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“How would you even begin such an enormous task?”
“I don’t know. It was overwhelming. They posted lists of names, of the dead as well as the living, and the survivors checked and rechecked them every day. As soon as our patients were well enough to leave, they usually moved to a displaced persons’ camp if they had nowhere else to go. The authorities were trying to get everyone back to the cities and nations where they had lived before the war, but I can understand why many of them refused to go back. Anti-Semitism didn’t end with the war.” He shook his head as if unable to comprehend such a thing. “Jim spent his free time helping his patients get in touch with various Jewish agencies or the Red Cross. By the time we left Buchenwald, I was starting to feel a glimmer of hope for the future. But Jim? In his mind, he had unfinished work to do. He wanted to put everything back together again, as if the world were a giant jigsaw puzzle with all the pieces scattered, and it was up to him to fix it. I kept telling him it was an impossible task, but he was driven. And it started taking a toll on him.”
Art’s wife came out with a tray of sandwiches and some colas, and our conversation drifted to other subjects. I could tell that Joe would have preferred a beer—or two. We ate lunch on the front porch, watching kids riding bikes, skipping rope, and playing hopscotch on the sidewalk. We would have to be on our way soon. We had a long drive ahead of us to get home.
“I thought of one more question, Art, if you don’t mind,” I said as we were finishing lunch. “Did Jimmy ever talk with you about God or his faith?”
I could see Art searching his memory. “Not that I can recall. Why?”
“Because all the other men who served with Jim—like Joe, here—said that Jimmy talked a lot about what he believed and was always inspiring others and even praying with them. I just wondered if he still did that when you knew him.”
Art slowly shook his head. “I never heard him mention God, and Jim and I worked together pretty closely. Buchenwald was a very dark place. God seemed very far away.” My heart squeezed. That didn’t sound like the Jimmy I knew. “Now that I think about it, Jim got so depressed after working there for a few months that Major Cleveland, our CO, made him take a week’s leave. Eventually we were both transferred out. I don’t know where Jim ended up after that. Sorry.”
I wrote down the commander’s name, Major Mike Cleveland, so Chaplain Bill could try to get in touch with him. Art had given us some important information about when and why Jimmy had begun to change, and I could see that liberating Buchenwald had obviously had a profound effect on Jimmy. The fact that he hadn’t talked about his faith or prayed with his patients while working there was upsetting. Jimmy had wanted to put all the broken pieces back together again, and it must have devastated him when he couldn’t.
Before we left, Art gave me a letter to give to Jimmy. “If I can get away after the baby is born,” he said, “I’ll try to drive down to visit him.”
I thanked Art for his willingness to open some very painful wounds for his friend and took his photograph for Jimmy’s scrapbook. Art walked with us to the street and paused a moment to admire Joe’s motorcycle. Then he turned to Joe.
“I couldn’t help noticing your leg,” he said. “Were you wounded in combat?”
“Yeah, in France. Jim was one of the medics who saved my life.”
Art rested his hand on Joe’s shoulder. “You paid a huge price, my friend. But when you get back home again, make sure you look at some of the photographs and news footage from the concentration camps. I won’t lie—they’re hard to stomach. But if you ever start to wonder if your sacrifice was worth it, the record of what went on in those camps will help you remember why we fought. Your sacrifice meant the difference between life and death for those survivors. You rescued a multitude of people—along with the generations of children who will be born to them someday. You are their hero.”
