The liberation of the Dachau concentration camp, which was not witnessed by either Hilarius or Titus, was celebrated by two of our later bishops and cardinals – Josef Beran and Štěpán Trochta.
The occupiers – then and now – take great care in eliminating the elites of the decimated nation, whether they are politicians, priests, journalists, or professors. The scenario is often very similar. After arrest and imprisonment, a death sentence follows, or transfer to a "filter" camp and abduction to a prison camp on the territory of the aggressor. While during the German occupation it was often possible to continuously monitor or at least retroactively trace the fates of the arrested, and the German Nazis in Dachau allowed prisoners to correspond with their loved ones, there are currently no reports about the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians abducted to remote parts of the Russian Federation…
Father Josef Beran (1888–1969), an inconvenient rector for the Nazis at the Prague Archbishops' Seminary, was arrested by the Gestapo on June 6, 1942, and imprisoned at Pankrác Prison, where he awaited execution. About a month into his imprisonment, the Gestapo placed him under "protective custody" and assigned him to the Theresienstadt "Baukommando.” In early September 1942, he was transferred to Dachau. He later recalled his time at Pankrác:
In the cell, I was imprisoned with a man who was an enthusiastic follower of Masaryk and Beneš. He knew he would be executed, as we all expected. He had a family and children and was so immensely sad that his distress affected us all. We tried to comfort and calm him, and God knows how difficult it was. He didn't seem to think of God, at least he gave no indication of it, and expressed his devotion to both presidents with the words: 'Before they shoot me, I will still say: Long live the Czechoslovak Republic, long live Beneš!' I don't know how much strength that gave him, but when they came for him the next day, he left bravely. I was left with a lot of sorrow in my soul. About an hour after he left, perhaps just at the moment he was shot, a starling flew to the window of our cell. It sang sadly and flew away. I felt bitter, I think I cried, and I prayed for him all night. I had to force myself with all my willpower to forget everything I had left out there: the seminary, my mother, my loved ones, everything. I felt that if I were to immerse myself even for a moment in memories of my dear ones, in their pain and tears, I would lose my nerves and I would no longer be myself. That inactivity, that month of waiting for death, that uncertainty about what was happening outside, would have been enough to kill me if gracious God hadn’t strengthened me. It was prayers and the persistent sacrifices of my dear ones that earned me this strength.
Servant of God Josef, pray for us!
(Josef Cardinal Beran /1888–1969/, memories of imprisonment at Pankrác in June 1942,
processed according to https://kardinalberan.com/cz/zivotopis/)
