The Young Pole who shook the world.
The day was 1st September 1939. Without firing a warning the Nazi German armies attack the nation of Poland thus beginning what is known to history as the Second World War. The war lead to widespread horror in Europe and the rest of the world. Europe was converted to a graveyard of slavery and death. A racist genocidal policy introduced by the Germans aimed at wiping out the Jews from Europe. Jews were taken forcibly from their homes and kept in concentration camps where they were put under hard lab our and finally killed brutally in gas chambers.
During the summer of 1942, two Jewish sisters Frimeta Gelband and Salomea Zierer from Krakow, Poland, were taken to the city's prison, held there for a few months and then sent to the Belzec death camp, where in October they were killed. Salla - had two daughters, one named Edith Zierer whom survived the war and one of whom did not. In January 1945, aged 13, she emerged from a Nazi labor camp in Czestochowa, Poland, sick and on the verge of death. Separated from her family, unaware that her mother had been killed by the Germans, she could scarcely walk.
But walk she did, to a train station, and climbed onto a coal wagon. The train moved slowly, the wind cut through her. When the cold became too much to bear, she got down at a village called Jedrzejow and sat in a station corner. Nobody looked at her, a girl in the striped and numbered uniform of a prisoner. Unable to move, Edith waited.
Death was approaching, but a young man approached first, "very good looking," as she recalled, and vigorous. He wore a long robe and appeared to be a priest. "Why are you here?" he asked. "What are you doing?" Edith said she was trying to get to Krakow to find her parents. The man disappeared. He came back with a cup of tea. Edith drank. He said he could help her get to Krakow. Again the mysterious benefactor went away, returning with bread and cheese. Edith said she believed that her parents and younger sister, Judith, were alive.
"Try to stand," the man said. Edith tried and failed. He carried her to another village two miles away, where he put her in the cattle car of a train bound for Krakow. The man got in beside Edith, covered her with his cloak and made a small fire. There was a Jewish family on the train, who warned her that he might take her off to "the cloisters." So she fled from him as the train reached Krakow. "Edyta, Edyta!" – He called out - as she hid behind large containers of milk. But hiding was not forgetting. She wrote his name in a diary.
Years went by. Edith now married and settled in Haifa, Israel. On the morning of 17th October 1978 while reading a copy of the Paris-Match Edith broke into tears. A report was broadcast telling about a 58 year old Polish Cardinal Karol Wojtyla who had just become the Pope. Edith realized that this was the same Karol who despite being a Catholic saved her, a destitute Jewish girl 34 years ago forgetting all differences between a Catholic and Jew.
Letters to him went unanswered. But at last, in 1997, she received a letter from the Vatican in which the pope recalled their meeting. A year later they met again at the Vatican. Edith thanked the pope for saving her. He put one hand on her head, another hand in hers, and blessed her. As she parted, he said, "Come back, my child."
This act of a young man was unknown but remembered in the records of Heaven. No doubt through this small act he would later take on the world stage and was the main force behind breaking the wall of communism which had struck Eastern Europe after the Second World War.
I remember those unforgettable days in April 2005. After leading the Roman Catholic Church for 26 years successfully Pope John Paul-II lay dying at Vatican. As news spread about the Dying Pontiff Tens of thousands of people, most of them the youth assembled and held vigil in St. Peter's Square and the surrounding streets for two days. In addition to those Gathered at Vatican many maintained Vigils in Churches and Squares all over the world Upon hearing of the gathered crowd , the dying pope was said to have stated: “I have searched for you, and now you have come to me, and I thank you.”.This message was especially to the Youth of the world. And saying “Amen” he surrendered his pure soul to the Lord at 21:37 hrs on 2nd April 2005, the eve if the feast of the Divine Mercy. His simple acts of faith made him great. May his life be an inspiration to all especially the youth of this world.
----William Afonso