I had come to Albertin in November 1938, just after the Munich Conference which dismembered Czechoslovakia and guaranteed “peace in our time,” as Mr. Chamberlain put it. But soon after I arrived, Hitler began his campaign to get the Danzig Corridor. All during that winter the situation deteriorated; by early spring there were even rumors that German soldiers in disguise had infiltrated Danzig and were prepared to take the city in a sneak attack. The peasants of Albertin sowed their rye and other spring crops that year uncertain whether or not they would be able to harvest them. By late spring, the talk of war was everywhere.
On August 21, 1939, Ribbentrop and Molotov announced that Germany and Russia had signed a mutual non-aggression pact. Shortly afterward, I received a cable from the American Embassy in Warsaw advising me that war might soon be declared and that I should be prepared to leave Poland. I talked it over with Father Dombrowski and told him I didn’t want to leave. I had come to Poland to work in the Oriental mission; moreover, I had never given up my hopes of someday going into Russia and the war might give me an opportunity to do just that. I wrote back to the Embassy, telling them I was needed at the parish and I would stay where I was needed.
Within a few days, on September 1, 1939, Hitler invaded Poland. We listened constantly to the radio and the news was all bad. In a matter of days, German troops had surrounded Warsaw and the city was besieged and bombed. Remnants of the Polish Army began streaming eastward through Slonim and Albertin along the Napoleonski Tract. Warsaw Radio fell silent, and we knew that Poland’s fate was sealed. What was worse, there were rumors that the Russians were massing on the eastern border and would soon enter Poland.
At last, Father Dombrowski decided to send the Jesuit novices home, at least until the situation had stabilized to a point where plans for the future could be made. He himself left to see the bishop at Vilna, to ask what should be done about the mission and the parish. Since I wasn’t a Polish national, but an American citizen, Father Dombrowski decided that I would be left in charge of the mission. Father Grybowski, who was in charge of the Latin-rite parish at the mission, and Father Litvinski, the other curate of the Oriental-rite parish, would remain with families in the village.
In those days we still presumed that the Germans—or the Russians, for that matter—would respect an American passport. If worse came to worst, though, the American Embassy would still know where I was and be able to help me. And so it was that I, the young American, was the only priest at the mission in Albertin on the day the Russians came.
The first Russian officer arrived one morning just after breakfast. I was in the courtyard when he rode up on horseback to look over our Jesuit mission. A man of medium height in a dust-stained khaki uniform with the red epaulets of the Russian Army, he greeted me pleasantly and was quite respectful. His eyes seemed tired under the peak of his uniform cap as he explained frankly, and a bit apologetically I thought, that it might be necessary to quarter some of his staff in our buildings for a few days. He seemed so polite, almost friendly, that I began to hope conditions in Albertin might not be too bad under Russian occupation. Unfortunately, that was the last I saw of that particular officer; I suspect he eventually decided Graf Puslovski’s mansion would make a better headquarters for himself and his staff.
That afternoon the column of Russian troops arrived. The young captain in charge was neither pleasant nor offensive, just very matter-of-fact about the whole thing. He made it clear he had orders to take over the seminary for quartering his troops. He told me I’d be allowed to occupy my room on the first floor and to take what I wanted of the church goods, library books, or my personal belongings, but the rest of the building and its furnishings would be taken over.
He promised, however, that the church would not be bothered. To make sure, he had a pathway marked off through the courtyard so the people could attend services without having to pass through the army’s quarters. He also gave orders that the entrance into the church from the seminary should be boarded up to prevent any military personnel from entering the church through that door.
The troops moved in to occupy the building. After long days on the march, they hit the seminary like old October revolutionaries storming the Winter Palace. Trucks were backed into the courtyard and the men began to throw things helter-skelter out the library windows into them. Books flew in all directions. The soldiers on the ground, laughing and joking, yelled at those in the windows throwing books; the men in the library replied in kind. Eventually, the books were carted off to be turned into pulp.
While all this was going on, to my dismay one of the soldiers threw a rope around the Sacred Heart statue in the courtyard, hitched it to a truck, and toppled the whole thing over. It crashed in pieces, to a loud shout from the troops, then was loaded into the truck and carted away. Watching the scene, I couldn’t tell whether that particular act was done on command or just at the whim of one of the soldiers.
That night was my worst in Albertin. With the troops moving around on the floor above me, I hardly slept at all. Next day, I was summoned for a “personal talk” with the politruk, the Communist Party or secret service agent who accompanied every unit of the Red Army. He wanted to know the whereabouts of the former Polish government officials of Albertin. I knew nothing and said so. In a technique I was to become familiar with later on, the politruk asked me the same question many times over in different forms. He was insistent, arguing that by helping him I would be helping the “people.”
“My work,” I replied, “isn’t political, it’s pastoral. As their pastor I help the people spiritually, and also materially when I can.” I told him of cases where we had raised money to help the children of poor families continue their education through high school and beyond. He wasn’t interested. He insisted I should help “the people” everywhere by revealing the names of their enemies and making public what information I had as a priest.
