A Nun, a Convent, and the German Occupation of Belgium: Mother Marie Georgine’s Diary of World War I

A Nun, a Convent, and the German Occupation of Belgium

Mother Marie Georgine’s Diary of World War I

edited by Rene Kollar

A Nun, a Convent, and the German Occupation of Belgium

Mother Marie Georgine’s Diary of World War I

Copyright © 2016 Sr. Hildegarde Verherstraeten, OSU. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

Pickwick Publications

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

Eugene, OR 97401

www.wipfandstock.com

paperback isbn: 978-1-4982-9892-6

hardcover isbn: 978-1-4982-9894-0

ebook isbn: 978-1-4982-9893-3

Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Names: Kollar, Rene Matthew, 1947–.

Title: A nun, a convent, and the German occupation of Belgium : Mother Marie Georgine’s diary of World War I / Rene Kollar.

Description: Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2016.

Identifiers: isbn 978-1-4982-9892-6 (paperback) | isbn 978-1-4982-9894-0 (hardcover) | isbn 978-1-4982-9893-3 (ebook).

Subjects: LCSH: World War I, 1914–1918—History. | Monasticism and religious orders—History—20th century. | Women—Religious life. | Convents & nuns.

Classification: D542 V46 2016 (print) | D541 (ebook).

Manufactured in the U.S.A. 11/21/16

Table of Contents

Title Page

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1: August 16, 1914—December 20, 1914

Chapter 2: January 3, 1915—December 29, 1915

Chapter 3: March 13, 1916—November 18, 1916

Chapter 4: June 28, 1917—December 28, 1917

Chapter 5: February 20, 1918—December 17, 1918

Also by Rene Kollar

Westminster Cathedral: From Dream to Reality

The Return of the Benedictines to London: The History of Ealing Abbey from1896 to Independence

Abbot Aelred Carlyle, Caldey Island, and the Anglo-Catholic Revival in England

A Universal Appeal: Aspects of the Revival of Monasticism in the West in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries

Searching for Raymond: Anglicanism, Spiritualism, and Bereavement between the Two World Wars

A Foreign and Wicked Institution?

The Campaign against Convents in Victorian England

To the students of Saint Vincent College

Brabant Province, August 1914. Map drawn by Matthew Stout, taken from John Horne and Alan Kramer, German Atrocities, 1914: A History of Denial (London: Yale University Press, 2001).

The Convent at Tildonk

Acknowledgments

I came across this important typewritten copy of Mother Marie Georgine’s hand written letters assembled in the form of a diary by accident. During the summer of 2014, I attended a conference on the outbreak of World War I in London and I visited the Imperial War Museum (IWM). My current research deals with convent life, and I searched the IWM catalogue to see if it contained any interesting material on sisterhoods and the war years, and I was surprised to find a typed copy of Mother Marie Georgine’s diary with a description of its contents. The staff of the IWM was very helpful in answering my questions dealing with the diary and providing me with a photocopy. I contacted Sr. Kathleen Colmer, OSU, Provincial of the English Province, about whom to contact concerning the copyright and permission to publish the diary, and she directed me to the Ursulines of Tildonk in Belgium. I received an encouraging reply from the General Superior, Ursuline Sisters of Tildonk, Sr. Bimla Minj, OSU. She told me that she had a conversation with Provincial Superior, Sr Ann Cuppens, OSU, who was also very positive about my plans to publish Mother Marie Georgine’s diary. Sister Ann and I were exchanging emails about this project when I was saddened to learn about her sudden death in May 2015. I appreciate very much her support and interest in my project. Sr. Bimla then sent me the name and the email address of the current Provincial Superior, Sr. Hildegarde Verherstraeten, OSU, and soon afterwards I received the information I requested, namely, biographical information on Mother Marie Georgine, pictures of her and the convent at Tildonk, and information about the school, from Sr. Bernadette Uytterhoeven, OSU. Sr. Hildegarde, holder of the copyright, also gave me permission to publish the diary. I greatly appreciate the help and encouragement of these Ursuline Sisters. Barbara Hester also supplied me with valuable information and material about Mother Marie Georgine, her great grandaunt. She believes that Mother Marie Georgine wrote these letters, which appear in the form of a diary, to her brother, Cecil Holt. I am very thankful for her help and assistance.

