Our newspaper could reply to your question itself. The traditions of our young state are in accordance with democratic principles, and the creation of an Association of Jewish Christians reflects the freedom of religion embraced by Israel. We have, however, invited a reply to the question from Father Daniel Stein, a war hero who has received many awards for fighting Fascism, a member of the Order of Carmelites, and director of the Association of Jewish Christians.
REPLY FROM FATHER DANIEL STEIN TO MR. S. SLONIMSKY
Dear Mr. Slonimsky,
I’m very sorry our notice so upset you. That was not part of our intention. The Association survives heaven knows how, but, at all events, at no cost to the taxpayer. There is too much enmity in the world we have inherited. After the experience of the last war in Europe, it seemed impossible that such a charge of hatred as was expended by the peoples during those years should accumulate ever again. Alas, we find that there has been no lessening of hatred. Nobody has forgotten anything; nobody wants to forgive anything. Forgiving really is a very difficult matter.
That Galilean rabbi the world knows as Jesus Christ preached forgiveness. He preached a lot of things, and to Jews most of them were familiar from the Torah. It was thanks to him that those commandments were made known to the rest of the non-Jewish world. We Jewish Christians respect our Master, who said nothing that would have been totally unknown to the world before his coming.
Christianity in history has indeed persecuted the Jews—we all know the history of the persecutions, pogroms, and religious wars—but in recent years a painful process of revising Church policy in respect of the Jews has been taking place within the Catholic Church. Specifically, in recent years the Church in the person of Pope John Paul II has acknowledged its historical guilt.
The land of Israel is a place of great holiness not only for the Jews who live here today. By Christians and Jewish Christians it is venerated no less than by Jews who profess Judaism, to say nothing of our brother Arabs who have settled this land, lived here for a thousand years, and whose ancestors’ bones lie side by side with those of our own ancestors.
When our land withers and is rolled up like an old carpet, when dry bones arise, we will be judged not by the language we prayed in but by whether we found compassion and mercy in our hearts. That is all our organization has been set up to achieve. It has no other aim.
Daniel Stein, Priest of the Catholic Church
10. November 1990, Freiburg
F
ROM A TALK BY
B
ROTHER
D
ANIEL
S
TEIN TO SCHOOLCHILDREN
Those fifteen months I spent with the sisters, in their secret convent which looked out at the police station, were very dangerous and difficult. More than once there were situations in which I, and accordingly the sisters too, came within a hair’s breadth of death. There was, however, also a lot that was touching, and even comical. It is only now I can say that, after the passing of so many years. I remember the Germans came unexpectedly one time to search the convent. They came down the corridor toward the room I was in. The room had a washbasin and screen and all I could think to do was to rush behind the screen, hang a towel on it, and make a lot of noise at the washbasin. The Germans who had entered laughed and left without looking behind the screen. Another time, when the nuns were obliged to move to another house on the outskirts of town, I had to dress like a woman, shave myself closely, powder myself with flour, and hide my face behind a bouquet of dried flowers and a plaster statuette of the Virgin Mary. Together with three of the sisters, I walked in procession through half the town.
I shared their life. We ate, prayed, and worked together. They earned a livelihood by knitting, and I too acquired that feminine skill. On one occasion I knitted a whole dress. I read a great deal, not only the Gospel but other Christian books. I suppose it was then that I became a Catholic and the idea that my life would be linked with the Catholic Church took root in me.
In late 1943, as a result of serious defeats on the front and the growth of the partisan movement, the Germans adopted harsher policies toward the local population. Arbitrary large-scale searches and arrests began, and I felt I could no longer put the sisters at risk. I decided to join the partisans. For several days I wandered aimlessly along the roads in remote areas where the Germans practically never ventured. I knew these woods were the partisans’ domain and eventually I ran into four former Red Army soldiers. One was a man I had managed to save while working in the police and he recognized me immediately. He started thanking me and told his comrades I had saved his life. They were friendly toward me, but said I could not join their unit without a weapon. If I could get my hands on something, that would be a different matter. They gave me food and I went on my way.
In one village I came upon two Polish priests who were also hiding from the Germans. I told them about my circumstances and my conversion and expected that they would at least let me spend the night under their roof, but they didn’t. In a small village nearby, however, I was given shelter by a Belorussian family.
I was standing at the window of their house in the morning when a cart trundled by. There were a number of men on it and I recognized one of them as Efraim Cwyk, an old friend from Akiva who had escaped at the time of the breakout from the ghetto. Fortunately, Efraim was one of those who knew I had organized the escape and supplied arms from the Gestapo arsenal. I had grown a moustache in order to disguise myself and he did not recognize me at first. He had been sure I was dead and we met like long-lost brothers. Efraim took me to a Russian partisan unit, and on the way I told him about the most important event in my life, my conversion. Needless to say, he neither understood nor sympathized and advised me to clear all this silliness out of my head. I can see now how foolishly I behaved.
During the night we made our way to a brigade under the command of a Colonel Durov. He had heard something about a commandant at the German police station who had helped partisans and saved the lives of Jews, but was far more interested in my links with the Fascists. He promptly ordered my arrest and conducted the interrogation personally. I was searched and my New Testament was taken away, along with a number of icons the nuns had given me.
I told Durov in detail about my life and work among the Germans. I told him how I had escaped and about my subsequent conversion to Christianity. He demanded to know where I had hidden in the fifteen months since escaping from the Gestapo, but I could not tell him I had been concealed by the nuns all that time. If it had become known in Emsk, they would unquestionably have been executed. Durov did not trust me, but neither did I altogether trust him, so I refused to give him his answer. How could I tell him about the nuns when I knew the Communists’ attitude toward believers?
My refusal to reveal my hiding place struck Durov as very suspicious. The interrogation lasted almost two days without a break. I would be questioned by Durov personally and then by his assistant. He came to the conclusion that I had spent those months in a German spy school and had now been sent to the partisans to collect intelligence. I was sentenced to be shot. Efraim was beside himself, having brought me to this brigade and now not being believed. I was locked up in a shed, and kept there for several days. I still have no idea why they did not execute me immediately. It was one more miracle. I was completely calm and sat in the dark and prayed. I commended myself into the hands of the Lord, prepared to accept whatever He might send.
On the morning of the third day, help arrived. A doctor came to Durov’s brigade, another escapee from the ghetto by the name of Isaak Gantman. He was the only doctor in the entire area who treated the partisans.