Madonna On the Bridge

by Bert C. Wouters

  No, this cannot be true, she thought, looking through her tears at the parading troops stridently singing. Hitler’s henchmen pretending to be country home boys filled her with disgust. She must take some risk to get even with the Germans for what they had done to her parents.

  She returned home without exchanging any coupons.

  It brought to mind memories of the time she had spent with Satanaya in her father’s study. “I will be there with you in difficult times.” She found some comfort in her mentor, Satanaya, who inspired her to be bold and courageous. She became resolute in her decision as she recognized the time had come. A strange voice gave her reassurance: “You are ready to fight, to take action.” Was it Satanaya? She must have meant the resistance. Happiness sprang loose within her. She had dreamt of this day when the call to action would come.

  When she saw Manus in the kitchen, she was still fuming over the news of her parents’ imprisonment. Holding back on sharing her true feelings, she only told Manus that she must contact Arie.

  She no longer trusted Manus, worried that he was still hanging around in the company of Jope and Joris, the Nazi sympathizers. In her mind, she created a world without Manus, the secret world of the Dutch Underground. That evening, unbeknownst to Manus, she pedaled to a secret meeting of the underground in Mill.

  Arie met her at the back door to the hall where the meeting was scheduled. In a few words, she told him what had happened to her parents. However, he wanted to talk to her about an important assignment to help London with intelligence data. He needed her for himself to take charge of the newly created Madonna Courier Network.

  Danya became a regular at the meetings; she felt like she belonged. Swallowtail clouds of cigarette smoke filled the air. Tarpaper nailed into the window frames made any light from inside the room invisible. The only light came from two oil lamps.

  She seated herself on one of the wooden benches. Opposite her sat two young men wearing patched coats and ragged pants, with cigarettes dangling from their mouth. Between them sat a pencil-thin girl so shy she just stared at the overflowing ashtray.

  Arie sat in a corner assembling a scrambler radio that had been air-dropped from England. He was the only one with the kind of expertise to handle such technical chores. The radio sender could transmit coded messages to the office of SOE (Strategic Planning for the Allied Forces) in London. The London top brass in charge of intelligence had complete confidence in Arie, because of his technical background in radio communications, encoded messages, and foreign languages. Only London knew of Arie’s role as a double agent. The staff at SOE was the only one privy to his “nom de guerre: Schorseneel.” The Germans would have great difficulty pronouncing his name.

  As the resistance workers dribbled in, one by one, avoiding attention by the police, the crowd inside grew impatient. Kees Slooter, the team leader, grabbed a stick, banging it on the wooden table.

  “I am Slooter, head of the Mill resistance. We are not Germans; we fight for freedom to our death. Today we are looking for a few courageous young women to become active in our Madonna Courier Network.” He spotted Danya and nodded in her direction. She had been sitting in the meeting without speaking. She was first on his list for head courier. For this assignment, he needed to assure the group of her qualifications. His first question was directly aimed at her:

  “Why did you mark that house on Porter Street with red ink?” Danya remembered the bottle of red ink she had tossed.

  “It was the ideal way to alert the resistance workers to stay away.”

  “Meaning?” She exhaled evenly.

  “Arie alerted me that an emergency situation had come up. He found out the Gestapo had set a trap to capture resistance workers delivering false food stamps at this residence. Time was of the essence, so I immediately devised a plan to splatter red ink on the house to alert resistance couriers to stay away.” Everyone laughed at the cleverness of the idea.

  Danya turned towards Arie. He winked at her, moving closer to her so he could whisper in her ear.

  “You already know how to transport downed flyers. Are you ready to increase your responsibility?”

  “How?” She was not that gullible and asked for clarification.

  “We need a courier route organized for delivery of coded messages, transporting them in relay fashion from chapel to chapel. You know of these chapels through Manus. They are found along the roads, making them ideal drop sites, without causing suspicion.” Danya wanted to know more. She remembered Manus had created many of the statues for these chapels.

