Buddhists in jail: Nyanatiloka and the Nazis

Bhikkhu Nyanatusita, Hellmuth Hecker, The Life of Ñāṇatiloka Thera (Buddhist Publication Society, bps.lk); Art Thomya Journey; Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

(Art Thomya Journey) Unseen India, Episode 1: Dehradun, Mussoorie, Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, Himalayan India.

In 1939, with the British declaration of war against Nazi Germany, Ven. Nyanatiloka and other German-born Sri Lankans were interned, first at Diyatalawa Garrison in Sri Lanka then in India (1941) at the large internment camp at Dehra Dun in the Himalayan foothills.

CHP. 21: INTERNMENT IN DEHRA DUN, 1939–1946

Ven. Nanamalita, Ven. Nanatiloka (center), and Ven. Nanaponika, Sri Lanka, Feb. 19, 1937

Honal Buddhist Temple in Dehra Dun, with accents of Vajrayana architecture in the foothills

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Once the British Government declared war on Germany, on Sept. 3, 1939, Ñāṇatiloka (Western Buddhist monk Ven. Nyanatiloka, the German Anton Gueth) -- author of the Buddhist Dictionary: A Manual of Buddhist Terms and Doctrines and translator of The Path of Purification -- was immediately interned again.

Along with the other arrested Germans in Ceylon (Sri Lanka), 44 men altogether, they were brought to Colombo (capital of Sri Lanka) and kept there for a short time before being sent to the internment camp in Diyatalāva, just like in 1914, and there they remained for over two years.

Nanatiloka + Nanaponika (Gueth + Feniger)

Women were not interned, and Sister Uppalavaṇṇā stayed on in Variyagoda. She acquired the property from Govinda in 1945 and stayed there until the 1970s, when she moved to a cave near Kandy, Sri Lanka.

In the camp in Diyatalāva, with the help of Ñāṇamālita, Ñāṇatiloka finally managed to finish his German translation of the Buddhist Visuddhimagga ("The Path of Purification"). He had already done the first seven of the 23 chapters in the Island Hermitage in Polgasduwa, Sri Lanka, in 1927. A cyclostyled edition of 100 books was published.

The best Buddhist dictionary available (free)

When the Japanese occupied Singapore on Feb. 15, 1942, Ceylon was declared a war zone, and all Germans were brought to India -- including Ñāṇatiloka together with seven other German monks. They were taken by ship from Colombo to Bombay and from there by train to the Central Internment Camp near the town of Dehra Dun in north-western India, where they arrived in March 1942.

This internment camp was the biggest one in India, with several thousand inhabitants. It was situated on the upper reaches of the Ganges River, north of New Delhi, up among the fore-mountains (foothills) of the Himalayas and surrounded by tea plantations.

Dehra Dun Valley from Landour, Uttarakhand, India, Nov. 2010, Doon Valley (wiki)

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Somewhat higher on the mountains was the hill station of Mussoorie. The area reminded Ñāṇatiloka of his stay in the Tessin in southern Switzerland in 1910. The barrack camp was surrounded by a double barbed-wire fence.

The British were fighting a hopeless war against the white termites that were continually eating up the wooden fence poles. Within this fence there were eight separate camp wings, each again surrounded by barbed wire, which housed different groups of people.

Of the four wings that were for the Germans, one was for anti-National Socialists, and three for the Nazis. Of these three German Nazi wings, one wing was for Germans from India and Ceylon, one for Germans from Indonesia, and one for all other remaining.

The first of the other four wings was inhabited by Italian generals arrested in North Africa (who were further divided into fascist and anti-fascist sections), the second wing was for Italian Catholic missionaries, the third for others, and the fourth one was the hospital wing.

Dehra Dun statue of Tara and stupa

The first German wing, Wing One, housed the so-called “Bara Sahibs” (“Big Sahibs”), that is, members of the upper class, such as representatives of German companies, independent traders, doctors, missionaries (among whom were at first the Buddhist monks), teachers, and scientists, such as the members of the Nanga-Parbat mountaineering expedition.

