PERE JACQUES; ARRESTED 15TH JANUARY 1945 - MARTYRED BY THE NAZIS

 PERE JACQUES

ARRESTED 15TH JANUARY 1945

MARTYRED BY THE NAZIS

We have characters presented to us as ‘heroes’ by our unfortunate popular culture – one-dimensional personalities, possessed of superficial bravery or worldly qualities that are socially esteemed, who grab our attention momentarily but whose stories fail to provide a standard of any depth or lasting value. And yet, right in front of us, we have real people in our Catholic history who provide to us an example by which we have profound and lasting guidance on how to live a rich and fulfilled life – how to strive to attain the best of ourselves. Pere Jacques is one such person, a man whose inspirational character and Christ-like love for his fellow man grew in adversity, in the horrors and evil of World War II, with all its attendant cruelty and human failures, a man possessed of incredible bravery - a courage that was founded, not on worldly qualities, but on an abandonment of self and a focus on the eternal, the presence of God in all circumstances, not ‘even’, but especially, in the most cruel and inhuman landscape of the Nazi concentration camps.

Born Lucien Bunel, in Normandy in 1900, Pere Jacques was inspired by the deep Catholic faith of his working-class, and financially struggling, parents in a family of seven children, a context in which the outlines of his personality were formed and the contours of his faith established.

Father Francis J Murphy, his biographer, (1) states;

To his elders within the family and the town, [his] spiritual qualities came as no surprise. They remembered vividly how as a year-old boy, given up to death by the doctor, Lucien had been remarkably cured and instantly restored to health. When his mother had no hope for his recovery except for her trust in God, she made a novena to Saint Germain, at the suggestion of a devout old lady in the parish. Completion of the novena was to be marked by a pilgrimage to the outdoor shrine of Saint Germain in a field seven miles into the Norman countryside from Barentain. The ninth day of the novena came on a Sunday. [His mother], Pauline, now five months pregnant, and [his father], pushing the carriage with little Lucien inside, set out on their pilgrimage despite a wind-driven rainstorm.

As they knelt before the statue of Saint Germain, Pauline pleaded with the Lord: ‘My God, leave him with me until he is twenty; after that, take him, for he is yours, but grant me the joy of offering him to you when he has grown up,’ Suddenly, little Lucien stirred in the carriage and then smiled at his parents, who fell on their knees in thanksgiving at the sight of their son, now revitalized before their very eyes. Lucien related this experience to his religious community years later and did not hesitate to call it a miracle. His mother never forgot her vow on that rainy day. When over forty years later, she received news of Lucien’s death, she knelt down again and said: ‘My Lord, I promised him to you. You have left him with me longer than I could have hoped. Your will be done!’ (2)

He was ordained a diocesan priest in 1925 to serve the Diocese of Rouen. He had considered becoming a Trappist monk before his ordination and, even though he had abandoned this desire in order to serve in an apostolic role, he nevertheless still sought to integrate an intense life of contemplation with the active requirements of a life of service to others, always maintaining a deep interior life of prayer. There was a conflict between his desire for contemplation and his undeniable gift of preaching, the effectiveness of which was said to be founded, not on any human brilliance, “but rather a sense of the divine so powerfully present in his sermons”.

His contemplative understanding of the spiritual journey was accompanied by a strong Catholic sense of social justice. His hard-working father provided an example to him of a faith lived in daily life. He challenged complacent, comfortable Catholics in the pews with his strong insistence on social justice as a fundamental component of Christian holiness. He once began a sermon in a prosperous parish in Le Havre with these words: ‘I come to you as a worker and the son of a worker to speak to you about Jesus, the worker.” (3) He taught in a local Catholic boys’ school and was so effective and inspiring that his educational methods, based upon a true recognition of the dignity of the student, based in Christian principles, were renowned.

In July 1927, Abbe Bunel first heard the personal call of Carmel. The atmosphere of silence and prayer that permeated Carmel captivated him. He explained his experience at Avon to the Carmelite nuns at Le Havre: ‘There, for me, is the ideal of religious life-to live in solitude, in intimate union with God; then, to leave the cloister to bring him to souls, to make him known and loved….and then to return to total recollection in order to be immersed in prayer.’ His request to the Archbishop to join the Carmelites was rejected twice, which he interpreted in a letter to the Mother Superior of the Carmelite sisters, Mother Marie-Joseph: ‘I consider these developments to be directed by Divine Providence and to be destined ultimately for my spiritual growth.’ Then he added self-effacingly: ‘My fiercely proud character needs such humiliations.’ (4)

