Dangerous People

 

Charlotte Delbo and another of the 230, in prison in France before deportation. Credit Courtesy of the Archives Departmentales du Val-deMarne, Pierre Labate, Roger Hommet and L'Association Memoire-Vivre

In the early 1940’s in Nazi occupied Paris, the Parisian police were collaborating with the Germans to round and arrest French citizens who were resisting the occupation.  Many of those arrested were placed in a prison named La Santé, in the 14th arrondisement.  La Santé was known as châteaux de la mort lente, castles of slow death.  There was “little food, no heating, and condensation trickled down the walls.  Fleas and lice were epidemic.  The chance of release was nonexistent [Caroline Moorehead, A Train in Winter—An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship, and Resistance in Occupied France, pg.105].”  Those imprisoned there were called the “dangerous element.”

Danielle, one of the imprisoned 230 women, wrote to her parents: “We sang every night.  If walking past those filthy walls, you heard singing, it was us. By ‘us’ I mean the dangerous element [pg. 107].”  Through their singing in such desperate conditions, these women showed just how dangerous they really were.  Without guns or clubs, in their resistance these determined women evidenced a power that is only available to those with the conviction they are serving some cause larger than their own lives. 

Singing in the face of abuse is a power that comes to those whose lives serve a more enduring cause than their own personal concerns and wellbeing.  It does, indeed, indicate they are dangerous.

These women were not, of course, the first determined people to sing in prison. 

Paul and Silas seemed to be a threat to the economy in Philippi, so they are beaten and thrown in jail (Acts 16).  They are praying and singing hymns in the night in their jail cell when an earthquake sets all the prisoners free. They do not flee.  The next day when the magistrates wish to send Paul and Silas away quietly, they demand a public acknowledgement of their unjust treatment; and they get it.

Paul and Silas were, indeed, dangerous to the status quo. Persecuting them had no chance of silencing them.  They had found something grander and more compelling than their own wellbeing.

People serving a larger cause are dangerous; they are hard to silence.  When we are gripped by something grander than our own security and comfort, like those women in La Santé and Paul and Silas, we become powerful. There is little to be gained by telling people like that to go home and be quiet.

Jim Kelsey

Executive Minister-American Baptist Churches of New York State