The Priest That Was in Dachau

Against the Grain has review with excerpts and reviews of a book called Father Jean Bernard's "Priestblock 25487: A Memoir of Dachau" . It looks like something I really want to pick up. Here is a part:

The second from midway through, Christmas 1941:
"I'm on gate duty today," Cappy whispers to me. We are returning from the assembly square on Christmas morning, and our column is marching alongside the German clergy's column for a brief moment.

When it is time to delivery the pails for midday meal I exchange with a colleague assigned to go to Barrack 26 that day. I suspect that Cappy wants to give me something and am eager to find out what it is.

He is standing at the entrance of the barbed-wire barrier around teh barrack, as announced. We are not allowed to enter, but have to leave the pails in front of the "gate." I set mine down next to Cappy, and as he bends down to pick it up he quickly presses a carefully folded piece of paper into my hand. Very softly he mouths the word, "icthys."

I have difficulty concealing my excitement. Swiftly I hide the precious gift in my glove. And as I hurry back home images from the time of the catacombs come to mind. Back then, as now, the Most Holy had to be preserved from desecration, and so the Greek term for "fish", ichthys, became a code word for the Eucharist, since it is composed of the initial letters of the phrase, "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior."

After the midday meal, we Luxembourgers met a few friends inconspicuously in the darkness outside the barrack and divided the precious pieces into as many particles as humanly possible. And then the Christ Child entered our hearts ...