It was a godless time in Berlin. The war was raging, and the Allies were progressing across Europe until finally they were in Germany bombing Berlin. For those who lived there, it was "lights out" every night so the bombers couldn't see where to drop their deadly cargoes. They waited in basements, trembling while bomb blasts, near and far, rocked their hearts. Sometimes a building was hit… a building with frightened people hiding inside. It was on such a night that a priest and a minister were alone together in the town hall basement. They had met in the building for a conference on how to minister to their flocks despite Hitler's repressive regime, when the bombing started.
"They sound close tonight," the minister commented. The priest nodded in agreement. The blasts continued.
"Very close," the priest added, as another one hit close by. The words had barely left his lips when, with an ear-splitting blast, the floor above exploded and rained concrete and wood down on them. Both men were buried in the hail of debris.
The priest recovered first. He was blanketed in rubble, but when he wiggled his hands and toes, everything seemed to be working. He shoved wood and concrete dust from his body and staggered to his feet. The room was pitch black, and he groped with his hands out into the void. It was useless. Suddenly, he remembered his friend, the minister.
"Helmut! Helmut! Are you there?"
"Franz! Here I am...over here. My leg!"
"Keep speaking, Helmut! So I can follow your voice!"
"Here, Franz! Here! My leg...I think it is broken!"
Franz found him and fished around blindly to pull a plank of wood and some concrete pieces off the minister's body. He groped in the darkness and uncovered the man's leg. The bone protruded under his touch, confirming it was fractured.
"Ah, Helmut! We're in a fine mess," the priest said.
"Is anyone here?" Another voice filled the darkness, an unfamiliar one. It startled Franz. His heart pounded at the eerie tone coming out of the void.
"Who is there?" He called out.
There was a pause before the answer came. "Rabbi Nathan Schwartz."
Franz felt Helmut's hand on his arm. The other man whispered, "It is a Jew."
"Where did you come from?" Franz yelled out.
"It doesn't matter. I was just looking to see if anyone needed help."
The surreal aspect of his situation weighed heavily on Franz--being trapped in a collapsed building in total darkness, speaking to someone impossible to see, and having an injured friend by his side. Where did the other man come from? He remembered seeing all the Jews loaded onto trains, removed from the city for parts unknown. There was talk of concentration camps. How did this man escape that fate?
"Franz! We don't know who this man is!" Helmut's hand pressed against his arm.
"But Helmut, we may never get out of here otherwise. Maybe he can help."
Helmut's hand clutched his arm so tightly he was tempted to push it away to relieve the pain. The injured man whispered, "Franz, he is trouble. Haven't the Jews caused trouble enough..."
"Helmut, please! You must not say that!"
Franz knew this was not his friend, Helmut, speaking. It was disease and misery making him feverish and mad.
Franz called out, "Rabbi! If you hear my friend, please don't listen! He is injured and ill. We are a priest and a minister. There is nothing from us to fear."
"I have a way out. There is a trapdoor in the floor. It opens to a tunnel. The Jews...we use it to escape Berlin. It leads to the countryside. You can follow my voice to come to me. I will help you down to the tunnel."
"Yes! Yes! I think that will work." Franz reached down to Helmut and helped him up. "Come, Helmut! We will go to the tunnel. I'm sure it will be okay."
Franz stumbled through the wreckage with his friend leaning on his shoulder.
"Here! Here!" Nathan kept speaking to guide them. Finally, Franz reached out a hand and touched the rabbi.
"Thank you, God! For bringing us together," he said. The three men hugged for joy. Despite his pain, even Helmut smiled.
"Perhaps just a short prayer..." Nathan murmured.
"Yes, of course. A moment of prayer! It would be appropriate for three men of God." Franz replied.
"Yes! We may be three different religions, but today we all say the same prayer to same God."
"Amen." Helmut and Franz said in unison.
The three men made it safely to the countryside and worked together in the underground until the end of the war. They worked together, despite their differences, and prayed every day their fellow man would learn to do the same.
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