He ultimately was permitted to join the Carmelite order, taking the religious name of Frere Jacques de Jesus. His novice master, Father Louis of the Trinity, directly supervised the seven candidates, giving special attention to all aspects of their being, physical as well as spiritual. In 1932 Father Louis of the Trinity was appointed provincial of the re-established province of Paris and eventually served as Admiral Thierry d’Argenlieu, one of General Charles de Gaulle’s closest companions in the Resistance. (5)

The distinctive, unique characteristic of the Carmelite vocation has been well captured in these words: ‘One enters Carmel, above all else, to find God and to have the personal and living contact that is achieved by the most intense prayer.’ For Frere Jacques such periods of uninterrupted prayer were blissful. Whether in the solitude of his cell or in the communal chanting of the Office in Chapel, prayer was the first priority and greatest source of joy. He also welcomed the strict rule of Carmel. The silence and the fasts facilitated his spiritual growth, although initially he often found himself quite hungry, as he later admitted. Spiritual reading in one’s cell was a staple of Carmelite spirituality and a source of both insight and inspiration.

His humility (and his awareness of the reality of the difficult journey to sanctity) was apparent in a letter he wrote in February 1928 in which he expressed his spiritual self-evaluation; He was convinced of the need for the austere obedient life of a monk in order to ‘crush the immense pride’ to which he was prone. His experience as a diocesan priest, however, had obliged him humbly to acknowledge that God had given him ‘a special talent for preaching.’

When he was approved for profession, the prior, Father Etienne, spoke simply and summarily: ‘His holiness overflows the cloister.’

While he was preparing to take his final vows in 1934, his superiors suggested that he found and run a school for boys. This was accomplished by him, with the founding of the Petit College Sainte Therese de l’Enfant-Jesus in Avon, Seine-et-Marne.

As educator and guardian of the spiritual, moral and physical development of the young students, together with a need for prayer and spiritual replenishment, his punishing schedule demanded extraordinary self-discipline. On a human level, his self-discipline was built by training the will. He considered mastery of the will to be an acquired moral trait which he stressed in his personal spiritual life as well as in his educational philosophy. On a spiritual plane, self-discipline was for him a basic requirement of the ascetical life and ultimately the prerequisite for fully embracing God’s will.

In practice the two levels of self-discipline merged; at the end of a long day teaching, when he might have legitimately prepared for bed he would use this time to perform voluntary tasks – visiting students in the infirmary every night. When one student was hospitalised for a month, he travelled to Fontainbleau each night to visit him and then went back to write a daily letter to his parents, informing them of his progress.

His educational philosophy took as the starting point the dignity and freedom of each student. The teacher’s role, in his mind, consisted essentially in stimulating students to an ever and always better use of human freedom. In order to be convincing, however, the teacher’s actions had to resonate with trustful respect for each student. Only in such an environment could a student’s potential be fully realised.

For him this educational ideal had deep spiritual implications. Its implementation presupposed a believing, mutually supportive community. The goal of the students’ development was not so much pious practices as ‘putting on Christ’ in the phrase of St Paul, on whose writings he frequently meditated. The formative years of the students presented an unrepeatable opportunity to develop character and conscience in such a way as to prepare a young man for a virtuous life and ultimately for saintliness. Truth, justice courage and compassion were not merely abstract concepts but living principles that could be realised in each person’s life and cultivated in the life of the community.

He served as headmaster and teacher until the outbreak of World War II, when he was conscripted into military service. He was billeted by the French army in a home in which he set up a room where he said Mass, heard confession, read, and prayed – an experience which he termed his “Duruelo’ after his inspiration, St John of the Cross. This experience brought home to him the ability to take the contemplative space with him, to create a haven of communication with God in any environment.

When the French surrendered to the Germans in June 1940 he was initially imprisoned as a prisoner of war but was ultimately released from military service and returned to the school, where both he and his provincial, Father Philippe, together with the mayor of Avon became active members of the French Resistance, a role for which his experience as a soldier and as a prisoner of war had equipped him. His reputation reached the high command of the Resistance movement, the National Front, who invited him to join the board. Upon consultation with Father Philippe, both agreed that the potential risk of reprisals against the students of the Petit-College, if the headmaster should ever be captured, made it too hazardous for him to accept the position. As provincial, Father Philippe could fill that role with more facility and less danger to the students. So the provincial, not the headmaster, joined the board of the French Resistance.

