Page 198 - LEIBY

198 Leiby – Border Smuggler

injured and we nursed him back to health until he was able to
stand on his own two feet. We didn’t really believe that he’d
recover at all, after all he’d been through, the poor man. But the
moment that he managed to stand by himself, he just got up
and left, and we haven’t seen him since.”

Leiby and Yosef listened wide-eyed to the Czech doctor’s
translation of the nun’s monologue.

“Get every possible fragment of information out of her, you
never know what might lead me to my sister,” Yosef pleaded.

The nun was tight-lipped and reluctant to say more than she had
to. She identified Leiby and Yosef as being Jews and suspected
that they wanted to take revenge on the Christian officer. As a
fellow Christian, she felt that it was her religious obligation to
protect him. In fact, this was the church’s stance too. Not for
nothing was the pope dubbed “Hitler’s pope” – throughout the
war years he had refused to issue any statements denouncing the
genocide of the Jews, and towards the end of the war, when tens
of thousands of labor camp inmates were dying in the notorious
death marches, he opened the gates of the Vatican in a merciful
gesture to the numerous fleeing Nazis, allowing them to escape
justice and from Rome, to move on and begin a new life in
South America. All over Europe, the monasteries and convents
welcomed the German heroes, hiding them and helping them
evade the Allied forces who were hounding them in an effort
to bring them to trial. This hospice was no exception and on
several occasions, fleeing young Nazis had found shelter there.
Never would the nun hand a Christian over to a Jew, never!

The doctor attempted to strike up conversation with some of
the other nuns, but they took their cue from the head nun and
refused to say any more than she had. Again and again, they
repeated the mantra – we know nothing about the disguised
Nazi, he was critically injured but had recovered, and he left as
soon as he could stand.

Disappointed and frustrated, Leiby and Yosef returned to the
hotel, where the clamor of hundreds of refugees preparing to