The monsignor, on the other hand, was a thin, gaunt man with slender, even delicate features and dark, penetrating eyes which hinted a shrewd, probing mind.
Gabriela and Father Kornelli kissed the archbishop’s ring, and he waved them into chairs opposite him. Monsignor Bonifacy slipped into a chair across the room, watching, listening, unnoticed.
“Gabriela Rak!” Klondonski said expansively, in the manner of a politician running for office. “By chance the daughter of Fryderyk Rak?”
“Yes, sir.”
“A fine man. A great Pole. I remember him when he was one of the engineers building the port of Gdynia. I was a young priest at the time, not much older than Father Kornelli. Gdynia was my first parish.”
Gabriela studied his open pleasantness and calculated it was a ruse with which he disarmed his visitors.
“If I am not mistaken,” the churchman continued, “he met an untimely death in Switzerland.”
“Your Grace has a phenomenal memory.”
“And your mother—and sister, was it?”
“They live in America.”
“A good place these days. Great Pole, your father. Now, tell me about yourself, young lady.”
“After finishing my schooling I returned to Warsaw and until the war I worked as an aide in the American Embassy. I am now teaching at the Ursuline Convent.”
“Ah, yes.” He leaned back in his chair, smiling like an amiable Friar Tuck, reasonably assured her request would be nominal and in the nature of a personal favor. “And your problem, my child?”
“I am here to speak to Your Grace in behalf of the Jewish Orphans and Self-Help Society in the ghetto.”
The momentum of the conversation stopped. Kiondonski’s blue eyes lost their sweet sparkle. He covered his temporary puzzlement by tapping his fingertips together in mock meditation.
“There is imminent peril that thousands of children will die of starvation in the next few months unless immediate help is forthcoming.”
Bonifacy spoke quickly. “Your Grace has studied the report on the situation.”
“Oh, yes,” he said, taking the cue. “Yes, we have been concerned, naturally.”
“While His Grace expressed concern,” Bonifacy continued to refresh his superior’s memory, “and we concluded in our report that there are hardships in the ghetto, it is a reflection of the times in Poland.”
“Yes, my dear,” said Klondonski, “we are all undergoing hardships.”
“It is difficult to comprehend,” Gabriela answered swiftly, “that Your Grace could study an impartial report and fail to discern the difference between mass starvation and rampant disease in the ghetto and mere privation out here. People are dying off in there at a rate of over five thousand a month.”
Bonifacy spoke in a slow measured whisper now. “Our reports are based on examinations of the ghettos in Poland by a responsible international body, a commission of the Swiss Red Cross. They will be in Warsaw again next week. To date their reports do not bear out your contentions. We feel that the Jews are inclined to a natural tendency to exaggerate.”
Gabriela looked to Father Kornelli for support. Willful cowardice? Closed minds? Fear? A crass expression of anti-Semitism?
“Your Grace ... Monsignor ...” Father Kornelli said unevenly. “You must necessarily realize that any Swiss report is based on expediency and fear. While I do not have the details of their investigations I am quite certain they are seeing only what the Germans wish seen, listening only to those with whom the Germans will let them speak. Switzerland is vulnerable to German invasion and defenseless. They have everything to lose by getting the Germans angry. If you wish the truth, I suggest you call in Father Jakub, who heads our Convent’s congregation inside the ghetto.”
“You do want the truth, Your Grace?” Gabriela asked bluntly.
The round Polish face of Archbishop Klondonski reddened. He did not want the truth. He simmered down and weighed his words with astute care, for his adversaries were sharp and persistent. “We do have a natural humanitarian concern. Yet the Catholic Church is not a political body, a welfare agency, or an underground. Whether or not we like the present occupants of power is a moot point. The fact is, they do constitute the government of Poland. We have a clearly outlined duty to perform. We cannot enter the Church into any schemes in wholesale defiance of authority.”
“It seems to me, Your Grace, that our Church was born in defiance of the authority of Rome,” Gabriela said. “If you would only see the cardinal in Krakow. If we could organize a thousand convents to take five children each ... If ...”
The archbishop held up his hand. “I have closed my eyes and turned my back and shut my ears to those priests and nuns who have engaged in these activities. But my office is for the spiritual welfare—”
“Your Grace, this is basic Christianity we are pleading for.”
“—the spiritual welfare of the Polish people,” he finished, ignoring the interruption.
“Those are Polish people behind the wall.”
“Not really, Miss Rak. The fact of the matter is, we could do more for them if they agreed to conversion. Now, if they allowed us to give their children instructions in Catholicism—”
Gabriela came to her feet. “Your Grace! I am shocked! You cannot demand what God has decided.”
“I will overlook your rudeness and forgive because of the tensions of the times. I suggest penance.”
What was left of Gabriela’s restraint exploded. “I will not forgive yours. And I suggest penance for you, sir! For every child who dies within your power of saving.”
The archbishop was on his feet, as was Monsignor Bonifacy. A frightened Father Kornelli knelt and kissed the archbishop’s ring. He held it in Gabriela’s direction.
She looked at his hand. “You are not the representative of the Jesus Christ my father taught me of,” she said, and walked from the room.
Chapter Three
Journal Entry
STRANGE STUDIES ARE BEING initiated. Dr. Glazer told me six months ago that he had cancer and his time was limited. A few weeks ago he became very ill. Subsequent examination also revealed a severe case of malnutrition. Glazer has chosen to starve to death so that the Orphans and Self-Help doctors can initiate through him the world’s first comprehensive medical study on starvation. There is a mania to have some good come out of even this basest form of human death. Each day the doctors meet and hold forums on the mental and physical changes of those dying of hunger. Most all of them have malnutrition themselves and discuss their own cases. (The full study of starvation is carried as a separate volume of the journal, 9A.) Dr. Glazer dictates his symptoms, his mental changes. The patterns are shrinking flesh, gauntness, skin changing color, weakness, running sores, depressions, hallucinations, gnarling bones, bloating stomachs. A Jewish gift to posterity—a detailed account of what it is like to starve to death.
Irony. This week a shipment of wheat and tons of potatoes poured in to Transferstelle and was distributed without cost to the orphanages. Our orphanage on Niska Street also received medicines we no longer thought existed and even chocolates (which no one has seen for two years). Then a school was licensed and textbooks arrived. The orphanage was painted; new bedding arrived. Then we discovered why we were being killed with kindness. Elaborate preparations were for the benefit of a delegation of Swiss from the International Red Cross who had arrived to investigate ghetto conditions. Our orphanage was designated as “typical and representative.”
The Swiss carried out the sham to a T. They called a committee together at the Jewish Civil Authority building and called witnesses. The JCA, led by Boris Presser and Paul Bronski, dutifully testified to “bettering-leveling” conditions. (Truth: December death by starvation went over 4000.) Silberberg, the last friend left on the JCA board, tried to get to the Swiss to give them the truth. He was hauled off to Pawiak Prison as a “Bolshevik agitator.” I was invited to testify and declined. What could I say? Could I endanger these life-giving shipments when I know that the moment the Swiss leave it would all return to as before.