  “We need someone who can head up a group of young women, working like links in a chain,” Slooter explained. “Yea, a human chain of couriers, moving swiftly and silently like the legs of a caterpillar, fast, ensuring that the encoded messages reach our point of transfer to London. From there, Arie will take care of the transmission over the scrambler radio.”

  Arie held up his hand and faced Danya. “We don’t say more than we must, Slooter,” he reminded. “Danya knows how to take risks. I am confident she has a knack for this type of work. She will be an excellent leader.” He dared not mention anything more about her Circassian background and how her people were known for taking on risky tasks in warfare. Arie reached into his leather bag hanging on his chair and pulled out a large roll of paper. He showed it to the audience; it was the outline of the geographical locations of the Madonna Courier Network. It showed a map of the major roads in Holland, with an “X” next to the location of each chapel.

  “Each of the chapels displays a statue of the Virgin Mary, created by Manus. Danya has intimate knowledge of their locations,” Arie said.

  “Well? Speak up.” Arie whispered in her ear. With these words, Danya heard the call to arms which she had been anticipating. Slooter looked at her.

  “Will you take the responsibility?”

  Slooter planned for the women to operate as flower girls, taking fresh flowers to the chapel altar; what an excellent ruse to keep the Germans off track.

  “It would be too dangerous for any of the regular resistance workers in this room. The Gestapo is already watching us. On the other hand, Danya is an outsider. Besides, a pretty girl like her would be less suspect of being a courier.”

  “I will serve as a courier in the Service of her Majesty’s Resistance Force,” Danya declared firmly. Arie had helped with this formality. A sense of destiny filled her. Finally, here she found something of importance in her life, something that mattered, sending military intelligence data to London. Through her clandestine work, she would play a role in hastening the liberation of Holland. Maybe, she thought, she would see her parents again soon, thanks to her covert work.

  “Do not get caught,” Slooter cautioned gravely. “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-one.”

  “With your limited experience in resistance work, how will you manage to keep your assignment a secret from your family? It will not be easy.”

  “My parents are in prison.” The underground workers around the table looked at each other and nodded their approval. Everyone in the room realized that her commitment meant revenge. Most of them were in the same predicament. They nodded their heads in unison: she will be a loyal and fierce fighter. Nobody knew that she was also a courageous Circassian.

  Arie rose to add his endorsement. “She has already proven herself transporting downed British flyers to safe houses …”

  To prove herself as a courier, she had to pay particular attention to her disguise. She dressed as an elderly woman in an ankle-length dark dress, black shawl, rimmed glasses, floppy hat, and wicker basket hanging from her handlebars.

  Arie took the responsibility to inscribe military intelligence on the strips of silk cloth cut from the parachutes of downed British flyers.

  Arie was in charge of encoding and inscribing the silk strips with German anti-aircraft installations, Wehrmacht barracks, Ges
tapo headquarters, railroad tracks, and names of Dutch officials collaborating with the Nazis. Arie had complete access to their names from the Census files, for which he was responsible.

  The courier girls rolled the strips and bound them with a thread of orange ribbon to remind them that they were fighting for the “House of Orange,” the dynastic order of the royal family of the Netherlands.

  With the scrolls tucked in her brassiere, Danya began her mission. Under the bright hot sun, she climbed aboard her bicycle with its white stripe on the mudguard and pedaled to her first drop. While cycling, she rehearsed the steps to follow, making sure that she was safe in her mission. The flowers in her basket lent an authentic touch to her disguise. No German would suspect that the chapel had become a hiding place for hiding encrypted messages.

  She parked her bicycle on the side of the chapel and furtively surveyed the surrounding area for any danger. When she opened the door with a squeaky noise, she entered the silence of the chapel, now alone with the Virgin Mary. She knelt in front of the altar, put her hand on Mary’s mantle, and raised her head, looking up into the eyes of the Virgin. She felt an ethereal aura surrounding her as she reflected on the ancestral bond between herself and Mary.

