Many Belgian convents hid Jewish children during the Nazi occupation of 1940–1945, presenting them as Catholics. Among these institutions were the Franciscan Sisters in Bruges, the Sisters of Don Bosco in Courtrai, and the Sisters of Saint Mary near Brussels.
Hava stood up, her hair over her face, her shoulders slumped. I stepped up to my friend, brushed back her hair, and as she leaned into me, I whispered, ‘All will be well, but we must go. Your family isn’t here, but we’ll find them. We need to hurry. I need to get something from my house.’
Hava, the beautiful Jewish girl, wept silently in my arms. Then she looked up and licked one of her tears. ‘It tastes salty.’ Hava of the opera. Hava Juliet. Hava Salomé. A Jewish girl with salty tears.
‘Come on. We must hurry,’ I said gently.
‘Yes, okay. Let’s go back to your house, Simone.’
Once in the crowded, afternoon streets, my renewed confidence quickly vanished. I wanted to be brave for Hava, but the noise, the chaos, the apprehension in the air, all filled me with a sudden and overwhelming anxiety.
As I stood on the street corner not knowing where to turn, a man nearly knocked me down. ‘Run, you silly girl,’ he yelled. ‘Run! The Germans are coming!’
My mind spun, dizzy with helplessness. An ambulance squealed past. We are Belgian, I thought. We are strong. We must endure. We must find someone to help us. Just then, I thought about Sister Bernadette. The convent! Sister Bernadette will protect us. She will know what to do.
My panic subsided. I stood still and adjusted the sleeves of my dress. I will pretend that Hava and I are just visiting a friend. I will pretend that this is an ordinary day and we are just visiting Sister Bernadette. I grabbed Hava’s arm and said, ‘Maybe my teacher can help us. The convent should be safe, and if she’s there, I know she’ll help us.’ Hava nodded, looking dazed at the surrounding confusion, but with renewed hope to continue our journey.
I knew my way to the convent. It was across the street from my school, an old building with many floors. When I knocked on the door, there was no answer. I looked back at the school. It was dark. The gates were closed. Everything seemed to have stopped as soon as the planes arrived. I stood at the convent door hoping someone would hear us.
‘Knock again,’ Hava suggested.
I turned and knocked again. ‘We are brave Belgians,’ I muttered to myself.
‘Yes? May I help you?’ a harsh voice called from behind the door.
‘I am Simone Lyon. I’m a student at the school. Is Sister Bernadette here?’
Silence.
‘She’s my teacher. The planes . . . the bombs . . . I must speak to Sister Bernadette. We need her help . . . please . . .’ And then like the child I was, I just cried, squeezing my eyes shut, trying to prevent the tears from sliding down my cheeks. In that moment, it felt as if all of Belgium wept with me.
When I opened my eyes, the door was unbolted and there was Sister Bernadette. ‘Come in, my child. Come, Simone.’ I fell into her arms. The aroma of her cloth habit, the tenderness of her embrace, made me nearly say ‘Mother’. And I cried some more.
‘I don’t know where my father is,’ I said finally between sobs. ‘You told me he was working at the Foreign Ministry, but I don’t know where he is. My aunt went back to Luxembourg. We can’t find Hava’s parents; the synagogue was empty. Oh, Sister Bernadette, the planes . . . Before he left, my father said if the planes came, the war would begin. The planes and bombs . . . I’m trying to be brave, but I don’t know what to do. We don’t know what to do.’
Sister Bernadette unfolded her arms from around my shoulder, and produced a handkerchief from under her robe. ‘Simone, you are not alone. Who is this with you?’ Hava stood patiently outside in her simple dress, a small smile on her lips.
‘Sister, this is Hava Daniels.’ I pulled Hava closer. ‘She’s my friend. We tried to find her parents and brother at the synagogue, where they said that they’d be waiting for us, but no one was there. Just the rabbi, all alone. They weren’t at her home either. We don’t know where they are.’
‘Come with me, Simone. And Hava, you too, you are also welcome, always welcome. You need something to eat, some hot soup. We cannot fight the war on empty stomachs.’
At the word ‘soup’ I smiled meekly, thinking about my Maginot Line, thinking about my own war soup. ‘We would love soup, Sister.’
Sister Bernadette led us down a dark hall. On the wall hung pictures of saints: Joan of Arc, Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, Saint Elizabeth of Hungary. ‘Now, girls, there are examples of brave women. Let’s be brave women and have some soup.’ With a small wave of her hand, Sister Bernadette pushed open a swinging door, took my hand and Hava’s hand and smiled. ‘Welcome,’ she said, ‘to a bit of hope.’
Sitting at a long table were four children, each with a yellow napkin attached to their necks, each with a bowl of hot soup, steam rising from each bowl. Sister Bernadette looked down the length of the table and said ‘Children, say hello to Mademoiselle Lyon, and her friend Mademoiselle Daniels.’
In unison, the children called out politely ‘Bonjour, Mademoiselle Lyon. Bonjour, Mademoiselle Daniels.’ A girl with pigtails stood up from her seat, walked over to me, and pulled off her yellow napkin. ‘Here, mademoiselle, so you won’t spill soup on your beautiful dress.’ The child handed me the napkin, curtsied and ran back to her seat.
As I held the napkin in my hand, I turned to Sister Bernadette. ‘Do you have a little school right here in the convent?’
