THE SUBSTANCE OF MARTYRS

by William Sambrot

Copyright © 1963, by William Sambrot

Reprinted in Stories Not for the Nervous

Dell Publishing Co., Inc., N.Y., N.Y.

eBook scanned & proofed by Binwiped 11-28-02 [v1.0]

For centuries, the townspeople had held on to their belief in the powers of their gold cross. What a sublime ironic touch that the ravages of a war “to end all wars” brought an answer to their prayers.

For reasons that will be apparent to you, I won’t tell you the name of the little German village in which I saw the miraculous golden Christ on the cross. It’s an obscure, somewhat poor hamlet, still not completely recovered from the ravages of World War II.

It was Colonel Dumphrey who told me about the golden Christ, and the strange history of miracles attributed to it. We were motoring through southern Germany at the time, on our way from Paris to Salzburg, where the colonel was to pass judgment on the authenticity of certain art treasures recently discovered in a salt mine near Salzburg.

Colonel Dumphrey (retired), D.S.O., O.B.E., was (and is) a renowned scholar and linguist, an expert on Italian Renaissance and Middle-European medieval art. During the war, Colonel Dumphrey had been a major in Military Intelligence (British Army), on special detached duty with the 45th Division (American).

Near the end of World War II, the 45th had captured a number of salt mines near Salzburg crammed with a vast quantity of loot which the Nazis had stolen from Europe’s finest museums and private art collections.

To this day, not all the treasures known to have been stolen by the Nazis have been recovered, so when the colonel was contacted in Paris and asked to give his expert opinion on the authenticity of the several pieces which had recently been found in those same dismal salt mines, he readily agreed.

He decided to drive up from Paris to Salzburg, taking his time and visiting some of the lesser-known but still interesting German and Austrian towns, so rich in medieval art. He invited me along.

We were well into southern Germany, meandering through Christmas card villages, driving through a peaceful, sparsely-inhabited mountainous country, when suddenly the colonel slowed as we approached a road sign.

He hesitated, then abruptly swung the car off onto a bumpy road. Ahead, there soon appeared the inevitable clump of stone-and-timber houses. In their midst, the spire of a small cathedral thrust up, peculiarly truncated.

As we approached, it was evident the church had been heavily damaged during the war and still lacked complete repair. Several of the stained-glass Gothic apertures had been boarded up. The slate roof showed evidence of frequent mismatched patching. All in all, a rather humble and shabby church and village, tucked between the mountains. And yet…

Miraculous cures had taken place there, Dumphrey assured me. .People came from many hundreds of miles around to pray before the little church’s altar crucifix, a solid gold Christ on the cross. To pray for—and occasionally to receive—miracles.

We got out of the car and immediately I was struck by the feeling of peace and tranquility that flooded the square, the town. People smiled at us, moved quietly in unhurried calm. Most of them were going to or from the church.

We went in. It was very much like many other churches throughout western Europe—a bit more brown and battered, perhaps. Many pews were scarred, a few were new. The floor showed patches of repaired tile, contrasting with ancient marble. To one side, a stained-glass window was oddly shattered; only two pieces remained suspended between the lead frames, each depicting an upraised, supplicating hand. The rest was opened to the sky.

Pigeons fluttered in and out between these suspended marvelously-colored stained-glass hands. Hands, Dumphrey whispered, which formerly belonged to a complete Mary, mother of Christ, but now were disembodied members, raised piteously to an uncomprehending stretch of blue, cold German sky.

The shattered stained-glass window was the people’s monument to their bitter past—their penance, and their reminder. It was left exactly as it had been when the war swept over it.

Here the parishioners and visitors knelt on the marble floor, oblivious of the chill wind that swept through the broken window and caused the red sacristy lamp to flicker and sway ceaselessly.

Directly above the chipped altar was hung the magnificent crucifix. A great golden Christ, nailed to a mahogany cross. The outstretched arms seemed to steady and make firm the sagging church walls. It glowed in the flickering light of candles; the flaring shadows made the suffering features strangely alive. The closed eyes seemed to slowly open, to look down on the kneeling people, and gradually, to seek me out.