  In the stillness of the chapel, she experienced an inner peace. She prayed:

  “Oh Madonna, shelter me

  Down from Heaven shield my pathway

  Kneeled in prayer, stay with me

  I cannot live when you are gone.”

  It was late evening. Danya passed a farmhouse, where she dropped off a bundle of the pamphlet: “Free Holland.” Suddenly, two Gestapo agents jumped from behind the bushes and ordered her to stop. She hit the brakes hard and came to a jolting stop, stepping off the pedal with one foot. The excitement of the new courier turned quickly into sweat collected on her palms. She took a deep, calming breath.

  “Papiere!” They demanded that she opened her handbag and examined her ID card and ration coupons. Then, disaster struck. She had forgotten to hide the illegal pamphlets. One of the agents took a closer look.

  “What do we have here? Distributing illegal pamphlets is punishable by execution.” They shackled her and took her to the local police station. The silence of the night cast an unbearable fear on Danya. She wondered how many hours she had to live unless Arie came to the rescue. Danya was afraid she was the only one in jail. It frightened her.

  In the middle of the night, a voice broke into song:

  “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

  Why are you so far from saving me?

  O, my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer,

  And by night, but I find no rest.”

  Were they singing for Danya to let her know she was not alone?

  When morning came, she heard noises at the other end of the prison block. Gestapo guards led the prisoners to their execution on the prison common. They continued singing in crescendo as they exited the building. Through the little window in her cell, Danya heard the command by the executioners to line up against the wall underneath her window. Suddenly, machine guns broke the stillness of the early morning. Danya listened to the prisoners collapsing while continuing their song until the firearms snuffed out their last verse.

  “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,

  That saved a wretch like me.”

  The next morning Arie returned to his office at the Political Police Station where the prison was. He saw Danya’s name on the prison list. Without speaking, he walked by her jail cell, made eye contact and winked at her. He must stay in his deep cover of double agent.

  Danya was relieved to see him. He had already contacted van Lansfoort, who had spoken by telephone with Professor Habers in Wewelsburg. When a Circassian fell in grave danger, the Adyghe Intelligence Network sprang into action. With the knowledge that Danya’s father held a high position in the Adygha Intelligence Network in Belgium, van Lansfoort, Habers, and Arie placed a top priority on her rescue.

  The following day, two guards escorted her to a waiting car. No longer shackled, she held her satchel of personal belongings. She was no longer frightened, but anxious to know her destination.

  “Where are we heading?”

  “Wewelsburg Castle,” the driver replied curtly.

  Danya had never heard the name. For hours, she rode in silence. It was dark when they arrived. A guard opened the gate to the compound, and the car swung around to the back of the castle. An SS guard took her from the car to the prison basement, leading her through a dark hallway and locking her in a small cell with a loud bang and disappearing. Danya saw only empty cells, with no other prisoners present.

  The SS had built Wewelsburg Castle as a fortress on a mountain in Westphalia, Germany. Only a few top echelons SS were aware that it served as the SS indoctrination site under the direction of Heinrich Himmler, Reichsfuhrer – SS.

  The castle had a dark history, based on an old legend that hundreds of accused witches had been tortured and executed there. Himmler billed the castle as the “Center of the World,” which pleased Hitler. Fascinated by tales of King Arthur and his Knights, Wewelsburg Castle was his “Camelot.”

  In 1935, Himmler founded an elite Nazi research institute at Wewelsburg called the “Ahnenerbe.” Its mission was to unearth new evidence of the accomplishments of Germanic ancestors using exact science, which could not have been farther from the truth. In reality, Ahnenerbe was in the business of mythmaking, distorting the truth, and churning out carefully tailored stories to support Hitler’s ideas. He believed that only Aryans possessed the genes necessary to create civilization.

