A GLEAM IN THE BLACK-OUT
SIR,—The attached letter from a German scholar to whom parcels of food have been sent from this country may be worth quotation in view of the spirit that pervades it.—Yours faithfully, M. H. V.
"I have been very rejoiced of your letter of February 3rd. I would like to know whether in Germany many people would have thought to send parcels to Poles or Russians suffering want, if we would have won the war. I suppose there would have been very few. And even if sometimes we have to suffer from any mistakes your administration in Germany is making. We have to think not only of the mistakes we selves have made, but also of the help we however get from many Christian people in America, in England and even in Hollandia and in Scandinavia.
"You complain of your people not have learnt anything. But I am afraid of our own people having learnt even less. I'm sure indeed, that almost all Germans are through for ever with Nazism and war, but our people seem to be not able to find a new and better way instead of the wrong way in which we have gone in our ruin. So bitterness and despair are enlarging more and more upon our people, and they act against each other like beasts of prey instead of helping each other as well as possible. You mention the proverb 'Man's disaster is God's opportunity.' But need does not only teach praying but it teaches also swearing. Therefore I am in sorrow on account of the souls of our people even more than of the need of food, clothing, coal(?), habitation and all the other things man needs for life.
" There are of course exceptions. Also in Germany there are people who know Jesus Christ has delivered us and that through him we have become members of a community in which not the law of hate and retaliation but the law of charity and of forgiveness is prevailing. And all what you and other Christian people in England and elsewhere are doing for us strengthens in us this faith helping us to not being desperate, even if the need seems to be'entirely hopeless. But I ask you not to understand my thanks as an asking for further material help. I know your having very small rations also in England. And if you want to offer however there are many people in Germany suffering want much more than my family and I. For my family is living in the country, and even if we have not agriculture, we have a garden from which we have got some vegetables and potatoes. It is very little for a great house- keeping, but it is more however than people have in the towns.
"I am separated of my family now. I got work at the ' Chancery of the Evang. Church in Germany' in Schwab-Gmiind. This is a little town in Southern-Germany (U.S. zone). I am living in a small room and eating in a restaurant as well as possible. I am not sure if it will be possible to get a lodging here for my family. At all events it will take a very long time. But I hope, sometimes I shall get opportunity to pay a visit to my family or my wife can take a trip to me."
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