The Luck of the Weissensteiners (The Three Nations Trilogy) (23 page)

“My brother says that even Jews who were previously not interned in a camp have been picked up from their homes
without warning and are being transported to train stations. The Germans want all the young and strong men they can get their hands on,” she told Alma.

“Does that mean that they will round your brother up too?” asked Alma.

“That is what we are not sure about,” Sarah replied. “He and the other men in my family should have been taken to the camps a long time ago but we think because Benedikt is in the party we are his 'pet Jews' and are exempt from the draft. The Germans are so desperate for men of working age now that they are putting more pressure on the government to deliver the numbers that were promised. I have no idea if Benedikt’s influence can hold under such conditions.”

“What about fleeing to Hungary?” Alma suggested.

“Father mentioned it,” Sarah said. “He wants everyone to leave but then the next moment he wants to stay. He is so desperate to stay near his land that he knows no rhyme or reason anymore.”

“Will you try to escape?” Alma asked.

“I don't think so,” Sarah said. “I would like to but my family seems to believe because we have been exempt this far our luck will hold. It is sheer madness if you ask me. Who knows how long Hungary remains an option as a gateway to freedom.”

“Is it safe in Hungary?” Alma asked.

“I don't know. People go there because it is easy to cross the border and are hoping to make it further to Palestine from there,” Sarah explained.

“What about you Sarah, why are you staying?”

“Where would I go by myself? If father stays behind I can't leave him,” she replied.

“Judging from what you say about his iron will that seems unlikely then,” Alma pointed out.

“Without all of us Benedikt could not run the farm and feed the Germans, he says,” Sarah told her.

“I am not sure that is enough of a safety net,” Alma warned her.

“I am counting on the corruption wi
thin the Slovak administration,” Sarah replied.

“Now, t
hat is a God worth praying to,” Alma said with a laugh.

“Father has heard that the C
atholic Church are pulling strings within the Hlinka Party and are granting help to those who are willing to convert,” Sarah told them. “He is considering it.”

“I am not sure I w
ould trust them,” said Greta. “Jews are a race and not a confessional group. There is no safety in help from the Church anymore!”

“Those who are going through the conversion process will be spared, they are saying. The administration will turn a blind eye,” Sarah insisted. “It is not an official policy but a secret deal between party members. Despite everything
, the Christians amongst the Hlinka Party are trying to do what they can to escape their damnation in the afterlife.”

“That sounds too good to be true,” Alma sighed.

“Maybe, but it seems worth a try. There are so many Jews who would never consider going through that, maybe it would be small enough a number to slip through the system. I am considering it myself. After all, I can still be a Jew in my heart,” Sarah argued.

“You must let us know if you decide to go through with
it. We might consider doing it ourselves,” Jonah said.

“It won't be easy,” said Greta. “I converted before the war. I had to go to evening and weekend classes for a few months, had to do homework and learn prayers. Ask Johanna, she and Benedikt did the same thing. They used to be Lutherans but decided it would be more advantageous to blend in with the majority. The priest who converted us was not very keen to do it. Johanna had to persuade him.”

“What a dark horse that woman is,” Sarah said. “I will speak to her about it and let you know what I learn from father's sources.

Johanna was excited to hear that the Jews around her were sensible enough to think about converting but when she approached Father Haslinger about it he was outraged at the suggestion. She really should have known better. He had made their own conversion hard work then and had always emphasized how redemption and salvation could only be achieved if you really believed.

The conversion of opportunistic Jews who just wanted to escape the prosecution – which they deserved in his eyes - was out of the question. He resented Johanna for even suggesting it and told her in no uncertain terms how despicable her plan was to him.

Fortunately once she had put her mind to something
Johanna did not give up easily and through her friend Marika she got a contact name at a monastery that was open to the cause. Once again her connections proved the useful ones. Father Johannes at the monastery agreed, for some donations and a minor fee, to convert them. The monks were not willing to attract public attention to their activities and so they did not require a lengthy course in preparation for the conversion. One evening was enough; the rest should be done through Bible study at home and frequent church attendance whenever possible.

Father Johannes also resented the whole process. He was happy to help people in need and to welcome any true new believer into the Church but to help Jews
, who did not really believe in his God by baptising them, was against anything he felt he stood for. His superiors had given him no option about this and ordered him not to turn any willing Jew away. Effectual conversions of Jews to Catholicism had been carried out ever since the new legislation had been passed.

This was
part of a complex political trade-off within the Christian wing of the Hlinka Party. Pro-war members in the wing were willing to vote for an exemption for all clergymen and monks to military service as the anti-war members demanded. In return, these anti-war members voted for more general support to the war effort in other areas. This united support from the religious wing allowed for further troops to be sent to Russia, which was well received with the fascist wing of the party, and they, in turn, turned a blind eye to the exemptions for the freshly converted Jews.

As t
hings improved between the party factions, the Christians of the party dropped their resistance to the establishment of work camps for Jews and Gypsies as long as the fascist group promised to go slow with the deportations to Poland. At 500 Deutschmark per Jew, which the Germans charged in transport fees, the government was very happy to accommodate that request and save money. Through pure chance several hundred Jews managed to slip through the system that way.

Johanna was never one to wai
t until the last minute and was so worried that the situation might change at any moment that she arranged for a group conversion of the two families at the Monastery for the week after her meeting with Father Johannes.

