“Where there is room for seven children….”
The decision…
During this, in the west-Flemish province the monks of the abbey St. Sixtus were worried about the fortune of the little Rudi Menen and searched wringing hands for a reasonable solution. But whereto with the lively lad? They could not keep him inside the cloister walls until the war was over, in no case. He was not save in here. The Gestapo was a periodical unbidden “guest” in the house. In the abbey it was an open secret that padre Renatus kept hiding a fled SS-man from the Netherlands, and padre Aloysius announced during an homily in public that he has appreciation for everyone who would strike dead a member of the occupying force when he has the possibility to do that. Andries Derycke who was present during the homily in the church of the monastery, left the sanctuary horrified about these rebellious word and complained about this to Dom Gerardus who was during this time the abbot of the cloister. This affaire went around like a wildfire.
A few days later menacingly dressed SS-men were angrily standing at the abbey-door. Padre Aloysius had hardly time to pack. Outright he was imprisoned and a few days later deported from Gent to the German Rheinbach. Neither there he showed repentance. The opposite. He remained with his declaration: “ Somebody asked me in the confessional if he could strike dead a German. Unfortunately I gave him the answer in public.”
Therewith the steal on his kismet was set. The remaining years of the war the brave Flemish monk Aloysius spent in the Siegburger’s state prison but he survived all the exertions and after the deliverance he could return to Westvleteren.
No, in this abbey nobody was safe anymore. One knew that the war-mayor of Westvletern, Georges Leroy, collaborated with the German police and was always searching for cached work denier. Actually in the abbey nobody was save anymore. After Padre Eustachius and the abbot agreed with each other, they admitted Padre Idesbald, the economist of the abbey into their confidence. He should look for a family for the little Rudi. The assiduous Trappist Idesbald, with the civil name Rafael Verbeke, who agonized over the daily supply of the abbey during the sparse years of war and came to aid konfrater Eustachius regularly by cording the packets for the indigent people from Mannheim, originated from a westflemish farmer-family with lots of children, knew about the covert Jew and was aquatinted with god and the world in the country. The virtues obedience, believes in prays and work, very typical for the then catholic rural population, was recommended warmly during his unassuming education. Four of his sisters decided for the life in a cloister, two of his brothers officiated the priesthood. His unapproachable character was more a shine than a being. He was the benevolence in person.
Because of the eatable brands but also concerning her good connections to the clothing manufacturer the friar visited his cousin Augusta van den Broucke, wife of the elementary school teacher Clement Verplaetse in Nieuwenhove which is a small suburb of the also very civil Waregem, many a time during the last years of war. There the mother of seven children managed a dry good and textile shop. She was endued with good connections to the neighbour farmers and knew where she could get white drapery betimes. In case of misery without brands. Padre economists needed this white products
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Padre Idesbald, house-keeper of the Trapists monastery, was related to the Verplaeste family
from Niewenhove and there he hoped to get understanding for his request.
again and again for the reparation and making of the cowls for the monks of Westvleteren. So in his misery, the prudent cousin Rafael from St. Sixtus visited Augusta Verplaetse and exchanged the usual news with her.
In the first days of January 1943 he had besides his all-days worries about surviving another very special question. He told about his friend the German Padre Eustachius, about the petition of the Jew Fritz Mannheimer and about the small Jewish boy whose mother did not
know what to do because of fear in the capital of Belgium. He told lurid tales about hunger and raids, about preserving during whole nights in eaves gutters of the surrounding houses in the Rue du Secour in the Brussels quarter Saint-Josse and about the incompatibility of the German Gestapo which couched everywhere in Brussels, reported about collective points and deportations. He knew
also about the urgent necessity of an education for the growing up boy who was on the run with his mother since his second year of life. A mother, always driven by fear and suffering.
The religious Idesbald reckoned that the boy reared very well, very unassuming and had the best company manners. Perhaps one could find a noble farmer-family where the small man could relax a time at the well air and finally eat at one’s fill, at least for one time. And being same for some time. One had to care about this kismet, hadn’t one And if cousin Verplaeste who had helped every person once because of his job as the rector for the elementary school and artist of a parish, couldn´t he give an advice?
Father Verplaeste could. He and his wife had not to think about long. “Where is place for seven children, there is also place for eight” opined the honest married couple. And for the three almost grown up sons and the four older daughters which all lived in the house but already reproached, it should not be a problem. The Flemish slogan:” Zou men armoe lijden om een mondje meer – Where nine get fed, also ten get fed.”
