Following George’s example, we piled a couple of blankets on the bottom of one of the boxes and squeezed ourselves in. Each box, with judicious crowding, would accommodate two people facing each other.
At a signal from Sieber, who was sardined into a boxcar with George, one of the gnomes primed the engine. After a couple of false starts, it began to chug and the train rumbled into the dim cavern ahead. For the first few yards, the irregular walls were whitewashed, but we soon entered a narrow tunnel cut through the natural rock. It varied in height and width. In some places there would be overhead clearance of seven or eight feet, and a foot or more on either side. In others the passageway was just wide enough for the train, and the jagged rocks above seemed menacingly close. There were electric lights in part of the tunnel, but these were strung at irregular intervals. They shed a dim glow on the moist walls.
George shouted that we would stop first at the Kaiser Josef mine. The track branched and a few minutes later we stopped beside a heavy iron door set in the wall of the passageway. This part of the tunnel was not illuminated, so carbide lamps were produced. By their flickering light, George found the keyhole and unlocked the door.
We followed him into the unlighted mine chamber. Flashlights supplemented the wavering flames of the miners’ lamps. Ahead of us we could make out row after row of huge packing cases. Beyond them was a broad wooden platform. The rays of our flashlights revealed a bulky object resting on the center of the platform. We came closer. We could see that it was a statue, a marble statue. And then we knew—it was Michelangelo’s Madonna from Bruges, one of the world’s great masterpieces. The light of our lamps played over the soft folds of the Madonna’s robe, the delicate modeling of the face. Her grave eyes looked down, seemed only half aware of the sturdy Child nestling close against her, one hand firmly held in hers. It is one of the earliest works of the great sculptor and one of his loveliest. The incongruous setting of the bare boards served only to enhance its gentle beauty.
The statue was carved by Michelangelo in 1501, when he was only twenty-six. It was bought from the sculptor by the Mouscron brothers of Bruges, who presented it to the Church of Notre Dame early in the sixteenth century. There it had remained until September 1944, when the Germans, using the excuse that it must be “saved” from the American barbarians, carried it off.
In the early days of the war, the statue had been removed from its traditional place in the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament to a specially built shelter in another part of the church. The shelter was not sealed, so visitors could see the statue on request. Then one afternoon in September 1944, the Bishop of Bruges, prompted by the suggestion of a German officer that the statue was not adequately protected, ordered the shelter bricked up. That night, before his orders could be carried out, German officers arrived at the church and demanded that the dean hand over the statue. With an armed crew standing by, they removed it from the shelter, dumped it onto a mattress on the floor of a Red Cross lorry and drove away. At the same time, they perpetrated another act of vandalism. They took with them eleven paintings belonging to the church. Among them were works by Gerard David, Van Dyck and Caravaggio. The statue and the pictures were brought to the Alt Aussee mine. It was a miracle that the two lorries with their precious cargo got through safely, for the roads were being constantly strafed by Allied planes.
Now we were about to prepare the Madonna for the trip back. This time she would have more than a mattress for protection.
In the same mine chamber with the Michelangelo was another plundered masterpiece of sculpture—an ancient Greek sarcophagus from Salonika. It had been excavated only a few years ago and was believed to date from the sixth century B.C. Already the Greek government was clamoring for its return.