Where Is God in War? For Some, in “Bread Rosaries”

"These bread rosary stories give at least one answer to where God can be found during the horrific tragedy of war: in rosaries made of bread."

From Aleteia

By Jenny Lark Snarski

Prisoners of war held on to the beads, knowing that not even the power of hell can cut the cords of love between the Blessed Mother and her people.

Memorial Day is observed in the United States on the last Monday of May, honoring fallen service members. Bridging the holiday that celebrates the dedication and sacrifices of servicemen and women, and many others affected by war — particularly as priests and civilians prisoners — with the month of May’s special honoring of Mary, these bread rosary stories give at least one answer to where God can be found during the horrific tragedy of war: in rosaries made of bread. 

Numerous witnesses of faith from the 20th century have served to inspire holiness and reflect the importance of clinging to faith -- from prisoners of war in World War II who held secret prayer groups and Bible studies, to Vietnam War POWs using covert “tap codes” for sharing Scripture through cell walls.

“Bread rosaries” are another way Catholic POWs of both those wars literally held -- and shared -- their faith in captivity. 

On April 17, Andrew Biggio, Marine veteran, Boston cop, and WWII story collector and author, shared a video from an amazing day with former POW Bill Arcuri. 

In the clip, viewed more than 635,000 times, Arcuri — who was shot down in his B-52 in 1972 — holds up one of these bread rosaries made by a fellow captive at the infamous Hanoi Hilton. For this Catholic, making these rosaries was “what he did,” Arcuri told Biggio. 

“We got a piece of bread in the morning to eat for breakfast, and he would take part of that and make it, pull the string from his blanket and make this rosary… He stole the pen with ink and he colored it.”

Arcuri explained that “as new POWs would come in who were Catholic, he would risk his punishment by going over to the cell and throwing it into the window” for them. 

Commenters on the video shared many personal recollections of users’ family members who served during 20th-century wars or were refugees from Europe. From the post shared to Facebook, one user commented that he was one of those who had been passed “the most powerful weapon.”

Jeremiah Denton was also a POW in Vietnam, shot down in 1965 and held for 7 years and 7 months. After retiring from the U.S. Navy as a Rear Admiral, Denton was elected to serve in the Senate from 1981-1987. As reported here, in 1999, he told the Diocese of Brooklyn’s Catholic newspaper, The Tablet, that the strength to survive imprisonment came ultimately from his Catholic faith. 

“If it hadn’t been for the Rosary, I would have lost my sanity… It held my mind together,” Denton said. (His 1975 memoir, When Hell Was in Session, was made into a movie in 1979.)

There are various similar bread rosaries:

One made by American POW Commander Paul Schultz in Vietnam is displayed at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force near Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio. It was given to the museum by then-Brig. Gen. John P. Flynn. The senior ranking officer among the American POWs had been given the rosary by Schultz and was able to smuggle it out upon his release. He told the museum, “It was made from bread which was shaped and then colored with ink — which incidentally, was not normally available. It takes a few days for the bread to harden. String was then taken from a cotton blanket to actually ‘string’ the cross and beads into the rosary.”

The museum was particularly grateful to receive this rosary as they noted North Vietnamese officials normally confiscated religious effects.

After flying 150 missions, Schultz was shot down in 1967 by a surface-to-air missile. Held captive for 1,945 days, after his release he resumed his naval flying career as an instructor pilot. Schultz’s nephew shared his story in September 2023 and commented, “He is not one to speak about it very much. They would suspend him and beat him until he passed out but they never broke him.”

One for the Pope

Pope St. John Paul II was personally presented a bread rosary by Father Alphonsus Svarinskas, a Lithuanian priest who spent 21 years in Siberian labor camps, on October 4, 1988, during a Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica. He commented on this encounter in a 2014 interview for the Lithuania Tribute:

Everyone was presenting gifts for the Pope. Everyone brought gold and it would have not been appropriate for me, as a man from a labor camp, to bring gold. As a result, I brought a bread rosary and a wooden cross. This meant that, as long as there was some bread left in Siberia, there would be strong faith.

Father Svarinskas thanked God “that I was serving as a priest in Siberia where I was needed. I was always saying to the communists that they did one good thing — imprisoned the clergy.” He worked as a paramedic and listened to many, many confessions, sometimes doing so through the hole in the toilet. He went on to meet with Pope John Paul II 10 more times. 

Polish pianist Franciszka Studzinska was imprisoned at the Auschwitz concentration camp from December 1942 until her death in April 1943. A bread rosary she made is part of a collection at the Auscwitz-Birkenau State Museum. Although she was not Jewish, Studzinska was arrested for her opposition to the Nazis, as were many other Christians and Catholics. 

Deeply moved by the bread rosary artifact, a president of the Victims of Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation said, “Who ever at Auschwitz would have deprived herself of her highly rationed food for her body in order to feed her soul if she hadn’t believed in God and eternal life?”

A rosary made in the Ravensbruck camp, soaked in the blood of a mother and daughter brutally killed there, is kept in “The Catacombs” with numerous relics and other artifacts at the Holy Trinity Polish Mission in Chicago, Illinois.

It was donated on May 10, 1989, by Edwarda Dudek of Chicago. Dudek was at the camp with her late mother from 1944-1945. In her testimony, Dudek notes that a bread rosary was prayed with by Father Wladyslaw Govin, SChr, rector of the Holy Trinity Parish, “with the intention to pray to the Lord God Almighty, with intercession of Our Mother of God, to keep the world from wars” such as the Second World War with its degenerate tortures. 

Capuchin Franciscan friar Brother Richard Hendrick posted about bread rosaries made by Catholic prisoners in Nazi concentration camps, encouraging devotion to Our Lady and the power of the Rosary.

He shared:

“They made them from bread and thread from their clothes… They were starving and they gave up their tiny rations of bread to make the beads. They were freezing and they took threads from their clothes. They made rosaries knowing that to be found with them meant a beating, torture, or even death. But they held on to the beads.

“They held on because they knew that to hold on to the beads is to hold on to the hand of the Mother. They held on knowing that not even the power of hell can cut the cords of love between the Blessed Mother and her people. They held on to the beads knowing she was with them in her pain and in her sorrow and that she would be with them always. They held on to the beads when Mass was impossible and the Church looked like it would never live again. They held on to the beads as a witness to the power of faith, of hope, and of love to light the darkest of times. They held on to the beads and their testimony speaks to us down the ages. Whatever you are going through … hold on to the beads … Your Mother is holding on to you."

Pictured: Rosary made out of camp bread in Auschwitz