Several people at Saint Vincent Archabbey and College have been instrumental in this project. Archabbot Douglas Nowicki, OSB, has always encouraged and supported my research. Fr. François Diouf, OSB, gave me valuable insights into the meaning of several French words, and Fr. Brian Boosel, OSB, took time out from writing his doctoral dissertation to read the diary and to comment on, and at times, correct my translations of French into English. Monks of the Archabbey and my colleagues in the School of Humanities and Fine Arts encouraged me as my work progressed. Ms. Marsha Kush, Assistant to the Dean of the School of Humanities and Fine Arts, retyped the manuscript which I received from the Imperial War Museum and raised some important questions about spelling and consistency in this text. Finally, a Faculty Development Grant from the School of Humanities and Fine Arts, Saint Vincent College, helped to fund my trip to London in the summer of 2014.

Some remarks on my editing. I tried to remain faithful to the typed manuscript which I received from the IWM, especially the English spelling, punctuation, and designation of hours of the day, and made only a few changes when necessary or for consistency. I italicized the French words, added the appropriate accents, and provided the translation in brackets immediately following the French in the text the first time the word appears. Definitions of other words which may not be familiar to the reader and a short identification of several people were placed in brackets in the same manner. Mother Marie Georgine offered her own comments, and these appeared in parenthesis in the typewritten manuscript. I also italicized words or phrases which were underlined in the text. In respect to proper place names in Belgium, I did not deviate from Mother Marie Georgine’s spelling, but corrected what appeared to be misspellings or typographical errors. Thildonck is the French spelling of the town, and Tildonk is the preferred Flemish spelling.

Rene Kollar

Introduction

Since 1839 and the Treaty of London, the neutral status of Belgium had been guaranteed. But because of its strategic geographical location, at the outbreak of World War I Germany quickly violated the neutrality of this small country to implement its Schlieffen Plan, an attempt to encircle France and eventually capture Paris. On August 4, 1914, German forces invaded Belgium and met with resistance which resulted in atrocities and acts of barbarism against its inhabitants and the destruction of town and cities.¹ According to Philip Jenkins, "At the height of their invasion in August and September of 1914, the Germans slaughtered six thousand civilians in Belgium and northern France, most (falsely) on the suspicion of being francs-tireurs (snipers) or saboteurs.² Nervous German soldiers responded to perceived threats of gunfire by destroying houses, taking hostages, and executing prisoners on the pretext of self-defense from snipers. They did not even spare the historic city of Louvain as the army advanced in August 1914. The invading troops torched the library and its collection of rare books and manuscripts, and soldiers carried out random mass shootings." Throughout the war years, Germany continued its harsh treatment of Belgium as it continued its military operations. Historians such as Paul Fussell, Martin Gilbert, Peter Hart, Max Hastings, Philip Jenkins, John Keegan, Lyn Macdonald, and Jay Winter have chronicled the events of World War I, but other accounts from unlikely sources also vividly describe life in occupied Belgium—the eyewitness reports of Roman Catholic nuns.

