Just before midnight the next day, Albert stood at the landing spot beside the river waiting for his wife. It seemed like a miracle when the canoe appeared in the darkness and Hélène stepped from it. Her hair was gray, and she looked gaunt, but she was alive and standing before him.
The following day Albert heard all about Hélène’s struggles. Although she’d gone back to live in Switzerland after her six-week visit to Lambaréné in 1939, she had been visiting Rhena and Jean and baby Monique in Paris when the Germans marched into the city. This prompted a mass exodus of Parisians before the Nazis officially took control of the city. Hélène and the Eckert family fled along with more than two million others and headed to the south of France, where they lived together in a hotel.
Hélène described how, during this time, she felt she had to get to Albert and was able to escape France and make her way to Lisbon, Portugal, where she boarded a ship bound for Angola. Upon arrival in Angola she hired a car and driver to take her north on the newly built road through the Belgian Congo to Brazzaville and then to the south bank of the Ogowe River. It had been a harrowing trip for her and, as far as Albert was concerned, a heroic one.
Hélène also had more news to tell Albert. She wasn’t sure what had happened to Rhena. She did know that Rhena and Jean had hoped to escape to Switzerland with their baby, and that Rhena was expecting another child near the end of the year. All Albert could do was pray they had made it to Switzerland before they were rounded up by the Nazis.
Once Hélène recovered from the exhausting trip, she announced to Albert that she was ready to work. And work she did, relieving each of the hospital’s nurses in shifts so that they could take much-needed breaks. Albert was relieved to have Hélène at his side again. He valued her wisdom and long history with the hospital.
On December 8, 1941, the day after a Japanese aerial attack on the American Pacific Fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, the United States declared war on Japan. Three days later, it also declared war on Germany and Italy. Many people thought this would bring a fast end to the war, but Albert was not so optimistic. War raged around the world, from Asia and the Pacific to Europe and North Africa. Albert didn’t think the addition of one more combatant would bring the war to a speedy end. He had always thought a war like this would last at least seven years, and right now they were just over two years in.
In early 1942, a shipment arrived from the United States for the hospital. Albert and the hospital staff cried tears of joy as they unpacked the boxes containing thermos flasks, household utensils, gardening tools, the latest medicines, and something that made Albert particularly happy—large-sized rubber gloves. For the previous six months he’d been squeezing his hands into small gloves when performing surgery.
Now Albert looked around with renewed hope, and he saw an opportunity. He had money from the United States, a supply of tools and equipment, and many able-bodied workers without jobs. It was time to do the projects on the hospital grounds he’d put off doing. A strong stone wall along the shoreline was needed to protect the land from floods, the “streets” around the hospital needed paving, and Albert could envisage enlarging the orchards and gardens. He rearranged his workdays as he had many times before, performing surgeries and seeing patients in the mornings and supervising work crews in the afternoons. It was amazing to him how quickly the improvements were made. Albert personally planted one thousand orange and grapefruit seeds, tended them as they sprouted, and then transplanted the seedlings into the orchard. It reminded him of the days as a boy when he had tended his father’s grapevines on the slopes above Gunsbach.
Very occasionally news reached Albert and Hélène about their family and friends. Rhena had given birth to two more children, a son named Philippe and a daughter, Christiane. The family was “safe” in Switzerland, as much as anyone was safe during the wretched war. Hélène was sad to learn that her favorite cousin, Johanna Engel, had committed suicide in Germany rather than be sent to a concentration camp. Albert’s nephew, Pierre-Paul Schweitzer, who worked for the French Underground, had been captured and was now imprisoned in the Buchenwald concentration camp. Hélène’s mother had died, as had Albert’s brother-in-law, Albert Woytt. And an Allied bomb had hit the building in Strasbourg where Fritz Munch, Ernst’s son, and his family had sought shelter. Fritz’s wife and two of their children were killed in the blast. Albert despaired. Would there be any end to the killing?
On January 14, 1945, Albert turned seventy. The war still raged on, and he didn’t feel much like celebrating. Nonetheless, he’d received word that the BBC in England was to broadcast a special radio program in his honor. A European woman who had taken shelter at the hospital when her husband was conscripted into the army had a portable radio, and the hospital staff gathered in her room to listen to the broadcast. Dr. Micklem, a theologian from Oxford University, discussed the theories contained in Albert’s book The Quest of the Historic Jesus, and then they aired a recording of Albert playing Bach on the organ. Albert held back tears as he listened to the organ recording, made so many years before and so many miles away. When the radio broadcast was over, everyone was silent for several minutes before filing out of the room.
Later that day Albert wrote a letter to the members of the General Council of Congregational Churches in the United States, thanking them for their generosity in financially supporting the work of the hospital at Lambaréné. In the letter he noted, “For what I have to do and for a long time, it might be good for the hospital if I could go on directing it. I ought to be thirty and not seventy years old. But it is a great privilege that at seventy I am able to do the necessary [work].”
It was Monday, May 7, 1945, and as usual, Albert spent the morning treating patients. At lunchtime he stopped to write some letters, hoping that a riverboat would arrive to take them downriver. As he sat at his desk writing, he looked up to see a European patient grinning at him through the open window. “Monsieur Le Grand Docteur, the war in Europe is over. I just heard it on the radio. Germany has surrendered.”
