The Marian Martyrs of Rosica

130 The Marian Martyrs of Rosica “Father Bohatkiewicz was arrested,” he said to me. “Yesterday they took him off to prison. They stopped at my place for a moment. They came for him soon after your depar- ture. He was very grateful for your kindness and warning.” I went back to Druja. “Do you want to listen to the news?” asked the pastor, Fr. Smolinski. “Where from? What kind?” “Come to my place.” We entered. I didn’t see anything. “Where is the radio?” I asked. “Just a moment,” answered Fr. Smolinski. He opened the wardrobe. He took out a nail on one side, then another. He removed the bottom, and then he pulled another nail from the floor. Finally, he took out a floorboard. I was looking into a huge hole dug in the earth. An apparatus was installed in it. “What is this?” I asked, pointing to a huge box full of small bottles interconnected with copper and zinc. “It’s the battery. Br. Sigmund Czerwinski rigged it up, since it's a fact that it’s hard to live without news.” “Yes, really hard,” I agreed. We really needed to have some hope for a better tomorrow. We used this radio until the end of German rule, even on those days when the SS punitive expedition was housed on the floor above us before they went off to annihilate Rosica. We needed a soapstone substitute for sodium chloride in the cells, and later we used rechargeable batteries. It was perhaps as early as 1942 when London began its broadcasts with its signature drumbeat and the words: “This is London calling.” Beginning broadcasts in this way would become a recognition code to signal some interesting news — such as when the Germans began to take a beating. That hap- pened when they were driven out of Africa and when they were defeated outside what used to be Stalingrad.