Tárogató, 1943-1944 (6. évfolyam, 3-12. szám)

1944-04-01 / 10. szám

TÁROGATÓ

IS

tempt to our vocabulary, ordered all Norwegian children to be enrolled in one Nazi Youth Movement. Immediately, the magnificent Bishop of Oslo issued to his fellow bishops a declaration to be read in all pulpits by over a thousand pastors, saying that God gives to parents the responsibility of training their children, and gives to the Church the responsibility of guiding parents in that training, and that both parents and the Church simply cannot and must not surrender the authority and the duty placed by God upon their shoulders. Quisling odered the Bishop of Oslo to come to his palace. There he first denounced him as a ‘doubledyed traitor’, said he ought to be shot (to which the Bishop replied, ‘Here I am’), and then ordered him with his fellow bishops to report regularly to the police. So the bishops walked through the streets to the police-station, surrounded by swiftly increasing multitudes of Norwegians. When the police-station was reached the whole square outside was crammed with ten thousand people singing at the top of their voices, ‘A safe stronghold our God is still.’ Quisling has now forbidden that hymn of Martin Luther’s to be sung in Norway. The reason is said to be as follows: That he knows that when they sing the third verse, they are thinking about Hitler. A part of the third verse runs as follows:

‘And let the prince of ill

Look grim as ere he will

He harms us not a whit;

For why, his doom is writ;

A word shall quickly slay him.’

... Just as heroic have been the ten thousand teachers of Norway who have refused Quisling’s order to enroll in a Nazi Teacher’s Union, on the ground that they would rather die than teach children what they know to be false. Hundreds of those teachers have been subjected to disgusting and agonizing torture. But the resistance goes on.

“In Holland, in a less spectacular way, but with grim, unbending persistence, the Roman Catholic and the Protestant Christians are united in their unshakable resistance to the Nazi despotism over the spirit and the mind. From all the churches of all the communions have come denunciations of Nazi persecution of the Jews, which in Holland has been diabolical. Millions of Dutch people appeared with tiny crosses on their clothes as a symbol of resistance, and the Nazis of course found

it futile to tear off these crosses. As a remarkable sequel, thousands of Dutch Jews have been wearing these crosses as a symbol of their resistance. One humorous element in the conflict is exemplified oddly enough in an official prayer. The Nazis ordered the churches to pray for the government in Holland. The churches, agreeing that they certainly needed praying for, adopted the following prayer which is used every Sunday: ‘0 Lord, we pray for our beloved Queen, Wilhelmina, whom thou hast set over us, and for this other Government which Thou hast now permitted over us’. This gives cold comfort to the Nazis.”

APPEAL FOR FAMINE SUFFERERS IN INDIA AND CHINA

Canadian Churches are responding to an urgent situation of famine and medical need in India and China and the four leading Protestant Churches, Baptist, Presbyterian, Anglican and United, are conducting an eppeal among their own members shortly. In the Church of England in Canada an appeal was made on January 30th. In the other three Churches the appeal is slated for February and March. “Give that they may live” is the slogan.

Canadian missionaries in China report that Honan Province is seriously stricken by famine. Other nearby territories are also affected. The causes are drought, pillaging by enemy troops, and a plague of grasshoppers. At least 11,000,000 people are in “indescribable need”, according to one Canadian missionary.

Writing to Church Headquarters here, a missionary says:

“The plight of the people in occupied North Honan just beggars description. There has not been a good crop since the spring of 1942, when there was a good yield of wheat. The autumn crop in 1942 only amounted to thirty per cent, as there was no rain in summer or autumn. Fall wheat could not be planted, so there was no wheat in the spring of 1943, except on irrigated land and in a few localities on the borders of North Honan. This year there has been rain, but locusts destroyed a large part of the fall crops, so there is again only thirty per cent, yield. This coming winter and spring the famine will be worse than it was in 1943. Poor Honan!

“In the winter and spring of 1943 great numbers died of starvation, including some of