  The primary modus operandi of Ahnenerbe was investigative experimenting on humans as well as excavations of gravesites throughout the world, including the Northern Caucasus Mountains. Habers, the professor of History of Human Ethics, was recruited to join Ahnenerbe to help determine the best philosophy for Germans to live by and identify which actions are right and wrong. As a Circassian, he believed he could secretly influence the SS by defining concepts such as good and evil. Sadly, he became convinced that he was a voice in the desert and failed in his endeavor. However, Himmler kept him on to define the moral value of the Aryan race. Since 1940, he rose to the rank of Special Advisor, which made him extremely vulnerable while also serving in secrecy as a member of the Adygha Intelligence Network and answering to Voroshilov in Circassia.

  The results of excavations in Circassia yielded a trove of archaeological finds, including shards of pottery with swastika symbols. This find saved Habers’ reputation. When presented with the information, Himmler became ecstatic, declaring that the archaeologists had found evidence of the “Germanic Font of Civilization” in the Northern Caucasus. Of course, the professor, functioning as an unwilling scientist to please Himmler, kept it a secret that this could not be further from the truth. For centuries, traders from India traveled to Circassia over the old Silk Road, often carrying goods inscribed with the swastika. To them, it was merely a symbol of good luck. To the German researchers, anxious to please Hitler, it was the “Germanic Grail.”

  On the second floor of the castle, the SS installed the SS Rasseamt (Race Office) where they made their decisions about which ethnic people to exterminate. Himmler arranged for the signet rings of the fallen SS officers to be on permanent display in an urn in the middle of the large round table in the room as their way of showing their loyalty even after death to Hitler.

  At precisely 9 o’clock in the morning, two Gestapo guards shackled Danya and rushed her into an elevator. Something important was happening. With every click of the rickety wheels, the old elevator labored closer to the second floor, where it came to a screeching halt. Danya walked through a corridor lit by a row of single bulbs hanging from the ceiling. The guard stopped at an old oak door adorned with a large SS symbol. After banging three times with his truncheon, the guard threw the doors open, and all became suddenly quie
t in the large room. She counted ten uniformed officers seated around an enormous round table, with one exception dressed in civilian clothing. Due to the vastness of the room, she could barely make out his name: Professor Gustav Habers III. She vaguely recollected the name but could not place it with certainty.

  Sun rays pierced the tall windows, bringing the mosaic inlay in the floor into full view. In each window stood a pedestal with a strange-looking object. In the center of the object, Danya saw the SS Ahnenerbe symbol in vivid colors radiating in a burst of silver flares. It reminded her of the monstrance used in the Catholic Church to worship the Holy Bread. She felt nauseated that the Germans had borrowed this imagery.

  Her eyes wandered around the room until they rested on the nameplates on each pedestal: Jews, Poles, Slavs, Gypsies; it did not take long before she realized that these people decided deportation to the concentration camps. She panicked. She frantically searched for the Circassians and didn’t see their name.

  With the Skull and Bones SS Standard in front of him, General Heinrich Tauber looked larger than life. With the loud thump of the gavel, he blasted the attendees to attention. In unison, all heads turned to the general.

  Tauber nodded at Professor Habers. With a quick glance at Danya, he wondered if she had learned that he was a member of the Adyghe Intelligence Network, he started. “At the request of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, I bring for special consideration before this council the case against Danya Mandraskit.” Danya wondered what he meant by “special consideration.” It soon became apparent to Danya that Habers was an essential figure in the SS. She did not know a lot about him, but something gave her a glimmer of hope.

  He opened his file, emblazoned with the swastika.

  “Danya Mandraskit is of a pure bloodline, with family roots deep in the Northern Caucasus Mountains. The Gestapo found her distributing illegal literature, punishable by execution. She belongs to the Circassian race, of which there are 500 living in Holland. They are an exceptional people known for their courage in battle.” He paused to collect his thoughts explaining how the Circassians could be of great help to the Aryan cause.