What Did You Do In the War, Sister? by Dennis J. Turner

Author:Dennis J. Turner [Turner, Dennis J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-9995747-6-8
Publisher: Cincinnati Book Publishing
Published: 2018-06-11T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN:

WAITING FOR LIBERATION — SAINT-HUBERT AND NAMUR, JANUARY 1944

It sounds bizarre to describe the life of our convent during the months preceding the Allied landing in Normandy on June 6, 1944, as routine. After all, we were in the middle of a cataclysmic war, and Belgium was occupied by thousands of German soldiers. We struggled to find enough food to live on. We lived in buildings riddled with concealed passageways leading to secret mysterious rooms. We could be arrested— even executed—at any time for sheltering refugees, Jewish children, and enemy airmen. Yet, looking back on that time compared with the previous years and later events, it seemed mundane. Every day, wood had to be chopped, classes taught, food cooked, floors scrubbed, clothes washed, Mass attended, prayers said, and hymns sung. It felt normal when Resistance fighters appeared in the middle of the night escorting Jewish children or American pilots who needed to be hidden from the Abwehr.

It was the nightly BBC broadcast that reminded us that the world outside our convent walls was anything but normal. The BBC program would always begin with the calm, confident sound of Big Ben tolling the hour in London. We would then hear how the Russians had pushed the German army out of Russia, how American and British armies had captured Sicily and landed troops south of Naples, how Italy had surrendered, and how German towns and cities were being systematically destroyed by thousands of Allied bombers. It was clear that Germany was losing the war and was ultimately doomed. We also knew that it would soon be Belgium’s turn to become a battleground with a million soldiers locked in combat. The realization of what was to come made our lives in Saint-Hubert seem almost bucolic.

Although everything appeared calm and safe for the moment, Sister Ursula never let us become complacent. She knew the slightest misstep or casual unguarded comment could trigger a raid by dozens of storm troopers and Gestapo agents. Sister Ursula was constantly thinking of ways of improving the security of the convent. One tactic she devised was for the sisters and the students to demonstrate sympathy for the plight of wounded German soldiers. During the Christmas season, she arranged for small groups of our older girls to visit German hospitals and sing Christmas carols to the soldiers. She suggested the hospital visits be arranged at the same time Sister Clare and I made our weekly visit to the Kommandantur in Namur.[53]

I decided the best way to recruit ten of our older students for the choir was to ask for volunteers. To draft senior girls for the choir seemed unwise. The reluctant students would resent being forced into a potentially uncomfortable situation in which they had to pretend to have sympathy for the very people who had invaded and occupied their country. I feared their resentment might come out during our visits to the hospitals, undermining Sister Ursula’s whole purpose for arranging the concerts. Not all students were hesitant, however; some welcomed the opportunity for an excursion outside the convent walls.

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