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9. Sundays in prison
- Wayne State University Press
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Chapter 9 Sundays in prison Every Sunday provided me with a ray of hope. All week long I waited longingly for the next one. Then I was allowed to go along to the chapel and hear holy mass, to communicate and be united with Him, who is truly our entire love and sustains us, especially in the most bitter and desolate hours. The small but touching sermons of the prison chaplain Brinkmann gave me the courage to be strong. How comforting it was that Lent fell precisely during my time of sorrow, and that I could sing along with a fervent heart: "Oh head covered in blood and wounds, full of pain, full of scorn." It was particularly during these times that the suffering Savior came infinitely near to me. Through many hours during the day and at night I observed His suffering, and I knew why He had suffered, and also why I had to suffer. So I took solace andfaith from the tinychapelbackto the gray, sinisterweekdays, and even in those hours when the ghost of dark melancholy wanted to take me in its claws, and when I was often close to despair, these Sunday hours gave me the comfort and strength to carry on. Almost without exception, my fellow prisoners also attended the Sunday services. It was for them a welcome diversion from the wretched monotony of their gray existence. Unfortunately, they often behaved annoyingly and showed more interest in the male inmates (who were also present in great numbers in the prison chapel) than they did for the religious observance taking place up at the altar, so that the guards had to summon them to order and proper conduct. After the service, the guard on duty went from cell to cell and, since Sunday was the writing day for detainees awaiting trial, asked which of the inmates wanted to have paper and ink. For the sake of my relatives I had asked the Gestapo, whom I otherwise asked for nothing, if I might write to my loved ones. This was granted to me, naturally with instructions that everywritten line had to go through the hands of the Gestapo and every letter was to be delivered to them open. So I was then allowed to write to our old mother in Soest, who heard of my arrest only eight months later, since none of my siblings could bring 85 The Blessed Abyss themselves to communicate this shattering news to her, as she was very ill. As an exception, I was allowed to write the letters to my mother on neutral paper—all other writing paper had the stamp of the court prison on it. I wrote as I had earlier, as if nothing had happened, so that she wouldn't get the idea that something unusual had happened to me. For a long time my siblings and I were successful at feigning good things, until the whole affair started to strike her as curious. In addition, she was used to my regular visits, and now I didn't come any more. What could that mean? What was going on with her daughter? How must she have wracked her brains? Only after I had already been in a concentration camp for a quarter of a year, where I couldn't write her at all anymore, did she ask my eldest brother to tell her what was going on with me; she could no longer live with this uncertainty. Only then did she hear the facts, so upsetting for a mother. I often wrote from prison to my eldest brother, who lived in Miinster, and to whom I have much to be thankful for.1 He traveled many roads for me and loyally made reports to all siblings and friends. For his part, he told me everything of the family, the siblings, and acquaintances, which I would find interesting; in short, everything he was allowed to and could tell me. To write everything was impossible owing to censorship. About many things I had to read between the lines; we had to remain silent about other things. I remember well how I wrote to him in a letter that I was very hungry (I thought, namely, that he, who was extremely proper about everything and always followed the rules, would perhaps find ways and means, as had the relatives of other inmates, of getting something to me, above all some butter or jam to spread on my dry bread), but I...