“Now you’re going too far,” I said. “There are confidences entrusted to me as a priest which I have no right to tell anyone. I can’t betray the seal of confession. I’d only be harming myself and ‘the people’ as well by giving out that kind of information, which in any event has nothing to do with ‘the people’ or politics or anything else that concerns you!”
By that time, he was furious and I was disgusted. I made a move to leave, but he stopped me. He told me to sit down. For the remainder of our “talk,” though, he was once more smooth and courteous. After a short while, he led me to the door with the remark that he would send for me again in the near future.
Instead, it was the army captain who sent for me a few days later. Army regulations, he said, prohibited civilians from living in the same quarters with the troops. He “suggested” I move into the little house at the end of the mission garden which had been the original home on the property. I moved that afternoon and was joined that evening by Fathers Grybowski and Litvinski. We were glad to be living together in community again, but after a short while the local Communist committee decided the four-room house was too big for just the three bourgeois priests, so they sent in other families to live with us. We priests were confined to one room, two families shared the big dining room, and a third family had a smaller room to itself; we all took turns using the kitchen.
Despite these inconveniences and harassments, however, we managed to keep the parishes functioning almost normally. We were able to celebrate Mass every morning, and on Sunday we had two Masses for the people, although some of the congregation stayed away for fear of Communist reprisals. The soldiers had taken over the seminary chapel next to the main church as a sort of duty room and classroom. At Mass in the morning, we could hear them moving about behind the door and, often enough, as soon as we sang the responses to the litanies in the first part of the Oriental-rite Mass, they would whistle and chant in mimicry, “Gospodi, Gospodi!” (Lord, Lord!). Yet the door from that room into the church remained boarded up according to the captain’s promise, and the soldiers did not physically interfer
e.
Then one Sunday, after the seven o’clock Mass, I went out to give a short sermon to the people. As I started to speak, I noticed some soldiers lounging in the vestibule of the church. They were standing there laughing, caps on their heads and devilment in their eyes. I got mad. In my anger, I launched into a sermon on the classic text, “The fool hath said in his heart there is no God.” It was probably the most spontaneous sermon I ever preached; every word came right from the heart and flew straight at them. They were stunned momentarily, then bewildered, looking around sheepishly, shuffling their feet as they saw the eyes of the congregation turn to them. They started to go, then stood there, too proud to retreat but ashamed to react, until I had finished. It was a personal triumph of sorts for me, but it was bound to be costly and even then I knew it.
To my surprise, however, the soldiers made no trouble during Mass the next few days. Though I knew they must have resented my words and their humiliation, I began to hope the incident might blow over. Then one morning when I came to the church to say Mass, I found the doors of the tabernacle swinging ajar, the altar cloths strewn about, the Blessed Sacrament gone. I was thunderstruck. When I noticed that the door from the sanctuary to the soldier’s duty room was no longer nailed shut, I knew immediately what had happened, and why.
I tried to see the captain that afternoon to lodge a complaint, but it was no use. The Latin church was still functioning normally; its attendance, in fact, was greater than ever before. The soldiers seemed to particularly resent Oriental Catholics as members of a church opposed to Russian Orthodoxy, but they hardly bothered the Latin Catholics, and many of our congregation preferred to attend Mass there. Reluctantly, therefore, I decided to close the Oriental-rite church. Before I did so, I went around on a last tour of inspection and found that the troops, unknown to anyone, had been using the attic as a latrine. From that time on, we said Mass only in the Latin church, or in our room of the house down in the garden for the few people who came to attend.
Just about this time, I received another telegram from the American Embassy. This one came from Moscow, where the Embassy had gone after the fall of Warsaw. They advised me that I could either come to Moscow for aid in returning to the United States or go to the American Embassy in Rumania if that were more convenient. I showed the telegram to the other fathers and discussed it with them. They thought I ought to go. The work of the Oriental mission seemed pretty well ruined at the moment; there was little I could do here that the others could not take care of. The NKVD1 agent, through whose hands, of course, the telegram had to pass, also “suggested” that as an American citizen I should leave the country immediately. Despite such urgings, I felt that I had been left in charge of the parish and mission by Father Dombrowski, and until I heard from him I ought to remain. Accordingly, I wrote to the Embassy that same afternoon telling them of my decision to remain in the parish where I had been left in charge. I did not intend to leave my flock.
Not long afterward, I received another surprise. Fathers Nestrov and Makar arrived from the Jesuit theologate in Lvov with a message from Father Dombrowski to the effect that the bishop had decided, for the time being, to close the Oriental mission in Albertin. It was certainly a strange reunion for us “Three Musketeers” there in that little house at the foot of the garden, under the shadow of the Russian occupation troops.
Makar, the tall Georgian, was strangely elated. With his long, wavy hair, hook nose, and flashing black eyes, he seemed a born adventurer, and the trip from Lvov to Albertin had put him on his mettle. Nestrov was another adventurer of sorts, though he didn’t look like one. He was heavyset and practically bald, with a bulbous nose that made him look like a larger version of Tolstoy. But his dream of one day working in Russia drove him on, and that night he was alive with it.
