Reclaiming History (continued)
Archival Archeologists
Bundled in rectangular slate gray boxes that are categorized under the titles, "Buckley Files: German Foundation" and "St. Mary's, Dunkirk," carefully preserved correspondences, the oldest written in elegant penmanship over a century ago, eagerly wait to whisper their own fascinating stories. Although worn and yellowed over time's slow passage, they reveal vibrant insights into their writers—their fears, hopes, future plans—and the world in which they lived. My father and I examine archival records like fervent archeologists excavating the remnants of an ancient civilization lost in time's unfathomable depths. We're conducting a dig, not for bones or clay potsherds, but for scattered factual fragments bringing Father Viktor's little-known World War II story to life. The motivation driving our search transcends a simple desire to reconstruct an extraordinary episode in Nazi Germany's disturbing history. We're also hoping to learn about this perpetually solemn-faced ancestor we've just identified in old family photo albums. Who was Father Viktor Koch? What was he like? What tragedies and struggles did he confront during his lifetime, and how did they contribute to his character?
Before I explored the Archive's holdings, I regarded Father Viktor Koch as an engaging, yet distant acquaintance, the chief character and protagonist in this unknown World War II drama I hope to bring into public consciousness via articles and an historical fiction novel. My limited perspective changes the moment I realize I'm holding letters that my great-granduncle touched, typed, and signed nearly sixty years ago. Within the five minute span required to evaluate each letter's contents, the thoughts and events forever locked in a past era unexpectedly flow into the present, and while peering through this fleeting window, I catch an unforgettable glimpse of Father Viktor. These original documents are memorials in their own right. Like Washington D.C.'s glistening granite World War II monument, they bring history to life and bridge the expansive temporal gap in a way that electronic copies never can. When I'm holding Viktor's letters, I sense only one aspect separating us: time. And at this moment, I perceive sixty years diminishing to an insignificant thing scarcely worth acknowledging.
My intent gaze travels across yellowed, manually typed correspondences that are as delicate as bible paper, swishing and rustling when I flip pages. The tone characterizing their content is strikingly direct. Concise. Blunt.
An ensuing discussion with the Archive Director Father Rob Carbonneau, our guide through Passionist history, clarifies a point escaping my attention. "In those days there was no reply button," he reminds me. "When you sent a letter across the Atlantic, you never knew when a response would come, and this necessitated a certain economy of words and a forthright sincerity that sounds harsh to the modern ear. In their day, they interpreted it differently."
Father Rob reveals pertinent historical details lingering in the background. In 1922, Fathers Viktor Koch and Valentine Lehnerd venture across the Atlantic to establish a new German-Austrian Foundation—a formidable endeavor for that era, considering the severe housing shortages and disastrous inflation crippling Germany's postwar economy. During the same decade, the Passionists launch missions to China, an exotic land ripe for conversion to Christianity. The Order invests a significant portion of its human and financial resources in this latter effort; meanwhile, Fathers Viktor and Valentine's burgeoning German Foundation sits impatiently simmering on a back burner, awaiting American funding. By nature, my great-granduncle is an unwavering mover and shaker, a man stubbornly devoted to completing the task before him. He loathes waiting idly. Father Viktor and I both possess, in no small measure, a characteristic Koch tenacity that soars against adversity: the higher the mountain, the greater our desire to conquer it. Upon that realization, I feel an abrupt pang of sympathy for the Father Provincial in America, Father Stanislaus Grennan, C.P. He's doing his best, struggling to negotiate between Rome's decisions and a domineering one man army named Viktor Koch.
I reach for the next letter. I pause, realizing what I'm forgetting. While I'll eventually write a biographical work discussing Father Viktor's tireless efforts to establish the Passionist Order's German-Austrian Foundation, my primary focus is Schwarzenfeld and Nazi Germany. The unwary novice researcher learns a lesson about historical investigation: each piece of history contains an unexpected, hidden power that sweeps away the reader and entangles her within its fascinating contents, whether or not they're relevant to the immediate topic. Although this is a tangent in my search for Father Viktor's World War II experiences, I receive an insight into my great-granduncle's personality and discover common ground.
I glance toward the wooden research table on my left, where my father stands leaning over a Dell laptop, a softly humming Lexmark copier-scanner, and the Europe 708 box of photographs. Father Viktor's familiar face—his usual intent expression, thick lips drawn in a tight, unyielding line—paints across the laptop's sleek plasma display. I pause, watching eighty-year-old history meeting current technology, and contemplate how our state-of-the-art scanner records only text, images, and color variations. An ineffable tactile magic clings to the original document, and that can never be duplicated.
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