With a heavy heart, Albert also began streamlining hospital procedures. Only those patients who were seriously ill and would benefit from hospital care were allowed to remain. Others with long-term illnesses that had no cure were sent home to their villages. Many of the staff also left as the situation in Europe became more unstable. Albert was grateful that Dr. Ladislas Goldschmid, a Hungarian specialist in elephantiasis who’d been at Lambaréné for six years, agreed to stay. Three nurses, two Swiss and one Dutch, also committed to stay, along with two other female Swiss workers, Albert’s two loyal administrative assistants, Emma Haussknecht and Mathilde Kottmann.
During this time Albert also received news that Charles Widor had died in March 1937 at the age of ninety-three. While the news saddened him, Albert realized that his old pipe organ tutor and mentor had lived a full and interesting life pursing his passion for music.
Albert made another trip to Europe in January 1939. He intended to stay several months and await Hélène and Rhena’s return from the United States, where Hélène was lecturing about the medical mission work at Lambaréné. At each port where the ship stopped on the voyage to Europe, Albert noticed German warships docked or at anchor. As Albert’s ship approached France, Hitler’s speech to the German Reichstag was broadcast via radio on January 30. Albert hung his head in sorrow as he listened. Although Hitler vowed to German legislators and the world that he had no further plans to dominate Europe, Albert didn’t believe a word the man said. In fact, he was more convinced than ever that war was imminent.
After docking in Bordeaux, Albert knew he couldn’t spend a day longer in Europe than necessary. He had to get back to his hospital before war broke out. The ship he arrived on had a ten-day turnaround time before embarking on the return trip to Africa. Albert decided that was long enough to acquire as many medicines and canned goods as he possibly could. He booked a return ticket on the same vessel and wrote a hasty letter to Hélène informing her of his change of plans. He then headed to Guns-bach, where he worked around the clock to contact supporters and gather medicines and canned milk. Back in Bordeaux ten days later, Albert purchased a gas-powered lamp, which would allow the doctors to perform emergency surgeries at night at the hospital. He then boarded the ship and said farewell to Europe. He wondered if or when he would ever see it again, and if so, in what condition it would be.
Four months after Albert’s hasty trip to France, Hélène and Rhena arrived at Lambaréné. Albert was proud to show his twenty-year-old daughter around the hospital, as she’d never seen his work in Gabon. Rhena also had news for Albert. She was engaged to Jean Eckert, an organ builder from Paris. Albert was happy for them, but he couldn’t help but worry about their future in Europe, since Jean was Jewish.
After a six-week visit, Hélène and Rhena returned to Paris. Hélène wanted to check on her mother and then arrange a small wedding for Rhena and Jean. She felt confident that their French passports would protect them from political harm. Albert wasn’t so sure.
Chapter 16
War Comes to Lambaréné
Albert was right. He hadn’t believed a word Adolf Hitler had said during his Reichstag speech back in January about having no further plans to dominate Europe. Now on September 3, 1939, Albert sat in silence, rereading the bulletin sent to the hospital from the French colonial representative in Lambaréné. He had been predicting that this day would come for a long time. Yet now that it was here, it was difficult to believe that European countries would plunge themselves into all-out war just twenty-one years after the previous one. Two days before, Hitler had launched a massive and brutal invasion of neighboring Poland. Now Britain and France had declared war on Germany in defense of Poland. As far as Albert was concerned, it was only a matter of time before all of Europe and the world would be involved.
Albert’s thoughts turned to Hélène—where was she now?—and to Rhena and her husband, Jean Eckert, who were expecting their first child. As a Jewish family, would they be safe? And what about his brother Paul’s two sons? Nineteen-year-old Jean-Jacques had already joined the French Marines, and twenty-seven-year-old Pierre-Paul would undoubtedly be conscripted. Would they be killed? Albert was overwhelmed by the images of young men dying, lives being wasted, ancient buildings being ruined, and land being destroyed.
Although radio transmission capabilities had come to Lambaréné the year before, and several hospital staff members had radios, Albert had refused to buy one for the hospital. He knew that many depressing months of war news lay ahead. He decided it was enough for him to receive semiweekly updates from the French colonial representative, although even that might prove too much for him.
Albert was grateful that at least the hospital had a large supply of rice and canned evaporated milk, and that a large shipment of medicines he’d purchased in France was awaiting shipment to Gabon. He was also grateful that Dr. Ladislas Goldschmid had kept his promise to remain at Lambaréné for the duration of the war and that Dr. Anna Wildikann, who had previously been with the hospital for two years, had written saying she was working at finding a way back to the hospital from her native Latvia. Albert was relieved to see her when she arrived safely at Lambaréné on January 11, 1940. Toward the end of the month, Gertrude Koch, a Swiss nurse, returned home after her third period of work at the hospital. This brought the total number of European medical workers to three doctors and four nurses. Two nurses were Swiss, one was Dutch, and the fourth was from Alsace. Sadly, one of Albert’s long-serving workers, nurse Mathilde Kottman, had been on furlough in Strasbourg and was unable to get back to the hospital before war broke out.