Diaries or recollections of nuns caught up in the events of World War I in Belgium became a popular vehicle to describe the sufferings of a neutral, Roman Catholic country invaded by an army which many viewed as hostile to Catholicism. An early account, The Irish Nuns at Ypres: An Episode of the War, written by the Irish Benedictine nun, Dame M. Columban, describes the experiences of her community at Ypres from August 1914 until the community relocated at St. Mary’s Abbey in Oulton, England, at the end of the year.³ The battle for Ypres had a great impact on the nuns, and the author recalls the brutish actions of the German troops, the famine, and the suffering of refugees fleeing the fighting. Describing the destruction and burning of the countryside and villages by the Germans and other atrocities, this Irish nun stated that what moved us most was the account of the outrageous barbarities used upon women, even upon nuns.⁴ However, despite the danger and anxiety, we strove to keep up religious life, and the regular observances. England was the next stop for these Irish Benedictines after leaving Belgium, and after an uneventful journey to the French coast and channel crossing, these nuns travelled from London to Oulton in Staffordshire and eventually resettled in Ireland.

In another personal account, Sister Marie Antoine of the Convent of Mercy, Willebroeck, Belgium, wrote about her experiences during the early months of the German invasion and concluded her story with her arrival in America where she began seeking funds to repair her convent and the damages done to the order’s boarding school in Belgium. The peaceful, joyful atmosphere of summer 1914 contrasts sharply with the chaos of the early months of the war, in particular the destruction of Louvain, the heart of Catholic Belgium, the principal place of her Christian educational institutions, and the seat of her missionary forces.⁵ The carnage of the war, the care provided to the wounded by the Red Cross and the nuns, the sufferings of innocent civilians, and atrocities committed by the Godless element in the German army, led on and sustained by equally Godless officers . . . are subjects of the early stages of the German occupation. Her vivid descriptions of the nuns’ work among the refugees, displaced families, and the wounded testify to the courage of these women. In October, Sister Marie Antoine and several other nuns departed from Belgium to England, where the generosity of the people toward the plight of Belgium impressed her, before she departed for America.

In some aspects, The Little Nun: The Diary of One of Belgium’s Unhappy Victims⁶ is very similar to the previous two works: the time frame is the initial months of the war; all three deal with the lives of nuns who experienced the horrors of the conflict and their heroic actions; and the authors describe the atrocities and barbaric actions of the invading Germans. Helpless civilians and Catholics are victims of Belgium’s enemy. But The Little Nun differs from the other two journals in several ways. The saga of the sisters of Ypres and Willebroeck does not hide the names of the nuns or the locations associated with their experiences. The translator of The Little Nun, on the other hand, deals with his subject in a different manner. In the Preface, he states that it was the desire of the mother of the Little Nun, who gave him the journal, not to mention the name of her daughter to avoid scandal and disgrace which might taint the family name because of the physical and mental torments this nun endured. For the same reason, all references to her religious community and locations in Belgium are also absent. The nuns from Ypres and Willebroeck found safety and the hope for a new life in England and America, while the third account of wartime Belgium and the life of the Little Nun end in a tragic note of despair. German atrocities certainly touched the lives of the Irish and Ypres nuns, but the brutalities and sufferings which the anonymous Little Nun personally suffered were both mental and physical abuse. The Little Nun, therefore, presents a more graphic account of the first months of the war and paints the Germans in the darkest light and attempts to elicit sympathy for the citizens of Belgium. Another diary written in the form of letters by Mother Marie Georgine, a member of the Ursuline convent at Tildonk, Belgium, is more inclusive. It covers the entire war period and deals with the military activities and atrocities, but also gives an insight into the daily life of this convent and its members and the manner in which these nuns reacted to the circumstances of an occupied Belgium.

The Ursulines at Tildonk, situated in Flemish Brabant approximately 34 kilometers from Brussels and 9 kilometers from Louvain, began their existence in the aftermath of the French Revolution. French anti-religious policies closed Catholic churches, convents, and monasteries and passed harsh laws discriminating against Catholicism. Violence often followed, and nuns and clergy were persecuted and killed. The founder of the Ursuline Sisters of Tildonk, John Cornelius Lambertz (1785–1869) was born in Hoogstraten, Belgium, during this chaotic period.⁷ After his ordination in 1812, Lambertz was assigned to a parish in Tildonk, and he recognized the necessity of educating young girls who