We ended the previous post in this series with a 4 April 1944 report that Henry, Bea, and Lois Gunden had landed in Jersey City, finally free and safe from their Nazi captors. After over a year of bored inactivity, they were about to begin a whirlwind existence. We catch a first glimpse of what was in store in a news item from The Mennonite the following month.
23 May 1944 (page 15 here, left column)
JOTTINGS
Mr. and Mrs. Henry Buller, who carried on relief work in France and then were interned in Germany, are now visiting various Mennonite communities in the United States. They were recently at Bethel College, where they shared much that was of great interest. It is their hope to be able to continue in relief work. In case Mrs. Buller is not permitted to enter other countries for relief work (she is considered as an enemy alien in this country because of her birth in Germany. There again she was dis-owned as a citizen because her family was Jewish) she may continue language study in a Mennonite College with the view of teaching language. She already has a good command over five or so of them, but she needs academic rating for teaching. Her German, which she speaks very well, sounds pleasant to those who like to hear that tongue. The Bullers have gone to Upland, California. The First Mennonite Church there is Brother Buller’s home church. We quote the following from a recent bulletin of this church:
“We appreciate the return of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Buller. We welcome them in our midst. Next Sunday, May 21st they will have charge of the morning and evening service. Mrs. Buller will receive the sacrament of baptism. Mr. and Mrs. Buller were legally married a year and half ago but at that time lacked the privilege of a religious ceremony. Hence next Sunday morning there will be a consecration of their marriage vows.
On Wednesday evening, May 24, there will be a Fellowship dinner in the Church dining room and a rather informal program when we will again hear from Mr. and Mrs. Buller. At this time you will be permitted to ask questions and participate in an open forum.”
Several things are worth nothing here. First, on a personal note, we know that Bea was baptized on 21 May 1944. The original plan had been for Bea to be baptized in France by the same minister who was scheduled to perform Bea and Henry’s wedding ceremony. However, when German troops occupied France, those plans had to be set aside, and the couple was wed in a civil ceremony at the Lyon City Hall. Now that the couple was in the States, Bea was finally baptized, and their wedding vows were consecrated in Henry’s home church.
Second, over the course of the next few months Henry and Bea spent a good deal of time traveling from church to church telling of all that God had done with and through them. According to reports in The Mennonite, they spoke at:
- the Swamp Mennonite Church near Quakertown, Pennsylvania (here)
- the Grace Mennonite Church in Lansdale, Pennsylvania (here and here)
- the Immanuel Mennonite Church in Los Angeles, California (here)
- the Menno Mennonite Church in Lind, Washington (here)
- the Western District C. E. Conference held at Bethel College (here)
In addition, after Henry left the States to take up MCC work in the U.K., Bea continued to speak about the needs for continued relief work in Europe. For example, she spoke at:
Through these public appearances, the broader Mennonite community learned quite a bit about Bea and her story of escape from the Nazi regime. But even before then, readers of The Mennonite were introduced to Bea in a full-length article that she wrote for the 25 April 1944 issue (pages 5–6 here). That self-introduction is worth reproducing in full:
“An Answer … to That Hope”
“But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you the reason of that hope that is in you with meekness and fear.” I Peter 3:15.— Beatrice R. Buller
(In this article, Mrs. Buller is introducing herself to the Mennonites of America. Her testimony, together with the story of her life, has sincerity of conviction. It is a story of how the Lord leads. — Ed.)
The above verse from the first epistle of Peter seems to me most appropriate as an introduction to my message to you. Since our arrival in America on March 15, I have had the opportunity to answer several people who asked me about my beliefs, my backgrounds, and my hope in this life, and it is a pleasure for me to repeat for you my answer, so that you might share it and help me to remain true to it.
I was born in Duisburg, Germany, on September 25, 1920. My father was a lawyer and public notary in that town for twenty-five years. My two brothers and I went to a Protestant grade school and to high school until 1933. When the Hitler government came to power, my father left Germany, because being Jewish, he foresaw a very difficult future for himself and his family. He went to Belgium, where Mother and the rest of our family followed him in 1934. In Belgium I attended high school and a secretarial college and became a member of the Y.W.C.A. In December, 1941, all my family arrived in France with the purpose of joining my eldest brother in United States. But international developments prevented us from getting out of France and “across the deep blue sea.”