On May 10, 1940, the Germans began an offensive against France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. Sixteen days later, the hospital at Lambaréné felt the direct impact of the war in Europe. The M.V. Brazza, the ocean liner Albert had sailed on many times between Bordeaux and French Equatorial Africa, was torpedoed by a German submarine near Cape Finisterre on the north coast of Spain while making her way south to Africa. The ship sank quickly, and 378 of the 575 people aboard died. This came as a blow to Albert, who knew many of the crew, including the captain, aboard the Brazza. Also devastating was the loss of a large shipment, in the cargo hold of the torpedoed ship, of drugs and other materials for the hospital. Now the supplies were at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean with the remains of the ship. Albert’s worst fears had been confirmed. As during the first war, Gabon would be cut off from European supplies.
The twice-weekly news bulletins Albert received reported that the Germans had moved decisively. By early June they breached the French defensive line and marched into Paris. The French government abandoned the city to the Nazis and fled to Bordeaux, while the Italians attacked southeast France. In the end, the French government signed an armistice with Germany on June 22, 1940. Albert shook his head as he read the bulletin outlining the terms of the armistice. France was now divided into occupied and unoccupied zones. The occupied zone covered the north and west of the country, including the entire Atlantic coast, and was controlled by the Germans. A small zone in the southeast was occupied by the Italians.
The unoccupied zone consisted of the remaining two-fifths of the country in the south. This was known as zone libre, or the free zone, and would be governed by France’s new and officially neutral government led by Marshal Philippe Pétain. His government was based in the city of Vichy in central France, 190 miles south of Paris. The Vichy government was also in charge of many of the civil functions in the northern zone as well as of French colonial territories in North and Equatorial Africa and Southeast Asia.
Albert felt sick reading the report. This new Vichy government was nothing more than a German puppet state, yet there was a glimmer of hope for France. French General Charles de Gaulle, who’d been a government minister, rejected the armistice with Germany and fled to Great Britain, where he established a government in exile known as Free France. General de Gaulle also established the Free French Forces to continue fighting against Germany and to organize and support the resistance in occupied France. He broadcast a radio address over the BBC to all French citizens, exhorting them to resist the Germans and the Vichy government, and urging French military forces stationed in French colonies around the world to give their allegiance to Free France.
The turmoil in France resulted in Albert’s losing contact with many of his friends and relatives, including his daughter, Rhena, who as far as he knew was still in Paris with her husband and new baby daughter, Monique. And where was Hélène? He didn’t know. Nor did he know how Gunsbach—let alone any members of his family there—was faring.
Before long, though, Albert had war concerns much closer to the hospital that he had to contend with. By the end of August 1940, all of French Equatorial Africa except Gabon had pledged allegiance to Free France. Soon afterward General de Gaulle came to the region to solidify support for Free France and deal with the situation in Gabon. On October 27, Free French Forces crossed into Gabon from the north. They quickly took control of the town of Mitzic and moved south, turning their attention to the garrison at Lambaréné, which was controlled by soldiers loyal to the Vichy government.
Albert became aware of the encroaching battle when airplanes belonging to the Free French Forces thundered low over the hospital as they approached the Lambaréné garrison across the river. As gunshots and explosions rang out across the Ogowe, Albert and his staff worked hurriedly to reinforce the wooden walls of buildings facing Lambaréné with thick sheets of corrugated iron. Soon, frightened European and African residents of the Lambaréné township made their way over the river by boat or canoe to seek refuge at the hospital. Albert welcomed them. The battle was fierce and loud, and wounded soldiers from both sides were carried to the hospital, where they were treated equally with the best medical care possible.
On November 5, the Vichy-controlled garrison surrendered to the Free French troops, and the fighting moved on. Calm once more descended over Lambaréné.
Seven days later, on November 12, 1940, Free French forces took complete control of Gabon. Now all of French Equatorial Africa was in the hands of Free France and cooperating with the Allies. This meant that all shipments to and from France and most of Europe were canceled. This had a devastating effect on the local economy in Gabon. Exports of timber, coffee, cocoa, and palm oil came to an abrupt halt. And although shipping lanes to the United States remained open, the main commodity the Americans wanted from Africa was rubber now that the Dutch East Indies, their previous rubber supplier, had been captured by the Japanese.
As he contemplated how the hospital would fare now that they were cut off from Europe, Albert received some good news. It came in the form of two letters from Christian groups in the United States who had heard about Albert’s work at the hospital from Hélène. The groups offered to fund and send whatever drugs and equipment the hospital needed to keep it running while the war went on. A third letter from the United States informed him that the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship had been established, also because of Hélène’s influence. The fellowship existed to raise awareness and funds for the hospital in Lambaréné.
On August 2, 1941, a most unexpected thing happened. The drums began beating out across the jungle. Their message relayed that Hélène Schweitzer was arriving via motorcar. Albert could scarcely believe it. His wife was coming by car up the new road the Allies were building from the top to the bottom of Africa. Currently the road ended on the southern bank of the Ogowe River. Albert sent some local men in a canoe to await Hélène’s arrival and bring her safely to the hospital.