He told me he felt the time had come to put our mutual dream into operation. The Russians had occupied Poland, so we were, in effect, already in Russia. Father Dombrowski had implicitly absolved me of staying in Albertin by closing the mission. Father Grybowski, I admitted, could take care of the parishioners in Albertin with the Latin church. Why shouldn’t this be our chance to slip into the heart of Russia itself? Nestrov and Makar heaped up the arguments; my enthusiasm grew. At last, together, we decided to try it, if our superiors would approve.
As we talked into the early hours of the morning, our plans became more definite. Nestrov and Makar would return to Lvov, then Makar would come back for me. Since our superiors were in Lvov, everything would have to start from there. Meanwhile, I was to set things in order in Albertin as best I could without arousing suspicions that I might be leaving. I still remember my parting words to Nestrov as he left that night: “We’ll be in Russia in the spring!”
In a week Makar was back, good as his word, and the two of us slipped out of the house at dusk on the road to Slonim. Trains were no longer running on schedule, and it was impossible to buy a ticket for those that did run, but that was hardly a challenge to my Georgian companion. We hung about the station in Slonim waiting for a train to Moscow and boarded it without tickets. We were already rolling before anyone bothered us; we passed through Albertin without even slowing down. I had only time for one brief, last look at the village.
When finally the conductor asked for our tickets, Makar began to berate him for the poor service and the disrupted train schedules. The conductor was somewhat taken aback at first, then insistent. Makar grew more indignant, the conductor more adamant. Baranovichi, he said, was the next stop. We would have to get off there and buy tickets, or he would have us thrown off the train—that was final. The poor conductor had no way of knowing that Baranovichi, the rail juncture with the line to Lvov, was our destination in any event.
Even at Baranovichi, however, there were no tickets to be had. There was a train to Lvov that night, but the coaches were jammed and the Pullman cars reserved for officers. That was good enough for Makar. We went along the siding to the Pullman cars and clambered aboard. An official approached to tell us the car was reserved for officers, but Makar, speaking rapidly in White Russian, succeeded in convincing him that we were members of a White Russian commission on our way to Lvov and that we definitely did not wish to be disturbed that night.
These incidents were typical of Makar. I remember another occasion later in Lvov when he and I were stopped at gunpoint by a member of the NKVD as we returned from a journey late at night. Makar was furious; if he was at all nervous, it was not apparent. He proceeded to tell a long, involved story and scolded the secret service man for accosting two “Party members” in the middle of the night with drawn gun. Finally, out of fright or perhaps bewilderment, the man let us go. The same thing happened now. The official found us a berth, promised we wouldn’t be disturbed, and so we traveled to Lvov in style, arriving well rested after a good night’s sleep.
Conditions at Lvov were not much better than at Albertin. The Jesuits were allowed to use only one section of our theologate building, for the Russians had begun to assign other families to the rest of the building. Again, they were out to make it clear that all buildings were the property of “the people”; they also hoped to impress the people by settling some of them in this residence formerly held by the Church. So Father Bienko, our Superior there, decided from the first that it would be better if Makar, Nestrov, and I could find a private room somewhere. We did find a place about six blocks from the theologate, in an apartment occupied mostly by refugees from Warsaw, many of them Jews.
Father Bienko was an ideal man for the job of Superior in such trying times. He was a tall, thin man in his late fifties, with a thin nose and light hair. But the first thing you noticed about him was his smile, for he smiled often. Under his pleasant exterior, however, he had a very shrewd and tough mind. An excellent theologian, considered by many of his fellow Jesuits one of the best minds in the Province, he proved to be an even better administrator and a sheer genius at adaptability.
Many of the young Jesuit theology students had a
lready been forced to find jobs to help support the community, for the theologate’s funds had been confiscated. Nestrov, Makar, and I also got jobs to support ourselves until we could leave for Russia. I drove a truck for one of the labor gangs that had been pressed into service to haul the furniture and household goods which the Russians confiscated from places about the city and to deliver them to the railroad yards for shipment to Russia.
I soon found out there was a double game going on. Most of the men in my crew had relatives in the city, so many of the things we “confiscated” from these people were simply taken to relatives elsewhere in the city or to a hiding place in the country. Other people, too, paid us to deliver their goods not to the Russians, but to relatives. It was risky, but there was so much stuff being confiscated and delivered to the boxcars that no one could check it accurately. The men on the truck, of course, took particular pleasure in outwitting the occupation forces.
No sooner had we settled in Lvov than Nestrov and I approached Father Bienko with our dream of going into Russia to help the communities deprived of their priests.
Makar, for the moment, couldn’t be spared. But we urged that there might never be a better time to make the move than now, in the immediate aftermath of the occupation, when the roads and cities were crowded with refugees. Our plan was simple enough. The Russians were hiring large crowds from the occupied zones to work in the factories around the Urals. Stalin seemed to have no illusions about Hitler; Russian factories were working around the clock. We proposed to volunteer for work in the area of the Urals.
With God in Russia Page 3