Albert nodded and continued to write. After so many years of turmoil in the world, he found it hard to take in the news. The war was over? Really over? It was difficult for Albert to process the idea.
Later that afternoon, Albert rang the bell to call everyone into the central courtyard of the hospital. There he announced to all that the war in Europe was over. Germany had unconditionally surrendered at the Allied headquarters in Reims, France. Albert then said a brief prayer of thanks before they all returned to their work. So many lives had been lost in the war, so much evil had been done, and so many futures had been ruined that he could not celebrate. No person who had a reverence for life could.
Chapter 17
Le Grand Docteur
Three years after the end of World War II, Albert was able to return to Europe. By that time, the doctors and nurses who had faithfully served at the hospital through the war had either gone on leave or finished their service at Lambaréné, and Albert had welcomed and oriented three new doctors and six nurses. There had also been the struggle of another famine that had caused food prices to skyrocket to four times what they’d been. There were breakthroughs too, one of which was the new “wonder drug,” penicillin. It had been widely used for the first time during the war to treat soldiers with infections. Now for the first time in history, there was a way to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of people who would have previously died from various infections. Albert was delighted when the first shipment of penicillin arrived in Lambaréné and he could put the new drug to the test. It worked like a miracle.
By the time Albert and Hélène arrived back in Gunsbach in October 1948, Albert was ready for a long rest. He’d been in Lambaréné for twelve years, except for his hurried ten days in Europe to gather supplies in early 1939. As usual, it was a rest Albert never got. Many people were waiting to meet him. Journalists, doctors, pastors, and university lecturers were clamoring to interview him or have him speak. Albert’s opinion was sought on everything from pipe organ design to the latest breakthroughs in surgery. Albert found himself honored with parades, speeches, the presentation of keys to cities, and many other honors. It seemed Albert stood out as a beacon of hope for a better future in war-ravaged France.
As soon as they could after their arrival in Europe, Hélène and Albert journeyed to Zurich, Switzerland, to see Rhena, Jean, and their four grandchildren. Albert met Monique, Philippe, Christiane, and Catherine for the first time. The ages of the children ranged from nine down to four, and Albert thought each child was wonderful. The children were bright and curious, with the older ones already excelling at their piano lessons. Soon after arriving, Albert, acting in his role as pastor, baptized all four grandchildren in the living room. Rhena and Jean had been looking forward to his being able to do that.
While in France, Albert was invited to give the keynote address at the bicentenary of Goethe’s birth, which was to be held in Aspen, Colorado, in the United States. Dignitaries and scholars from around the world would be there. At first Albert turned down the invitation, feeling he needed to get back to Lambaréné. When asked to reconsider, he thought more about it. Just as he was about to decide, the Goethe organization offered to add a donation of $5,000 for the hospital to the $5,000 they would pay as his speaking fee. Albert couldn’t turn down the invitation a second time. While in the United States, he could also learn more about the new sulfone drugs dapsone and promin, which were being used to treat leprosy. With the hospital donation, he could buy a good supply of the drugs and still return to Lambaréné with enough money to start his next project, a village for leprosy patients. Although he was now seventy-four years old and Hélène was seventy and in poor health, the opportunity to go to North America was too good to turn down. Hundreds of sick Africans would benefit from it.
The Schweitzers arrived in New York aboard the liner Nieuw Amsterdam on June 28, 1949. At the bottom of the gangway they were met by a crowd of reporters yelling over each other to ask Albert questions. Some of the questions struck Albert as funny. One reporter asked, “Tell me, Doctor, what do you think of America?” Albert smiled and said, “I haven’t set foot in it yet, but you live here. What do you think of it?” Other questions were serious. “Do you regret the sacrifice of your life to the natives of Africa?” Albert replied, “There was no sacrifice. I am one of the greatly privileged.”
Wherever they went in the United States, Albert and Hélène found their fame had gone before them. Two years earlier, Americans Charles Joy and Melvin Arnold had visited Lambaréné. Charles had taken over a thousand photographs, while Melvin had taken extensive notes. When they returned home, they wrote a book titled The Africa of Albert Schweitzer. The book was hugely popular, and as a result, Albert Schweitzer had become a household name in the United States. Albert became even more recognizable when Time magazine featured a painting of him on the cover of the July 11, 1949, issue. Beneath his portrait were the words “He who loses his life shall find it.” Inside the magazine was a long article titled “Reverence for Life,” which told the story of Albert and his work at Lambaréné.
By the time the article was published, Albert and Hélène had taken the long train ride from New York to Aspen, where Albert gave his Goethe speech twice, once in French and again in German. The event was a great success, and more articles about Albert followed in America’s most popular publications. Reader’s Digest published two articles. The first was “God’s Eager Fool” by the Reverend John O’Brien, who wrote, “Nearly 2,000 years ago St. Paul spoke of those who are ‘fools for Christ’s sake.’ Since then many men and women have marched down history, yielding up the comforts of life to serve their fellow men. With that bright company today goes that eager fool for God—Albert Schweitzer.”