I had seen many excellent crucifixes. But I found myself staring piercingly at the golden Christ, hanging tautly, corded arms nailed with golden spikes to the dark wood. There flowed from that strained figure an unmistakable aura. It was palpable: I felt that the closed eyes were no longer closed, but were gazing at me—into me—with pity and love.

My heart began a slow, deep pound; I could have sworn I saw the golden ribs heave, the cruel deep spear marks gape wide. I continued to stare at the cross, barely conscious of the muted surf-sound of murmured prayers, the fluttering and cooing of pigeons. All was subordinate to that lonely, mysterious figure, hanging there, beckoning with a power that was indescribably real.

Dumphrey touched my arm and I started. We went outside and I took a deep breath.

“It—it’s magnificent,” I said slowly. “There is something —some presence there. Did you feel it?”

He nodded and I said, “I can rationalize it, I suppose. Mass hypnosis, that gleaming body concentrating the flickering light … But that … that feeling of utter peace, a profound sense of … of …”

“Love?” Dumphrey said.

“Yes. A deep, calm love. An acceptance.” I glanced back. “I can readily understand why these people will come from miles away to kneel beneath that crucifix.” I stopped. Dumphrey was lighting his pipe thoughtfully. “It must be beyond value to them. I have the feeling that it’s very old.”

“No,” he said. “This one dates back to nineteen forty-five.”

“This one?”

“There was another, exactly like this one,” Dumphrey said. “And it was really old, dating back, I’m sure, to medieval times.”

“What happened to it?” I said. “Was it solid gold, like this one?”

He looked at me, a rather odd look. “The villagers always thought so,” he said.

They were proud of their crucifix, Dumphrey told me, standing there on the steps. Gleaming brilliantly in the candlelight, the great golden crucifix had always hung in their church—far beyond the memory of the oldest living inhabitant. It was the most precious object in their lives; not only because they believed it to be pure gold, but because it symbolized the complete unity of their faith. Even though the church doors were never locked and strangers never refused admittance, their crucifix had never been disturbed. Never.

But then no wars had ever really touched this hamlet. No wars, that is, until Hitler proclaimed his right to rule the world. Then war came to the village with a vengeance —and only after it was already lost for Germany and very bad for everyone.

With all the strong young men long since gone—killed or captured on the many fronts—there were only the Herrenvolk left to fight. The People’s Army. The halt, the misfit, the old—the dregs of humanity. Poor fighting material, perhaps, but over them were placed the most brutal and fanatical of Hitler’s officers: the dreaded Waffen S.S., Hitler’s elite killer corps. Men sworn to defend the fatherland to the death.

Untersturmfuhrer Hohler, former assistant commandant at the infamous Dachau concentration camp (then already overrun) was given the job of fortifying the village and assuring that the Herrenvolk would, if necessary, fight to the death in its defense.

Hohler fortified the town. Ignoring the protests of the priest and parishioners, he gave orders to use the belltower of the church as a spotting post for their deadly 88 artillery. When the first American light armor approached the town, they were quickly knocked out by a hail of accurate artillery fire. They withdrew, calling on their own artillery for support. There was no choice but to reduce the belltower to rubble.

On a cold February morning, the American units of the 45th whirled through the thin snow in a swift flanking movement and the town was taken. Most of the Herrenvolk surrendered immediately. Untersturmfuhrer Hohler was not among them. He’d escaped.

The main body of troops moved on, but a few rendezvoused before the church. A young infantry captain, his hands blue with cold, brought an old priest to see then-Major Dumphrey. Anguished, obviously in deep distress, the priest requested in a halting whisper that Dumphrey go with him into the ruined church.

Dumphrey went into the shattered building, past the broken pews and the smashed windows, over bits of blasted stained glass, littering the floor like sharded rainbows.

The priest pointed to the wall above the chipped altar. “We have had a cross there for many centuries,” he said in a choked voice. “It was gold, pure gold. No one had ever touched it, though the doors were never locked. And when the shelling came, even though everything else fell, it was untouched. A miracle,” he whispered. “It made us humble, and sure that God was protecting us. But now—” His finger trembled.

The wall above the altar was intact, but strangely bare-looking. Against the dark smudge of centuries of candle smoke was the pale outline of where the great gold crucifix had hung. The crucifix was gone.

“Untersturmfuhrer Hohler has taken it,” the priest cried brokenly.