The second German wing housed the so-called “Sumatra Heinis,” the German rubber planters who had been arrested by the Dutch on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. For most Germans who had been in other camps, the conditions in this camp seem to have been more humane than those camps run by the Dutch, Japanese, or Russians. The barracks were well built, and the fresh air from the mountains was pleasant. However, for the Germans from Ceylon things were different.

Robber's Cave, Dehra Dun (wiki)

In Diyatalāva, Sri Lanka, they had been living in relative luxury with their own rooms and good food, but now the German monks were living in barracks and tents. The internees were treated properly by the British, as they were cautious to preserve the natives’ esteem for the whites.

The camp was like a little town with a cinema, a soccer field, and two tennis courts. There was a workshop, library, hospital, a canteen, an orchestra, and even a school with authorization to give diplomas. Many internees kept animals and made gardens in front of their barracks.

The internees were also given holidays once or twice a week on word of honor [not to escape], so that they could go for walks in the beautiful surroundings. The German Buddhists were not all in the same wing. Ñāṇatiloka and Vappo stayed in the “Bara sahib wing,” while Ñāṇaponika together with Ñāṇakhetta and his brother Ñāṇamālita, were in the “anti-Nazi wing.”

The Path of Purification (in English)

Govinda had been brought from another camp in India earlier on. Although Govinda was not a German anymore and had British citizenship, he was interned in 1940 due to his associations with “persons of anti-British sympathies,” that is, with the Nehru family.

At first there was no place for Ñāṇaponika and the two other monks in the anti-Nazi wing and they had to wait for half a year in Wing One before they could join Govinda in his barrack.

Why did Ñāṇatiloka stay in Wing One? There appear to be several reasons for this. One ought to take into account that Ñāṇatiloka had grown up in a nationalistic, upper-class family during the founding years of modern Germany.

When he returned in 1919–1920 to the so-called Weimar Republic, he only found chaos and the subversive activities of the Communists. Furthermore, he had repeatedly experienced the extreme anti-German attitude of the British, who treated him as a spy. For six years after WWI, they did not allow him to come back to Ceylon.

Perhaps due to these negative experiences he preferred to stay on the side of the German government. He definitely did not harbor anti-Jewish feelings because his disciples Ñāṇaponika, Ñāṇakhetta, and Ñāṇamālita were of Jewish origin, and he had Jewish friends in his youth.

Nazis had caused troubles for him at the Island Hermitage, Sri Lanka, in 1939, and it is quite unlikely that he had an affinity for Nazism. It is also to be noted that Wing One’s official name was not “Nazi Wing” and was not solely inhabited by Nazis because even Ven. Ñāṇaponika, who had a Jewish background, stayed there initially.

Dem Guts bikini (Nyanatusita/Google+)

Like the Australian camp Ñāṇatiloka stayed in during WWI, the wing he stayed in was for upper class Germans such as managers, officials, and so on. However, because many of its inmates were Nazi sympathizers and because these inmates had a large influence in this wing, it got to be called this way by the anti-Nazi wing.

The relative comfort and smooth organization of the “Big Sahib” wing, where he could get his own room and privacy, was probably the decisive factor that made him stay there, rather than at the anti-Nazi wing where he would have had to stay in a barrack and where things were not so well organized.

His 1920 experience of the journey to Colombo on the ship with the disorganized and disobedient Communist crew would have put him off. In terms of the Buddhist monk’s monastic discipline (Pāṭimokkha), there is no fault in talking to unvirtuous persons and teaching them Dharma.

If they are requested, Buddhist monks are even allowed to stay and teach for a few days in army camps near battle fields. In any case, Ñāṇatiloka stayed on in Wing One together with the loyal Vappo. On the other hand, Ven. Ñāṇaponika, as a Jewish victim of Nazism had firsthand experience of harassment by Nazis. More + PHOTOS at the very bottom