Incredibly, the world that emerged from the rubble of the Second World War still had not leamed its deadly lesson. Many walls had fallen, but the walls between the divided peoples still stood strong. And with the ending of the war came a fresh terror: nuclear warfare. Even as humanity still stood 'soul-shaken, before the extent of the catastrophe,' Heroldo noted in its first edition after the war, on April, 14, 1946, 'an even more extensive calamity . . . threatens if the ways and means are not found to save our culture from full destruction in a third world war . . . The invention of the atom bomb stands over our planet like a dire waming . . .' Ten years earlier, Lidia had written of the terrible 'Concert' which the musician Death offered mankind after its 'Prelude', World War I. Mankind had stayed for the Concert, and had. paid a high price. Now, that same specter offers us another performance - a true 'Finale'.
Because Lidia, Adam and Zofia Zamenhof had disappeared without a trace, some still hoped, against all odds, that they might have survived and might someday return with the dazed, starving prisoners who had been liberated from concentration camps by Allied troops. Hope for
58. 'Those who follow the real Truth are faithful to it to the last breath, whatever they may receive on earth in retum . . . '
6o. 'Let the memory oĵthem lastforever'
Lidia was kindled when, at the beginning of 1946, Czechoslovakian radio repeatedly announced that she was still alive *somewhere in Russia'.
But at last a modest plaque was set in place on Klara ZamenhoPs grave with the names of Lidia and Zofia. It read: 'Murdered in the year 1942. Let the memory of them last forever.' Wanda Zamenhof never gave up hope for her husband Adam. She died in a traffic accident in Warsaw in 1954. Ludwik became an engineer and lives in France. Today no Zamenhofs live in Poland.
Other Baha'1's had shared Lidia's fate. Those German and Austrian Baha'fs whom the Nazis had labeled as Jewish, induding most of the Baha'fs of Vienna, were deported to the death camps never to be seen again. Of the little pre-war community of Baha'fs in Poland no one seems to have survived. After eastern Poland was invaded by the Soviet Union early in the war, communication was cut off and no word was ever heard again from the ailing Ukrainian Baha'1, Vasyl Doroshenko. Nothing is known of the fate of Bianka Haas; Bielsko saw brutal 'blitzpogroms' in the first days of the Nazi occupation.
Lidia's Esperanto and Polish translations, to which she had given so much effort and love, continued to work on, long after their translator's death. Before the outbreak of war, she had sent some ofher manuscripts, including her Polish translation of Baha'u'llah and the New Era, to Geneva. On instructions from Shoghi Effendi, Mrs Lynch made an appeal for funds to the American Baha'is to publish it, but the money collected was not enough. Nevertheless, at Shoghi Effendi's direction, arrangements were made with a printer in France, just across the border from Geneva. The outbreak of war played havoc with the rate of exchange, and when the funds that had been collected were converted into French francs they amply covered the cost of the printing.
Mrs Lynch's Polish-born nephew was in an interni._snt camp with his Polish army unit near Bern. At Mrs Lynch's request, Swiss military authorities allowed him to do the proofreading and indexing of the book. Parts of the manuscript and galley proofs made their way between Geneva, the internment camp and the printer in France, until in the winter of 1940 a thousand copies of the printed book were delivered to the International Baha'i Bureau. Mrs Lynch distributed copies to seventy-three Polish intemment camps in Switzerland. 'Touching letters of gratitude were received,' she wrote, 'but also a few with adverse criticism, from Polish army chaplains.'
After the war, Mrs Lynch mimeographed Lidia's Esperanto translations of The Goal of a New World Order and The Unfoldment of World Civilization by Shoghi Effendi, as well as twenty chapters of Some Answered Questions, and began to use them 'as a further means of
teaching for countries where no Baha'f literature existed, mainly those of Eastern Europe*.
In September 1947 the bulletin of the International Baha'f Bureau reported 'lively interest in the Baha'i Teachings is developing in Poland. Every week we receive new requests for Baha'f literature', and in November Baha't News reported: 'There are nine people in Poland who are studying the Baha'f Faith through correspondence; all but one are using Esperanto. One of these is he who offered to hide Lidia Zamenhofin his home . . .'-Jozef Arszenik.
By October 1950 there were Baha'fs in seven cities of Poland, but communication with them was 'no longer possible'. Mrs Lynch wrote that 'Almost all the Baha'1's of Poland were attracted and confirmed in the Faith through the means of these teaching efforts in Esperanto'.
Lidia Zamenhof had been only thirty-eight when she died. Her death had stunned her friends, even those in Europe who had seen much of death. 'Oh, our poor, dear Lidia!' Father Cseh wrote to Roan Orloff. 'According to information received she had a terribledeath. How will God ever punish the guilty ones? Their crime truly exceeds every heretofore known measure.' Martha Root had not lived to leam of the death of her 'spiritual daughter'. She died of cancer in Honolulu on September28, 1939.
The National Spiritual Assembly of the United States and Canada wrote to Shoghi Effendi suggesting that a nationwide memorial service be held in honor of Lidia. Shoghi Effendi cabled back: 'heartily approve nation-wide observance for dauntless lidia
zamenhof. her notable services, tenacity, modesty and unwavering devotion fully merit high tribute from american believers. ' The memorial services were held the week of October 25, 1946.
The National Assembly had asked the Guardian if Lidia should be considered a Baha'1 martyr, like the thousands ofIranian Baha'fs killed by the Muslims for their Faith. Shoghi Effendi replied, 'Do not advise . . . that you designate her a martyr.' Those who killed Lidia had not known she was a Baha'i'. They had killed her because ofher 'race'. But Lidia Zamenhof had died, as she had lived, for what she believed. She might have avoided retuming to Poland, but had gone because she felt it was her duty. She might have allowed others to hide her, but had refused to allow them to endanger themselves.
In April 1946 on behalf of Shoghi Effendi, his wife Amatu'1-Baha Ruhfyyih Khanum (serving as his secretary) wrote to Roan Orloff asking her to write an obituary notice 'on our dear Baha'i' sister' for volume 10 of The Baha't World. 'She certainly deserves to be remembered by us all for her c?rvices to the Faith and her loyalty and devotion!' Ruhfyyih Khanum wrote. 'Her death is a great loss, as she was so well able to serve and teach in different languages and different countries. It seems too terrible to contemplate what her end must have been!'
Shoghi Effendi's words: 'her notable services, tenacity, modesty and unwavering devotion . . .' well summarized the qualities that distinguished the life of Lidia Zamenhof. In a letter to the Bahais of Persia in 1923 the Guardian had once written: 'How often the beloved Master was heard to say: Should each one of the friends take upon himself to carry out, in all its integrity and implications, only one ofthe teachings of the Faith, with devotion, detachment, constancy and perseverance and exemplify it in all his deeds and pursuits of life, the world would become another world and the face of the earth would mirror forth the splendors of the Abha Paradise.' He might have been talking about Lidia Zamenhof.
Lidia had always sought the hidden significance in the ordinary, the meaning in what seemed meaningless - the blessing that was concealed in tragedy, the strengthening lesson in hardship, the providence in calamity. She believed that death was not really an ending, but a beginning; thus, the purpose of life was, in essence, to prepare for that moment. She believed that it did not matter what test one faced; it mattered only how one faced the test. The struggle was all.