Lidia missed teaching her classes, but she felt that she must devote her efforts, while there was still time, to teaching the Bahai Faith and translating scriptures. 'Oh, my unhappy animals are crying in their little valise,' she wrote Roan. 'They also want to come out, stand on a table, be shown, admired, cause laughter . . . They must be silent!
* While it might seem morc appropriate to consider Annc Lynch the first Ukrainian Baha'i', it was Mrs Lynch herself who gavc the distinction to Vasyl Doroshenko.
Now is not their time.
In March 1939, the Polish travel companies were announcing special tours to the World's Fair in New York, which was to open in April. i will not go there,' Lidia wrote sadly, 'much as I would like to. On the whole, it is difficult to foresee what will happen before then, what state the world will be in.' Hitler had just taken over the rest of Czechoslovakia and was turning his attention toward Poland, demanding the Free City of Danzig and the strip of territory called the 'Polish Corridor . The Nazis used the same excuse they had used before to justify invasion - claiming that the German minority in Poland was being persecuted and must be rescued.
Lidia finished typing her Polish translation o(Bahd'u'lldh and theNew Era and wrote Shoghi Effendi that it was ready for printing. Although she had hoped to publish it in Warsaw, it now seemed that printing costs would be too high. Mrs Lynch, in Geneva, had suggested it could be printed in France by a company they used for German books. If the books were printed there, they could be stored in Geneva. Lidia agreed; sne feared for the safety of stored books in Poland in the days ahead.
But what of her own safety?
Lidia had received word of the death of a friend in France. In a letter of consolation, she expressed her own feelings about death. 'With immense sorrow I received the news of the passing of your dear, unforgettable mother from this world,' she wrote Mrs Faure. 'Personally I believe that. . . the destruction of theTiuman body does not mean the death of the person. This body, composed of atoms, must disintegrate, because everything that is composed must decompose. But the higher part of man, his spirit, does not consist of atoms; it is not a combination of chemical elements and is not subject to the law of decomposition. I believe that our consciousness lives on in ways and conditions which we, still living in the body, cannot imagine, just as the little child in the womb of its mother is incapable of imagining the world it will be coming into and for which it is being prepared. Those thoughts are a great consolation for me, whenever physical death places a barrier between myself and those I love . . . Your mother has gone on to another path. But I deeply believe and trust that you, dear Madame, and all the French Esperantists, will never pause in the work for peace. That work is a noble service to mankind and the most beautiful monument for our beloved ones who have left us.'
Having finished the Polish translation of Esslemont's book, Lidia wrote Shoghi Effendi to ask which book he wished her to translate next. 'I supposed he would ask me to translate into Polish either Some Answered Questions or the Kitdb-i-Iqan,' she told Roan, 'and I was ready.' As she was waiting for his answer, Lidia felt an overwhelming inclination to translate into Polish The Hidden IVords, and she began that work. She thought she could complete it before the Guardian's answer arrived, and in fact she was just finishing the final typing when Shoghi Effendi's letter came. 'Do you know what he told me to do?' she wrote Roan excitedly. 'To translate into Polish The Hidden Words\ You can imagine, I got quite a start when I read that, and I felt very happy seeing that the words of the Guardian confirmed what was in my heart and what I recognized as divine guidance.'
In the same letter, Lidia enclosed a translation she had made of a passage from The Datvn-Breakers. At the time, Roan was working on her translation ofthat book into Esperanto. The passage Lidia had sent, the Bab's farewell address to His disciples, the Letters of the Living, arrived just as Roan needed to translate those very pages in the book. Lidia's translation of the Bab's address was published in the United States in 1944 as a leaflet.
Although some mail from abroad still did not get through to Lidia in Warsaw, she had heard from Agnes Alexander, who had returned to Hawaii, May Maxwell and Roan Orloff. In spite of Lidia's own difficult situation, she was concerned for her friends' welfare, even though they were all safe in America - glad to hear that Mr Kinney was better; worried that Della, who had been laid off her job, had not yet found another position; concerned that Roan was working too hard. Roan wrote Lidia that she would be teaching an Esperanto course at Green Acre in the summer. 'If you are in Ole Bull,' Lidia replied impishly, 'watch out that my spirit, crawling out from under the stairs or behind the window, doesn't frighten you suddenly.'
Lidia knew now that she would not leave Poland before 'the great Catastrophe'. And she knew that the Catastrophe was close at hand; war seemed ready to break out at any moment. Yet always the concern she expressed in her letters and her articles was not for her own safety, but for the consequences of the coming war for all of humanity.
In April 1939 she wrote Roan: 'The great Catastrophe seems extremely close, and here, where I am, thunder is inevitable. We are all in the hands of God. If it doesn't happen (which I don't believe) till autumn, perhaps I will try to arrange some course trips in Poland. But conditions are such that I doubt it will be possible.' She had begun teaching Esperanto courses in Warsaw. Conditions being what they were, she was happy that there were still people who wanted to learn Esperanto. 'What I will do after the summer vacation I still don't know,' she wrote Roan in May. Lidia's perception ofthe time Poland had left was quite accurate: until the end of summer.
Meanwhile, Joseph Dubin in Philadelphia was trying to get Lidia back into the United States through a university, and offered to collect
now is not their time
money at the Esperanto Association of North America's Congress for her passage. Lidia felt his plans were unrealistic, and while she told him she would be glad to return to the United States, it would have to be as a salaried teacher; she could not risk going without a fixed plan for her income. She asked Mr Dubin not to collect money on her behalfat the congress. She did not want people to think it was her idea, or that she was asking for money, even to get out of Poland.
Now, there were three Baha'fs in Poland: Lidia, Vasyl Doroshenko the Ukrainian, and a woman named Bianka Haas of German Jewish background who lived in Bielsko. This tiny community of believers demonstrated the practical utility of Esperanto: Mr Doroshenko's native language was Ukrainian, Lidia's was Polish, Mrs Haas spoke German and Yiddish. They could communicate among themselves only in Esperanto.
Lidia continued her efforts to tell people about the Baha'i Faith. it is very difficult to interest the people here,' she wrote Roan. 'Some are completely unwilling to listen, others are willing to listen-and go ofF.' However, in Warsaw she had found three new people she hoped would someday 'accept the light of this great Faith'.
She wrote Roan that she had a lot of free time and wanted to use it in the service of Baha'u'llah. 'Now everyone here is taking special courses such as saving poison-gas victims in case of war, and I even thought of joining that course as well. But it would take too much time, because afterward one must take examinations, and study for them. I decided that there are enough people to specialize in those services, and very, very few in my land to serve the Baha'f Faith.' She had begun to translate Some Answered Questions into Polish, using the typewriter that belonged to her brother, 'who is very good and kind and puts it at my disposal'. Her own Esperanto typewriter did not have the proper characters for the Polish language.