At this time, he met with his friend, Lucien Weil, an eminent botanist. Upon seeing a yellow star on his friend’s coat, he bristled with indignation. Passive acceptance of discrimination made one complicit in the Vichy government’s adoption of the Nazi race-based policy of anti-Semitism, a policy that had already excluded Jews from most Government positions, including teaching at State schools. Professor Weil had been removed from his professorship at the Lycee Carnot at Fontainbleau. Pere Jacques immediately invited Professor Weil to teach science at the Petit-College. His friend accepted the invitation and joined the faculty when the school resumed in 1942. (6)

Following occupation by the Germans of the previously autonomous Free Zone held by the Vichy government in November 1942, German hold on the country became more oppressive. He endeavoured to assist all victims of Nazi oppression: He made the school a refuge for young men seeking to avoid conscription for forced labour in Germany and for those fleeing the Nazi regime in the north in order to join the Resistance. He facilitated the hiding and re-homing of Jews fleeing persecution, enabling many to travel through the Catholic networks to Spain, a country which, despite its fascist government and its alliance with Hitler, nevertheless did not refuse entry to any Jews who claimed shelter.

His assistance to the Jewish victims of the Nazi race policy brought him into frequent contact with the Sisters of Notre Dame de Sion in neighbouring Melun. Mother Maria, the superior of the convent, often sought his help in finding Catholic families with whom escaping Jews might be sheltered secretly.

Just prior to the re-opening of the school in January 1943 Pere Jacques received an urgent request from Mother Maria to allow three desperate Jewish boys to be enrolled clandestinely at the Petit-College. As securing their enrolment brought implications for the other students of the school, Pere Jacques consulted Father Philippe who unreservedly encouraged him in the decision to take the boys (7). The three students; Hans Helmut Michel, Maurice Schlosser and Jacques-France Halpern arrived at the Petit-College at the beginning of the second term. They received new Christian names – Jean Bonnet, Maurice Sabatier and Jacques Dupre respectively. He also hid a fourth boy, Maurice Bas, as a worker at the school and sheltered Maurice Schlosser’s father with a local Catholic village family.

He concerned himself with the students’ emotional development, yet conscientiously rejected any compromise of their Jewish faith while discretely deflecting attention away from their non-participation in Catholic rites. In this regard, in order to forestall any untoward inquiries or suspicion, he confided the true identity of the newly arrived students to the three upper classes. His confidence in the maturity and trustworthiness of the older students proved to be well-placed. Not one student violated the confidence and all strove to make their classmates as welcome as possible.

The day began normally on 15th January 1944. Classes were in progress. Pere Jacques was teaching his French literature class when a squad of Gestapo raided the school. The headmaster and the Jewish students were singled out for arrest. The Gestapo found enough evidence in Pere Jacques’ desk to link him with a wide involvement in the Resistance. While he was being interrogated the three Jewish students were rounded up. Shortly thereafter the Gestapo led Pere Jacques and the students across the school yard where their schoolmates stood in the cold, watching in helpless shock. As the procession passed the students, first faintly then rousingly, called out, ‘Au revoir Pere,’ (“Goodbye Father”). Pere Jacques turned waved and responded, “Au revoir les enfants,” (Goodbye children). (.

Over 40 years later that final farewell became the title of a film by the celebrated film maker Louis Malle. As the film poignantly portrays, that was the last time Pere Jacques and the three Jewish students would be seen at the school. In 1988 Louis Malle told a New York Times reporter: ''This was, for me, by far the strongest impression of my childhood, the memory that remains above all the others in vividness''. He said that he remembered how Father Jacques, as he was being led away with his three Jewish students, turned to the watching students and said: ''Au revoir et a bientot'', (Goodbye and see you soon.) Then, he said, “something took place that was very bizarre: Somebody started to applaud and then everybody was applauding, despite the shouts of the Gestapo to keep quiet”.

Lucien Weil, his mother, and his sister were arrested at their house in Fontainebleau the same day. They were deported to Auschwitz, where they, too, perished.

Père Jacques was imprisoned in several Nazi concentration camps, but was first interned in the prison of Fontainbleau. The Kommandant of the prison at Fontainbleau was SS Sargeant Wilhelm Korff, a particularly sadistic figure who was later found guilty of war crimes. Korff had headed the Gestapo group who had raided the Petit-College. He tried at length but without success to break Pere Jacques’ spirit. In one protracted interrogation, Korff asked Pere Jacques: ‘What do you think of the laws of the Reich?’ To which the priest replied: ‘ I do not know them; I now only one law, that of the Gospel and of charity’ Even the hard-hearted Korff came to acknowledge the solid character of his Carmelite prisoner, of whom he later said: ‘ He has only one defect; he is not a Nazi.’(9)

He was then initially sent to Neue-Bremm, following which he was transferred to Mauthausan concentration camp, a place of dehumanizing depravity, where the anonymous remains of 200,000 victims lie beneath the soil of the camp. On arrival the prisoners were stripped naked and shaved bald. The following two weeks saw a sadistic form of initiation, with beatings and drowning of prisoners by holding their heads in buckets of water. The sadism of the guards was surpassed by the Kapos recruited from the prisoners themselves. (10).

