Pioneering Courage: The Notre Dame Sisters’ Legacy Through Nazi Germany and Beyond

In the darkest days of World War II, Notre Dame Sister, Mother Fabiola Ditek, as well as many of her fellow Sisters, faced unimaginable turmoil amidst the chaos of war and oppression. Her journey through German concentration camps was one of extraordinary courage and faith.

Mother Fabiola’s ordeal began in 1943, when she, along with several Notre Dame Sisters, was arrested by the Nazis. The reason for their arrest was presumably linked to the acceptance of two women of German descent into the community, but it was clear that the true cause was their defiance of the expanding Nazi regime. As the war raged on, the Sisters found themselves not only fighting the forces of war but the very forces of evil that sought to destroy them. Their arrest led to their imprisonment in various concentration camps, including Pankratz, Terezin, and finally, Ravensbruck.

In Ravensbruck, the conditions were unbearable. Mother Fabiola wrote of the unbelievable suffering that she and her fellow Sisters endured. The camp was a place of terror, where hope seemed a distant memory. Yet, even in the face of such overwhelming darkness, the Notre Dame Sisters found ways to bring light to each other’s lives. They prayed together, supported one another, and clung to their faith. It was a lifeline that sustained them through the worst of times.

As Mother Fabiola described in a letter sent from the camp, she was blessed to survive due to the countless prayers of her fellow Sisters. “God preserved me miraculously,” she wrote. But not all were as fortunate. Her beloved Sisters, including Sr. M. Epiphanie, Sr. M. Ernestine, and Sr. M. Susanna, succumbed to the horrors of the camp. Despite their tragic deaths, their courage in the face of such atrocities became part of the legacy of the Notre Dame Sisters.

Mother Fabiola recounted the heartbreaking details of their suffering: “The hardest trial of the past years was that I was absent from the motherhouse (Horazdovice in Czechoslovakia). I was for 17 months in German captivity in concentration camps at Pankratz, in Prague, in Terezin, and finally at Ravensbruck in Meklenburg in the women’s concentration camp for the entire year. Sr. M. Epiphanie, the provincial superior from Marienbad (Germany), was also there, as were Sr. M. Ernestine and Sr. M. Susanna. They all died there. God preserved me miraculously and saved me only because of the many prayers of the Sisters. I returned to the motherhouse exhausted, in a pitiable condition, and yet comparatively healthy.”

About the Sisters who perished, she wrote, “I did not meet dear Sr. M. Epiphanie again in the concentration camp; she died a month before my arrival. Dear Sr. M. Ernestine found me immediately and we could meet daily because outside working hours it was permitted to walk among the cells. We prayed together our religious prayers, the rosary, and on Sunday the prayers of the Mass which was never said there. Sr. M. Ernestine was healthy all the time until January 1945 when she caught a cold. She contracted typhus and succumbed on February 4 of that year due to a weak heart. She was in an isolated block to which there was no admittance. I was told she died peacefully and quietly as she had lived. Sr. M. Susanna arrived shortly before Christmas 1944 from Terezin and was already then suffering from typhus, of which there was a terrible epidemic because her cell block was isolated. I talked to her just once and she was very sick then. She was just skin and bones. Then she was taken to the hospital where she is said to have died peacefully on December 31, 1944.”

Mother Fabiola’s escape from the gas chambers on two separate occasions, thanks to the kindness of a Czech nurse, was nothing short of miraculous. It was moments like these, in the midst of horror and fear, that highlighted her strength and resilience. She did not surrender to the brutality of her captors.

When the war ended, the Sisters faced a new challenge—life under Communist rule. The Communist attempts to end religious life resulted in the resettlement of Sisters into ‘concentration convents’. Older Sisters were separated from younger Sisters, and novices were sent home. Most of these moves were accomplished in the middle of the night without prior warning in the style of a ‘raid’, and most were accomplished within 24 hours. In August of 1950, all convents were closed except for congregations specializing in nursing, a much-needed skill.

New professions were not allowed, so novices were received in a “Secret Sister” program that not even any of the Sisters knew about. The official policy of the government was to attempt to discourage the Sisters and make life so difficult for them that they would renounce religious life. Communist overseers were paid a bonus if they could get Sisters to do this. Sisters were not allowed to teach and were assigned to work in factories. The younger Sisters were assigned to work next to handsome young men and lectured about the promises of family life. When the Sisters persevered, they were assigned to factories with increasingly bad conditions. Many Sisters, who wore heavy serge habits, were forced to work until late at night in a hot, steamy, dust-filled flax factory. When they left the shift, often after transportation had ceased to run for the night, their habits froze around them as they walked back to the concentration convent. Eventually, the Red Cross stopped this practice. When the government was not able to break apart the Sisters through this treatment, the Sisters were put to work in places that they could not influence people through their goodness and kindness. They were put to work caring for the senile aged and the severely mentally handicapped. Once again, the Sisters made improvements, providing opportunities in art, music, and drama while moving the people into caring family-style units in a program that is now honored and studied by people from all over Europe.

Mother Vlasta was Superior General during this time. Because the Notre Dame community was one of the largest groups of Sisters in Czechoslovakia, Mother Vlasta’s abilities rapidly pushed her to the forefront of the negotiations between all religious and the Communist authorities. She became head of the leadership conference representing all the communities of Sisters. Mother Vlasta worked to persuade the government that if they recognized the group (the religious community) then they were obliged to also recognize the rules and constitutions of the group. Mother Vlasta gained a reputation for always telling the Communist government the truth, but never the whole truth. With humor, insight, and perseverance, Mother Vlasta guided the Czech religious women through the toughest times.

How did the Sisters make it through? They were young and they depended on each other, as symbolized by the common prayer and song that took up much of their time. They were quietly seditious. The Sisters in Slovakia published an underground magazine complete with artwork, poems, and stories that they put together by hand. Other Sisters told jokes about troublesome officials using symbolism in stories.

But for the most part, it’s difficult to persuade the Sisters to talk about what happened during the war and during the years of the Communist government. The Sisters will tell you that there’s nothing remarkable or heroic to talk about; they only did what was necessary, and what they were supposed to do. With this belief and their faith in God and the support of their Sisters, the Notre Dame Sisters survived and accomplished their mission in Europe from 1938 – 1989.