Esperanto
36. Relaxing between classes. From right: Hatis Bakker, Lidia, Mies Bakker-
Smith
37- Lidia au>aits the unveiling ofthemonument to Ludwik Zamenhof in Bergen-op-
Zoom
38. An outing in the countrjside near Lyon. First row, thirdfrom right: Emile and
Marie Borel, Lidia
suppressed and might even be able to persuade Nazi leaders of Esperanto's usefulness. But in Mein Kampj\ published in 192$, Hitler had stated his opinion ofEsperanto: 'So long as thejew has not become master of the other peoples,' Hitler had written, 'he must speak their languages whether or no; but let them once be his slaves, and they would have to learn a universal language (Esperanto, for instance!) so thatjewry could rule them more easily by this means as well.'
By April 1933, Heroldo reported, more and more Esperanto groups were 'becoming absorbed into the prevailing situation'. The Esperanto club of Oppeln had done so: it now consisted only of members or sympathizers ofthe Nazi party. At the annual convention ofthe German Esperanto Association under President Behrendt, it was decided to change the organization in accord with new Reich regulations. From now on Behrendt would no longer be president of the GEA but its 'Fiihrer'. Behrendt did not live to see the results ofthe new Nazi order to which he tried to adapt Esperanto: he died less than two years later.
The Summer University at the Cologne congress was a fiasco. Two of the four speakers did not show up, including a Dr Mutarelli who was to lecture on 'Public Works of Fascism in Architecture'.
A group of German Baha'i Esperantists held a small meeting at the congress in spite ofall, and without either Lidia or Martha Root. Lidia, however, had sent a short speech to be read at the meeting by Elsa Maria Grossmann, a German Baha'i Lidia had known for several years.
Now, when men were raising ever-higher barriers between themselves, Lidia's statement said, the Baha'i teachings offered a doctrine of harmony and unity. But to understand that unity, a certain degree of evolution was necessary. From an ancient time when people had believed the world to be ruled by different gods, mankind had evolved to a stage where it could understand that the Creative Power of the universe was one. And from the time when the family or the clan, and later the nation, claimed man's loyalty, much social evolution had to take place before he could grasp the concept of one humanity.
The law of the prophets had always been: love. 'It is the same eternal light, carried by different light-bearers. This light shone once from an ancient torch. Later from a newer lamp it sent forth its rays, although the light was always the same, as was its purpose: to make mankind see. . .
'All are children of the same beloved Father. All are drops ofone sea, leaves of one branch, flowers of one garden. That applies equally to human groups as it does to individuals. "Do ye know why We have created ye from the same clay? So that none shall exalt himself above the other"', she quoted the words of Baha'u'llah.
But in Cologne, Germany, in 1933 few heard her words.
FIFTEEN
From Place to Place
Instead of going to Cologne, Lidia returned to Lyon and spent two weeks with the Borels, preparing for her autumn courses. The first was to be in Romans, a small city south of Lyon in the department of Drome, with, as Lidia described it, 'an old clocktower, narrow little streets, from which the wind of the past seems to blow'. There were eighty in her course.
One evening, a public meeting had been planned. Lidia showed her slides of Poland and spoke of her country and its customs, 'its thorns and roses'. Then she played her gramophone records of Polish folk music. During the evening, she noticed a woman in the third row who seemed spellbound, tears shining in her eyes, and, elsewhere in the room, a simple worker, listening with a strange melancholy.
At the end, as the audience was leaving and Lidia was packing up her records and slides, the two people approached her timidly. The woman spoke to her. She was a Pole who had lived in France seven years and would never return to Poland. The man was also a Pole, long away from his country. He revealed to Lidia that he had been walking around outside the hall for hours before her talk, waiting 'to capture the echoes of his distant native land'. Lidia was profoundly touched by these two fellow-countrymen nostalgic for their homeland. She herself had been traveling for a year now, and as she would later admit to a correspondent, during this time she 'suffered greatly from home- sickness'. She had found that she didn't especially enjoy traveling, with its discomforts, annoyances and frequent changes of lodging. But to accomplish her goal - to teach Esperanto - she had to travel almost constantly. The work was far more important to her than her own comfort, and the joy of hearing the words of her father's language thunder back at her from an audience who before that evening had known nothing of Esperanto was worth all the sacrifice.
Lidia wrote to Shoghi Effendi that because she was constantly traveling and teaching Esperanto, she could not do much directly for the Baha'i Faith. But, she added, she considered her work for Esperanto to be 'part of the divine program for improving the conditions ofthe world'. When Shoghi Effendi read her letter, he made a note on it: 'urge her study Persian as preliminary to a visit to Persia where she would be most welcome and where her services are already deeply appreciated.'
Lidia's next course was in Chateauroux, where Felicien Baronnet made the arrangements. Wherever Lidia went, she had to rely on the local Esperantists to publicize the course - contacting the newspapers and local officials, printing and distributing posters and handbills. The publicity was crucial in attracting people to the introductory lesson. 'The demonstration lesson is extremely important', she wrote Mr Baronnet. 'It is, one may say, the general battle ofthe course campaign and on it to a great extent depends the success of the course.' From experience, Lidia had learned that it was important to get as large a crowd as possible to attend the demonstration lesson. A local dignitary always attracted attention. 'It would be good if you could get as chairman a local authority, for example, the mayor, a city councilman or school official. That always impresses the public!' Baronnet managed to get the vice-mayor of Chateauroux, and about two hundred attended, though only forty-five signed up for the course.
Mr Baronnet found Lidia a modest pension in the town, where she stayed during the weeks of the course. One day the Baronnets took Lidia for an automobile excursion through the picturesque valley of the river Creuse, which, Mr Baronnet recalled, Lidia seemed to enjoy. He also recalled that when Lidia left Chateauroux, her students gathered in an enthusiastic demonstration at the train station to say good-bye and present her a gift.
In November Lidia returned to Lyon to begin her second course in the city where she had had such great success. But would that success be repeated? Esperanto reported that the opening of the course was 'a triumph. More than five hundred people attended. In Lyon five hundred really is five hundred. A favorable wind is blowing.' After Lidia's introductory lesson, 161 signed up for the course. It seemed to her that in France interest in Esperanto was indeed growing.
When the course in Lyon ended, she went on to Marseille where she had seventy students. Georges Cau, who was sixteen when he attended that course, long remembered how she used many objects of diverse forms and colors, showing them in succession and loudly saying the name ofeach, after which the students repeated the words in chorus. 'I never forgot the "golden key" which miraculously opened the door to the main question words in Esperanto grammar', he recalled fifty years later.