Page 194 - LEIBY

194 Leiby – Border Smuggler

The pair left the hotel and made their way to the main street.
They got onto a trolley car and after a journey of a few minutes,
found themselves standing in front of the local municipal
hospital. It was a tall building, its facade covered with small
red stones. Several wreaths of flowers had been placed at the
entrance, a silent commemoration to the latest war victims.

A friendly looking doctor greeted them.He spoke Slovakian,but
knew some Polish too, and Leiby was able to communicate with
him fairly smoothly. He looked empathetic and compassionate,
and bore a startling resemblance to the Czechoslovakian
president Tomas Masaryk, whose picture was proudly displayed
just opposite the hospital entrance. Leiby felt some sympathy
for the Czechs – in the forest, Michael had often spoken about
the unfortunate nation who had established a strong and
prosperous country for themselves, only to have it handed over
to Hitler by the defeatist British Prime Minister Chamberlain
in exchange for peace with Germany.

When Jan Masaryk29 read the infamous Munich agreement,
in which the ruling states decided to disengage the fortified
Sudetenland, home to weapon and armament plants, from
Czechoslovakia, and give it to Nazi Germany, he painfully
declared “You have sacrificed my country, ostensibly for peace.
May G-d protect your souls.” The prosperous democratic state
was turned into a disintegrating region, exposed to invasion
from all sides.

“A British prime minister has returned from Germany bringing
peace with honor,” Chamberlain displayed the tattered piece
of paper to the waiting crowds upon his return to London.
The British public found it a convenient solution, to simply
relinquish the Czech Sudetenland and to remain in their
sheltered homes in London, ignoring the encroaching powers
of evil. The American government approved of the agreement
too, as it allowed them to refrain from intervening in the

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