Lidia

Almost fifty years later, in 1974, Dr Mŭhlschlegel recalled seeing Lidia at that meeting, and that during the discussion Lidia spoke with Martha Root. But Lidia remembered only 'some speeches, some readings . . . as I came only out of politeness, I did not pay any special attention to what was going on. The words were going into one ear and out of the other. Soon after I left Geneva I forgot about it all.'

Martha Root, however, remembered the two daughters of Dr Zamenhof and, with her usual determination, looked for ways to make contact with them again. After the Geneva meeting she wrote to Ella Cooper, an American Baha'f, about an idea that had come to her. Martha planned to go to Warsaw, where she hoped Lidia and Zofia would let her board with them for a time. 'IfI could stay with them for a month,' she wrote, 'I would learn so much, not only in speaking out in the spirit of Dr ZamenhoPs idea - and also, I could tell them so much about the Baha'i Cause.' If some of the Zamenhofs became Baha'1's, Martha believed, 'it would be a great impetus to the Baha'f Cause in all the Esperanto circles of the world . . .'

Martha was drawn specially to Lidia, who 'seemed so sad. I always wished that she could know the joy of'Abdu'1-Baha's life. It comes to

me very strongly that this would be a very wise plan, to try to go there f

When the congress closed, Lidia went home to Warsaw, never thinking she would see that American lady again.

While the peaceful Esperanto congress, dedicated to bringing down barriers between people, had been meeting in neutral Switzerland, elsewhere in the world others were busy building those barriers higher than ever.

Even as Lidia had been traveling from Warsaw to Geneva on her way to the congress, some fifty thousand people were also leaving Poland, but against their will. They were ethnic Germans who had lived in what was once German Poland. Five years before a plebiscite had been held and these people, mostly small farmers and artisans, had voted to keep their German citizenship. Now the Polish government - upheld by the Hague Court of Arbitration - was deporting them. Forced to leave their homes, carrying whatever of their possessions they could, once they got to Germany they would have nowhere to go. In retaliation Germany expelled twenty thousand Poles from its territory.

After the Great War Poland had been given a strip of German, but once Polish, land that separated East Prussia from the rest of Germany. That first week of August 1925 the German newspapers were complaining bitterly about this 'Polish corridor', insisting that because of it two million Germans in East Prussia were cut off from the fatherland. The widow of American President Wilson, traveling through Germany, was being greeted with hostility and insults; while in the United States the Italian representative to the League of Nations was denouncing 'utopian schemes' for world peace, claiming that war was the natural way ofthings, and speaking out for the movement that had swept Italy, called fascism.

And in Los Angeles, Califomia, the execurive committee of the American Chemical Society had just adopted a resolution denouncing the League of Nations' ban on poisonous gases in warfare. The League, said the chemists, showed 'a lamentable lack of understanding of chemical warfare', which, the scientists felt, was more humane than ancient forms of butchery.

NINE

Spiritual Mother and Daughter

At last, the monument for the grave of Dr Zamenhofhad been shipped from Scotland to the Free City of Danzig (now the Polish port city of Gdansk) on the Baltic Sea. From there it was transported by train to Warsaw. But when the stone was examined on arrival, it was discovered to have some errors in the lettering. Correcting them would be costly, but the sculptor, Lubelski, insisted the errors be corrected or he would not allow his name on the monument. At last, everything in order, the monument was set in place over the tomb. Although it would mean postponing the unveiling for several months, the committee decided to hold the public dedication ceremonies on the ninth anniversary of Zamenhof s death, in April 1926.

Shortly before this date Lidia received a telegram signed 'Martha Root' asking for an opportunity to speak at the unveiling ceremonies on the relation of Zamenhofs life work to the principles of Baha'u'llah. 'After a few moments of pondering and musing,' Lidia later recalled, 'I connected this somehow with the meeting in Geneva and with one of the persons I met there.' She reported the telegram to the committee, which consented to Miss Root's request.