The one person in this environment who had given hope to the prisoners, a jovial priest called Pere Gruber, had been strangled at precisely three o’clock on Good Friday afternoon, a deliberately significant act by the prison guards.(11) At one stage, Pere Jacques was forced to carry a cross, naked, in a circle for hours, in humiliation of his priestly role.

In prison the foundation of his spiritual life was contemplative prayer. Neither prison bars nor brutal treatment could quell his deep inner communion with the Lord. From that inner communion there radiated an air of inner peace and calm that left an indelible impression on all his fellow prisoners. His extraordinary self-discipline proved indispensible to his survival for the 18 months of his imprisonment. (12).

He found ways of raising the morale of his despairing compatriots. When all the priests at Gusen were moved to the Dachau concentration camp – reputedly less severe than Mauthausen – Pere Jacques veiled his priestly identity to remain as the only priest for the 20,000 prisoners at Gusen. He learned enough Polish to minister to the Polish prisoners, who called him Père Zak. Though he grew progressively weaker, he remained one of the Resistance leaders still active in the camp, gaining the respect of all its inmates, including the communists.

His trust in God’s will was illustrated by his response to his friend, fellow prisoner Michel de Bouard, who confided to him his intention to vow either to make a pilgrimage to Lourdes or to assist at Mass and communion twice a week for the rest of his life if he survived the camp. Pere Jacques reflected and replied: “No. We should not tempt God. The greatest proof of trust we can give Him is to accept from the depth of our heart whatever he wills.”

Father Murphy observed that, “[a]mong his many acts of spiritual leadership certainly the most memorable in the minds of the survivors of Gusen were the Masses that he celebrated clandestinely in the camp on Christmas, new year’s day and Easter during that final winter. The improvised altars, the smuggled wine and host, the intensity of devotion and the courage of the priest in prison garb left an indelible imprint on the memories of those present, while raising their spirits to new levels of lived faith.“ (13).

He and the other inmates of the camps were liberated by American troops at Mauthausen in early May 1945. Suffering from tuberculosis, he weighed only 34 kg. At liberation, despite their physical fragility, he and a pathetic parade of survivors were forced by wartime deprivation to embark on a 3 mile trek to Mauthausen. As they passed through the gates of Mauthausen-Gusen, Pere Jacques and another prisoner prayed the Magnificat. His close friend, Roger Heim, described the moment: ‘My last vision of Gusen and of its drill yard where so many had perished is for me inseparable from the memory of the man, the priest, who in this multitude once more overcame every adversity and who in the end brought us the victory-the triumph of the human spirit over a system born of materialism and depravity. In our eyes Pere Jacques was resplendent in victory.’ (14).

He died on 2 June 1945, days after being liberated. After his death, the sister of Hans Helmut Michel testified that Father Jacques had not only hidden her brother but had also arranged for meetings between the two siblings during school times. At one meeting she had stated to Pere Jacques her gratitude and said that she did not know how she could repay him for the school tuition. Father Jacques had told her that he expected nothing in return, either then or ever. On the contrary, he would like to see her brother continue his studies until the Baccalaureate. Since the boy had no parents, Pere Jacques said that he would gladly take their place.

On 26 June his coffin was solemnly carried into the discalced Carmelite Chapel at Avon. Following obsequies his body was carried in procession through the school courtyard to the small cemetery behind the school. There he was buried in an unadorned grave marked only by a white cross.

Many dignitaries, both religious and civil, participated in the funeral ceremonies – honoured by all segments of society whose lives he had touched :– students and parents, veterans and deportees, teachers and friends, townspeople and comrades in the Resistance, Catholics and communists, brother Carmelites and family members. Many tributes were paid but one tribute that spoke with understated eloquence was the inscription on one of the floral arrangements. It stated simply: ‘A grateful Jewish family from Avon.’”

(1) Francis J Murphy, “resplendent in Victory”, ICS Publications, Institute of Carmelite Studies, Washington, DC, 1998, from whose biography the history above is taken.

(2) ibid., at pp. 4-5.

(3) ibid., at pp. 40-41.

(4) ibid., at pp. 45-46.

(5) ibid., at p. 56.

(6) ibid., at p. 87.

(7) ibid., at p. 90.

( ibid., at p. 92.

(9) ibid., at p. 96.

(10) ibid., at p. 105.

(11) ibid., at p. 109.

(12) ibid., at p. 106.

(13) ibid., at p. 116.

(14) ibid., at p. 118.

Image from the film by Louis Malle, "Aux Revoir les Enfants."