It is in Lyons, France, that I had my first contact with Mennonites, and it is about this experience that I would like to tell you more today. My brother had cabled from United States, advising us to go and see the Quakers for assistance and advice. Since the Quakers had no office in Lyons, my parents and I went to the “SECOURS MENNONITE AUX ENFANTS” (Mennonite Relief to Children) one dark, cold Friday afternoon. Opening the doors, we saw two Mennonite Relief delegates: Mr. J. N. Byler and Henry P. Buller, who looked frozen in spite of the fact that they were working in their little office with their winter overcoats on. We asked them about possibilities of getting transportation to America, but they were not able to give us much hope, as America had just entered the war and they did not know, themselves, whether they would he allowed to stay in France, whether they could obtain passage for themselves if they had to leave or what the next day would bring. At the end of a most friendly conversation, I told Messrs. Byler and Buller that I had worked as a secretary and that if they had some extra work to do in their office, I would be very happy to come and help out whenever they needed me. The next day, I was employed by the “SECOURS MENNONITE AUX ENFANTS.” A year afterwards, I was married to Henry P. Buller, and now, almost two and one-half years after my first contact with Mennonite Relief delegates, I have the privilege of seeing their country, their homes, their churches, and their schools.
From the very moment that one opened the door to that cold, little office in Lyons, an atmosphere of warmth and love radiated into the darkness and the dreariness of the outside; and I am happy to confess, now, that I am one of the “victims” of this sincere fellowship and spirit of service. Very soon, I felt a need to know more about the Christian workers with whom I was in contact and whose work I wanted to share. The relief work that they had come to do in France, in a country in distress, struck me deeply as a true testimony of their Christian religion, and I wanted to learn more about this religion. So both Mr. Byler and Henry Buller had to answer many, many questions and we often talked for hours about Mennonites, their background, their history, and their way of life. And very soon I felt the desire to become a member of a Mennonite church and be baptized and “put on the new man” as Paul puts it. In the summer of 1942, I wrote to the Mennonite Central Committee in Akron, Pa., expressing this desire to them and they gave their consent to have a Mennonite pastor from Switzerland, Rev. Gerber, come to France, to perform the baptism and marriage ceremony and at the same time visit the relief work there.
We had arranged for Pastor Gerber to come to France right after Christmas, 1942. But in November, 1942, our plans were put to naught, when the Americans landed in North Africa and all French borders were closed. As we foresaw at that moment that Americans might have to leave the country, probably on very short notice, we decided to get married at the City Hall, hoping that I could be baptized and our marriage consecrated in the very near future. Mr. Ybargoyen, the Urugayan consul at Lyons, a good friend of all the Mennonite Relief workers who had come to France, and Miss Lois Gunden, who I think needs no introduction, were our “Witnesses.” It was a hectic day that November 11, 1942. The Germans were coming into town, their tanks and motorized troops were riding through the streets all day, the officials of the American Consulate were leaving Lyons to go into internment and nobody knew what the next hour would bring. But we give thanks unto the Lord, for He kept us and guided us during those days, or better months, of uncertainty and anguish. “He that keepeth thee will not slumber.” Ps. 121:3.
As you know from previous reports, Lois Gunden stayed with us in Lyons until January, 1943, when all three of us obtained the permission to join the official American group in detention, which had been sent to Baden-Baden, Germany, by that time.
In connection with the relief work of the Mennonite Central Committee, I would like to bring back to your memory some verses of Ps. 84:
“Blessed are they that dwell in Thy house, they will be still praising Thee”.…
“Blessed is the man whose strength is in Thee; in whose heart are the ways of them. WHO PASSING THROUGH THE VALLEY OF BACA MAKE IT A WELL; the rain also filleth the pools.”
The Valley of Baca, which means the Valley of Weeping, is a dark valley through which every individual has to pass and through which whole nations are going at the present time. In this valley of weeping, which is a desert, there is a great need for men who take their strength in the Lord and who can turn the desert into a well, a well at which people who thirst can come and find new strength to continue their path. May the Lord grant us to be such a man, to be such a WELL where others who are discouraged, who hunger and thirst for material and above all spiritual food, may find the very best one can give unto others: a bit of love.
As I said at the end of the previous post, it did not take Bea long after arriving in the U.S. to become a vital and vocal force within the Mennonite community. Her many speaking engagements and especially her self-introduction on the pages of The Mennonite demonstrate this well. But this is not all that Bea had to say, as we will discover in a post a little further down the road.
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