Hohler: Untersturmfuhrer, wearing the lapels of the dreaded Schutzstaffeln; assistant commandant at Dachau, specialist in death. The executioner of hundreds of thousands of Jews, a man with a dossier of crimes equaling in length the appalling list of names of his murdered victims. Even then, wanted by the Allies for trial (and subsequent hanging), even at the moment of his personal Gotterdammerung, Hohler could not resist adding the gold Christ to his already immense pile of loot.

“We’ll get him,” the young captain assured his priest. “Where can he run now?”

They got him, near Salzburg. Hohler readily admitted taking the crucifix, and when the indignant young captain brusquely ordered him to hand it over, Hohler laughed ironically, saying he no longer had it—that he’d thrown it away. However, a number of pure gold bars were found in his loot, at least equaling in weight the approximate mass that the melted-down Christ would have been. When questioned at length about this gold, Hohler, after some hesitation, admitted that the gold bars were, indeed, the melted-down remains of the stolen golden Christ.

Fortunately, the exact dimensions of the original Christ had been known and there were any number of skilled carvers in the village capable of making a mold. When the finished Christ was again ready to be hung for the Bishop’s blessing, the worshipers more than filled the church. Children in the pews sniffled in the great cold that filled the shattered church. Shuffling and whispering, they stared in awe at the beautiful gleaming crucifix which hung once again above the chipped altar.

The adults knelt silently on the broken floor, enveloped in layers of clothing. Bitter drafts whistled through the empty windows. But it was a church again—their church.

Above the altar that strangely serene, that powerful golden figure enveloped them in a warmth they’d never known before.

And as if to prove that God was indeed among them, there occurred then the first of the miracles attributed to the golden Christ. A child, a victim of the shelling attack, had been brought to the service. The child had been buried alive in the ruins of his blasted home, pinned beneath the bodies of his parents. When they’d dug him out, he had shrieked once, then it was as though a light had been extinguished within him: his eyes went blank. He became mute, an unresisting, unsmiling creature, with no spark of humanity.

But in the church he’d looked upon the golden Christ. A faint light leaped into his eyes. He stared. His eyes became brighter. Brighter. And suddenly he screamed, a terrible, piercing scream. He began to cry. The tears were real, genuine tears of emotion. He was alive again, a thinking, feeling human soul; in great anguish—but sane.

“He is a strong young man now, with children of his own,” Dumphrey finished, as we walked down the worn stone steps and back to the car. “His was the first, but there have been similar… cures.”

“I don’t doubt it,” I said. “Not any more.”

We got into the car and Dumphrey looked reflectively at the people coming and going.

“But he lied, you know,” Dumphrey said softly. “Untersturmfuhrer Hohler, I mean.”

“Lied? In what way?”

Dumphrey brought out his pipe, and stuffing it with tobacco he said slowly, “I don’t need to tell you to be discreet about this, of course.” He sighed. “Actually, even before Hohler was captured I’d already come into possession of the real stolen crucifix. It had been found by one of my team of specialists.”

He made a wry face. “It had been mutilated so badly there was no thought of ever returning it to the church. The arms were twisted and bent, the torso battered, and the crown of thorns torn completely off the head.”

“Hohler had actually thrown away the golden Christ?”

“Yes. After he discovered it wasn’t gold at all,” Dumphrey said. “Where the crown of thorns had been torn off showed dull gray. Where the arms had been twisted and bent, ugly black cracks showed through.” He shook his head. “It was merely heavily-gilded lead.”

“But—Hohler’s gold bars—”

“Can’t you guess where that gold came from?” Dumphrey said. “Hohler was one of the butchers of Dachau. Stripping the rings from his victims’ fingers as they were led wailing into the gas chambers. Wrenching the gold teeth and fillings from their lifeless mouths as they were fed into the furnaces. Accumulating his pile of gold, melting it down into bars—”

“From the Jews …” I whispered.

“Yes, from the martyred Jews of Dachau,” Dumphrey said. “Doubtless Hohler considered it a diabolical joke, saying the gold came from the stolen Christ. But was he so far wrong?”

He put the little car in gear and we moved slowly out of the village. “The pagan executioner stole from the Christians their Christ of gilded lead—only to replace it with one made of that most precious metal of all: the substance of martyrs.”

-END-