We Remember ...

There were more signs that the Germans were disengaging ... the Etobonais were able to ring the church bells on November 11 without permission and without complaint from the occupiers. Convoys continued to bring the dead and wounded from the front by the main road.

Thursday, November 9

The Germans have been waiting impatiently for November 7,  presidential election day in the U.S.  And it’s Roosevelt again.  They are not happy.

Emile Bonhotal, on a work detail to dig trenches at the front, hid the rifle of one of the guards.  (The rifle was found two months later, intact.)

Saturday, November 11

The eleventh of November!  We remember … We had two pastors today, M. Lugbull, who went on to lead worship at Belverne, and M. Nétillard, who led worship at 3:00.  Without asking anyone’s permission, we rang the two church bells.  No reaction at all.

Ernest was the only German in church.

Sunday, November 12

Rain and snow.  I took Jarko a piece of  sheet metal, a leather apron, and a calf skin to cover his hut.  He’s also received a sack of carrots, a sack of apples, an alcohol lamp, a cooking pot.  With that, he can hold on even in a big snow.  He has good sheep’s wool socks and René Bauer’s sabots, which were found in the school after the departure of our 67 men.

In front of the school, in a lake of mud, incessant comings and goings of trucks, cars.  Those that return from the front in the evening are usually loaded with wood.  Behind them, the dead.  On top, the wounded … The boches who’ve been stationed in this village won’t do us any violence when they leave us.  We know them.  We know if they’re Catholics or Protestants.  But those at the front!  We can expect anything.

Monday, November 13

A supposedly new invention is building up the morale of our occupiers.  It’s a winged torpedo, the V2, that goes up to 100 kilometers (they say!)  We’ll see.

Willy Imbey comes back muddy, his feet swimming in his flooded shoes.  We offer to dry them for him.  “Not worth the trouble.  Tomorrow, impossible to put them on.  Always in water.  Soon kaput.  Same to me to end like that.”

The Funeral

After the coffins arrived at the cemetery, it was time for the funeral. So much grief, so many tears ... Jules Perret's account is heart-wrenching:

Here we all are in the church.  The ones we are mourning came here to pray, to sing, to hear the message of the Gospel.  They used to sit there, there.  I see them again, I hear their voices rise at the psalm and the hymns.  Now they’re side by side again, hands joined, eyes closed, on the bottom of the immense grave where we just placed them …  Is it true?…  My Jacques!  My eyes are so full of tears that I can’t see anyone, and yet the church is full because people have come from near and far to surround us with sympathy.

A voice came to us from the high pulpit, the voice of M. Lovy, who had been our pastor for eight years, who knew, loved, drew into a brotherly circle our lost ones.  His voice trembles, he chokes on his words:

“Have pity on me, Lord, because I am without strength.  Heal me. Lord, for my bones shake …  From out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord, hear my voice!  O that your ears would be attentive to my pleas … My soul waits for the Lord more than the watchmen wait for the morning … If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not raised … If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.”  Finally, this text:  “I say to you, who are my friends:  do not fear those who kill the body and who, after that, can do no more.”

No message, no sermon:  the cry of a wounded heart bending over crushed hearts, of a heart that knows that the cream of our parish has been mowed down, so many youth of whom the Lord said, “You are the light of the world …” to the other hearts to show that they know that the souls of believers never die.

We listen to these words that console us and tear us apart…  “Those who fell at the foot of the protestant church in Chenebier, their gazes fixed on the beloved heights of Etobon, left in a way that is reserved for very few martyrs, because they died – knowing them, I can affirm it – in the peace of their Lord.  O that that same peace would be yours, in the midst of your tears, dear friends of Etobon.”

In the midst of your tears … they flow, unstoppable.  Ah!  That God would be with each of us, that he would take us by the hand!  There is only Him to console us, to heal us …

I could see no more, I could hear no more, not even my own sobs, or mama’s or Suzette’s or anyone’s.  I could only repeat to myself, “Lord, hold us in your mighty hand …”

How we got outside, in the wind, the snow, the cold, I have no idea.

As soon as I could, I went back to the cemetery to photograph the coffins of Charles and René, at the bottom of the pit and bid them the supreme Adieu.  More tears!  The diggers started their work again.  And now all are hidden for this life …  awaiting the great Reunion.

The day is over.  We have supper.  And yes, we still have to eat!  All together, we talk again about them, always about them.