Their business in this place was completed!

95 Sacrifice

95

Sacrifice

It was a lonely stretch of wood through which the pilgrims made their weary way.

The night had been a long one. They had walked through fields and forests too numerous to remember. Most of the children present had been asleep on their feet for hours. Jakob Kropf carried his little Angela, and by now most of the men had one of the children in their arms. The rabbi and his family numbered also among the walkers. The danger for these would be greatest for the first twenty-four hours of their flight, the baron had told them, but after that, the journey south might perhaps be one of relative ease. Their Jewish guests, amongst themselves, had discussed and determined who would leave Lebenshaus by car and who by foot.

All told, seventeen had gone on foot. Each of the three cars had taken five. The vehicles had taken different routes and were bound for different safe houses, and were hopefully, by this time, many kilometers to the southwest. Those that embarked on foot through the baron’s garden, into the wood, and south toward Fürstensdorf, had to try to make the distance before daybreak.

Everything had been arranged. The contact would guide the large troop into the village and to the home of Pastor Stegerwald without detection. Transport by a commercial van owned by the resistance would leave that night with preauthorized bills of lading for Innsbruck, where they would be able to stay at two safe houses for up to a week and then be taken a few at a time across the Swiss border.

The van must leave Fürstensdorf tonight. They had to reach their contact by dawn or all would be lost.

It was not until the three automobiles were safely on their way, and the walkers making last-minute arrangements, that a foreboding disquiet began to come over the baron.

He brought Marion and Sabina to him in his study and closed the door.

“You know I am not one to frequently say that the Lord has spoken to me,” he said to an attentive wife and daughter. “But he may be doing so now. I cannot say for certain, but I am feeling a strong urgency that we must leave with the others.”

“Leave, Heinrich… leave Lebenshaus?” said Marion.

“Yes, my dear. Perhaps it is only that we must see them safely through into the hands of the pastor. He sent a map, which Jakob has memorized. But I am yet uneasy. I planned to walk the way with them. Now, however, I feel the two of you must accompany us as well. If we have been discovered, Marion, I must get you to Switzerland.”

“What about the servants?” asked Marion.

“They must go back to their own people. To remain here for any of us, for the present, is too dangerous.”