‘We have a secret,’ Sister Bernadette whispered. ‘Come with me.’ Then she turned and said to the children, ‘I will take our new friends to the kitchen to get them each a bowl and help put on their napkins.’
As Hava and I followed Sister Bernadette, I watched for a moment as all four children blew into their bowls, some taking small sips with their spoons, other stirring the soup. The sound of the spoons hitting their bowls reminded me of broken bells tolling.
I asked, ‘Where did the children come from?’
‘They’re our secret,’ Sister Bernadette answered. ‘They’re from the neighbourhood. We weren’t expecting the war to start so soon, but there were rumours. We have nuns in Germany and they sent us letters about Hitler and Russia invading Poland. Apparently, Hitler’s navy sank a British liner, the SS Athenia. Priests have been publicly executed in Poland, and all Jewish businesses in Germany have been closed.’ Sister Bernadette took the yellow napkin from my hand and began to knot it gently around my neck.
‘They’re all Jewish children. Their parents asked if we could keep them here in secret and pretend that they’re Christian orphans. Their mothers and fathers know what’s happening in Germany to the Jews. When the planes arrived this morning, the parents arrived with their children. It’s been prearranged for them to stay here as long as they need to.’
‘They look so brave sipping their soup.’
‘They are innocent. They have been told that they will be with us for a long holiday.’
‘But where are their parents?’ Hava asked hopefully.
Sister Bernadette pulled out another yellow napkin from a drawer, and as she adjusted it around Hava’s neck she looked into her eyes and said, ‘We don’t know where they are. They said that they will come back when they can. They asked that we pretend their children are Christian. That’s all I know.’
When we returned to the dining room, the children looked up. One girl with a bow in her hair called out, ‘Mademoiselle Lyon, you look lovely in your yellow napkin.’ Another child, a boy with freckles, patted the empty chair beside him. ‘Mademoiselle Daniels, come and sit here.’
As Hava and I took our seats, Sister Bernadette placed bowls of soup before us. ‘Do as the children do. Blow on the soup. It’s very hot.’
The boy said, ‘Like this, mademoiselle,’ then he leaned forward, his mouth just at the edge of his bowl, and gently blew across the top of the soup. ‘It’s like the wind. Blow like you’re a breeze, Mademoiselle Daniels. Pretend the soup is the ocean.’
‘Like this?’ Hava asked, and then I, too, leaned over and blew like the wind across the surface of the sea.
‘When you’re finished with your soup, Mademoiselle Lyon,’ a girl in a red dress chimed in, ‘you should lift your napkin and wipe your lips like a lady. My mother says we always have to wipe our lips like ladies, like this,’ and the little girl lifted the edge of her napkin, pursed her lips, and gently tapped her mouth. Just then, a vast explosion shook the building, accompanied by the drone of planes overhead.
But the children continued blowing calmly on their soup. I gasped and looked up. Sister Bernadette lowered her eyes a bit and said gently, ‘The children, Simone. Think of the children.’
Another blast. More planes. I leaned over my soup and blew and blew.
‘We’re here on holiday,’ the girl with the bow in her hair said.
And again, there was silence. No bombs. No aircraft. After the soup the children, one by one, walked their empty bowls to the kitchen sink. Hava and I did too.
‘Now, off you go with Sister Thérèse,’ Sister Bernadette called out with a clap of her hands. ‘Say good bye to Mademoiselle Lyon and Mademoiselle Daniels.’
As each child shook our hands, another nun ushered the group out of the dining room, and they disappeared through the door towards the dark hall of brave women.
‘Hava, you might like to accompany them,’ Sister Bernadette said kindly. Hava nodded and followed the children into the hall.
‘Simone,’ Sister Bernadette turned to me. ‘Your father might not return for some time. The war has begun, and he’s part of the Resistance. Here at the convent we will play our part. But you must also play your part. You must be brave and stay at your home, like your father told you. You’ll be safe there. Look how brave these children are. You must be brave too.’
‘But what about Hava’s family? What should we do?’
‘You can’t save everyone, Simone.’
‘No, sister, but I can try.’
‘That’s all any of us can do,’ she said. ‘Listen.’
From a room nearby, the children’s voices rose in unison, as they began reciting a Jewish prayer.
‘Here, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is One
Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is One.
Praised is the Lord by day and praised by night,
Praised when we lie down and praised when we rise up.
I place my spirit in His care, when I wake as when I sleep.
God is with me, I shall not fear, body and spirit in His keep.’
In the background, Hava’s voice could also be heard, as she recited the words with the children.
Minutes later, she walked back into the room and smiled gratefully at Sister Bernadette. ‘It’s the bedtime prayer version of the Shema for children,’ she said. ‘We ask God for peace and protection in the evening. It may not yet be fully night, but it feels like the end of the day.’ She closed her eyes and repeated the last line again: ‘God is with me, I shall not fear, body and spirit in His keep.’
‘It is a beautiful prayer,’ agreed Sister Bernadette, ‘but I will need to teach them the Hail Mary if we if we are going to pretend that they’re Christian children.’
At the door to the convent, Sister Bernadette once again held my hand and said, ‘You’re not alone. God is with you both.’
We thanked Sister Bernadette for the soup and her calm reassurance and as she closed the door, and we walked down the steps, I thought about the pictures of brave women hanging in the tranquil hallway of the convent.