At that precise moment
, the Slovak Parliament passed further legislation, one that surprisingly limited the planned deportations of Jews to Poland for different reasons. Inspectors who had been sent to the camps in the neighbouring country had brought back gruesome reports about the appalling conditions there and that had changed the political climate. Christians, budget weary members and secret liberals amongst the Hlinka Party united. These new laws brought the deportations to a complete standstill.

Individual Jews could be given special identification papers that stated that they were not required to be evacuated. These exemption papers were of a personal nature and could off
icially only be granted by the President himself to specific individuals. President Tiso however delegated this responsibility and once word had spread what a deportation to Poland meant, the new process was widely used. Johanna’s friend Marika was one of the first to hear about the possibility of exemption from deportation and negotiated with Father Johannes to dispense such papers for the group of converts. Unwilling to see anyone deported to their almost certain death, he reluctantly agreed to recommend all of them to receive such papers even before the conversion happened.

On the arranged day Father Johannes took the group of
Jews through the vestry of the Monastery church down into the basement. Johanna had come to accompany them and amongst the ones who had decided to convert were Sarah, her two brothers, her mother and her father, Wilma and Jonah.

“We can't do anything up
there,” the monk explained in the main church. “It would attract too much attention. We have to be discreet.”

“I really appreciate what you are doing for us,” Johanna said nervously to keep good relations.

Father Johannes turned to face her for a brief moment and with clear disregard said: “It wouldn't have been my choice to do this. The Jews killed Jesus Christ, no baptism or confession can ever take that guilt away from them.”

“Isn't your God about forgiveness?” Wilma asked. “That is what I
have always been told.”

“Killing the M
essiah – that is where I draw the line for forgiveness,” he said angrily. “Never mind, it is not my decision. I have been ordered to christen you and that I will do. I am not to question orders from above, even though I really cannot understand it. May the Lord forgive me for my sins.”

“Aren't you against killing? Doe
s your God ask you not to kill another human being? Because ours does,” Wilma carried on.

“Be quiet Wilma!” Jonah hissed. “I am sorry, Father Johannes, we are all very nervous. We appreciate what you are doing.”

“Oh I am sure you appreciate it,” Father Johannes answered. “It will help you escape sure death in this life but let me tell you that I can only wish you luck in the hereafter. I cannot see how what I am doing is going to help you there.”

“We heard that you have exemption documents for us?” Jonah asked politely.

“Oh yes, I have those,” Johannes replied grumpily. “You will need to keep them with you at all times. We have had a lot of help from the administration of the President in the matter. You are lucky that he is a priest himself. He is kinder hearted than I would be in his place. We have to tread very carefully. It wouldn't cost the Nazis anything to take full control of the country and punish us all for that we are doing here. All this for a pack of Jews. I wouldn't risk it, let me tell you.”

“It is not our new faith that will keep us safe in the future, is it? It is these exemption documents,” Wilma blurted out.

“Shut up Wilma. We are lucky they are helping us,” Jonah scolded his daughter.

“No need to beat around the bush. Yes it is the documents that will
save your life. Conversion to the true Catholic faith has been helpful to many of your people in the past. Now you are being helped twice. A waste if you ask me. I only act on strict orders that I must obey. I will warn you again, if you do not believe in Jesus Christ in your heart you won't receive salvation in the afterlife!”

“Yes, thank you Father Johannes. You are very kind
and we are very grateful,” Jonah said to reassure the Father of their gratefulness.

“Maybe you are grateful,” Johannes said. “The others seem a little less convinced. All we ask from you is to renounce the devil and accept Christ as your saviour. That is not too much of a favour is it? If it was the other way round you would mutilate the men and th
eir sex as a sacrifice to your God. We are much more humane, we just splash a little holy water onto you.”

“But how can we renounce the devil when we never believed in him in the first place?” asked Wilma rationally.

“Wilma ju
st shut up. You promised,” Jonah hissed.

“Oh the devil is with all the Jews,” declared Father Johannes.
“Renounce him!”

“We
do!” Jonah said humbly and then the others all did the same.

The whole process was utterly humilia
ting and degrading in Wilma's eyes. Father Johannes kept insulting the Jews and their inferiority while telling them the story of Christ, his self-sacrifice, his forgiveness and his kind love. He recited the Lord's Prayer and the Hail Mary, which he recommended they learn by heart, and repeat several times a day to atone for their sins. He explained the principles of the original sin, confession, redemption and salvation and then he gave each one of the assembled group the holy sacraments. When he had finished he once again impressed upon them the importance of practising and keeping their new faith, handed them the documents and let them go.

Wilma had been furious when she got to the church but over the course of the evening a paralysing sense of being powerless had come over her and taken all spirit and fight out of her. Everyone else accepted the miserable monk
’s attitude as necessary evil on their way to (earthly) salvation and endured it without the upset it had caused her. For weeks after she was introverted and depressed and even Ernst could not cheer her up the same way as he used to.

I
n the manor house, Sarah was still their main connection to the outside world and one day she came to the studio and reported that for a whole month there had been no trains leaving for Polish concentration camps from Slovakia. She had heard a rumour that thousands and thousands of these exemption papers had been given out and the Hlinka Guard could not fill a whole train of Jewish men unless they were prepared to give up all of the workers in their own work camps - which apparently they were not willing to do. The news received a huge cheer in the studio, but Wilma was becoming very resentful that she had had to undergo the humiliating conversion for these papers that had been given to others without the need to degrade themselves.