ever refused to take a child from me," she said.
The vast majority of nuns in convents led quiet if not reclusive lives, insulated from outside forces. But the seven sisters in the small Benedictine convent near Vilna Colony railroad station in Poland were active undercover agents who specialized in smuggling Jews out of the nearby ghetto. Among those who found safe harbor in the convent were several Jewish writers as well as leaders of the ghetto underground: Abba Kovner, Abraham Sutzkever, Ariel Wilner and Edek Boraks.
The convent's mother superior, Anna Borkowska, a Cracow University graduate, together with other nuns, provided the underground with weapons and ammunition. They would visit nearby homes, under the pretense of church business, and instead "borrow" guns, pistols, grenades and knives from the farmers. Philip Friedman, the Holocaust historian, has poetically described their undercover activity in these words: "The hands accustomed to the touch of rosary beads became expert with explosives."
Clemens Loew, born in Stanislawow, Poland, was only five years old when his mother left him in custody of nuns at a convent in Olsztyn, on the outskirts of Warsaw, where he remained hidden for three years. Loew, who later migrated to the United States and became a psychologist, vividly remembers one close call he had during a surprise Nazi raid on the convent.
"The Gestapo officers were actually dragging me away," he recalled. "One was yanking me out the door when a retired bishop living in the convent hobbled down the steps and yelled, 'If you take him, then you have to take me too.'" Loew added that the Nazis could have easily arrested both of them, but for some unexplained reason they left both unharmed.
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IN BELGIUM, the La Providence orphanage in Verviers, operated by the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, played a major part in sheltering and caring for hundreds of children whose parents had been shipped to concentration camps or were in hiding themselves. Sister Marie (Mathilde Leruth) was in charge and made sure that the Jewish children didn't give away their identity during the many unexpected visits by the Nazis. Once, when a major Nazi raid was expected, Sister Marie had the children put aboard a bus and taken on an impromtu outing to a nearby village for the afternoon. Sylvain Brachfeld, who was one of the children at the orphanage, years later described Sister Marie as "a marvel of love under circumstances which obliged her to risk her life and liberty every day." Sister Marie was elected to the Righeous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem in Israel.
A Belgian cleric who had a pivotal role in rescuing hundreds of Jewish refugees, including many children, was Father Bruno (Henri Reynders). Working in conjunction with the JDC (Jewish Defense Council), the Benedictine monk used Mont Cesar monastery near Louvain to carry out his vast network of placing children in convents and private families. In addition to insuring the children's safety, Father Bruno provided the host families with food ration cards, false idenities as well as financial aid.
When some of the host families requested his permission to convert the children in their care, Father Bruno responded: "We are responsible for the lives of these children, but their souls do not belong to us." One JDC executive emphasized that Father Bruno personally made all payments for the children in his care. Years later, when he visited Israel to plant a tree at Yad Vashem, Father Bruno recalled his war-time rescue activities: "Three hundred and sixteen Jewish souls passed through my hands, among them 200 children. I can't begin to tell you how many doors I knocked on. I literally wore myself out, but it was all worth it."
Rose Meerhoff, of Brussels, was only seven years old when she was confronted with Nazi deportations. One day in September, 1940, when she returned home from school, a neighbor stopped her at the door and said, "The Germans were here and took your mother away. Don't go upstairs to your apartment." The neighbor then took Rose to the train station and escorted her to Louvain, where the Benedictine sisters operated an orphanage. She remembers that there were Jewish children already there when she arrived and more kept coming. She adds that all were given Christian names. Hers was Christiane DeGraef. "I stayed in that convent for two and a half years," she later wrote, "and I still have a special feeling for Catholics and nuns in particular. They were risking their lives for us."
Lucien Steinberg, in his book Not As A Lamb, which tells about the rescue efforts of Jewish organizations in Europe, describes the assistance they received from church institutions in Belgium: "The protection of Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, as well as Cardinal Van Roey and others, including the exiled government, ensured a place for a child in any convent."
Other Belgian clerics, laymen and institutions that took active roles in rescuing and protecting Jewish refugees:
Father Joseph Andre of Namur forsook a life of study and contemplation to devote his energies to saving hundreds of refugees, primarily children. Working in conjunction with the Committee for the Defense of Jews (CDJ), a clandestine Jewish organization, he pleaded and cajoled monasteries and convents in Belgium to house the refugees. When he died in 1973, several of his rescued wards were pallbearers at his funeral.
The Belgian underground was closely allied with convents and monasteries in its rescue efforts. Jeanne de Mulienaere, a Flemish-Catholic newspaperwoman, and her colleague Vera Shapiro, working with the underground, were instrumental in saving over 3,000 Jewish children by dispatching them to monasteries and convents in Belgium.
Louisa Mercier, personnel chief of a manufacturing firm in Louvain, is credited with placing dozens of refugee children in a Catholic institute in Chimay in southern Belgium.
Our Lady of Zion (Notre Dame de Sion) rescued 200 Jewish children from terrified parents facing deportation and hid them in several convents in Belgium.
The Queen Elisabeth Home, a chateau located in the village of Jamoigne-sur-Semois, was transformed into a center for feeble children in 1941under the care of the Sisters of Charity of Besancon. But following stepped up Nazi roundups, it opened its doors to children of fleeing refugees. Of the 75 children hidden at the center, more than 50 percent were Jewish.
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