Around 5 years ago the guy who was in the office next door to mine at work got promoted to Director. With the promotion he became my boss and before he even moved offices he instructed me that I was the new safety man for our division. What more could a man ask for, right? Well part of my duties is quarterly meetings which address safety topics that the people who know best want us to know. I do it through email, and I always try to put a little tidbit of Americana into the email to make it more interesting and worth reading. The story below is one that happened on a bitterly cold Christmas Day in WWII. Merry Christmas to everyone here and a special thanks goes out to the veterans and active duty military who afford us the luxury of peaceful christmases in warm houses. Take care and I hope you like the story.
Another year has flown by and we find once again we are nearing Christmas. We have so much to be grateful for and hopefully you and your family are doing well. Even though we are enjoying a peaceful year this year, there have been many times in the US and the world over where we have not had peaceful Christmases. During both World Wars Christmas day was treated like any other day, and there were no time for presents or celebration. Even though this was the case a majority of the time there were instances where there were some truces on Christmas. The most famous happened in 1914 during WWI. British, French and Germans put down their weapons and met in no man’s land and exchanged gifts, food and stories. The practice was severely frowned upon by the generals, so in the future severe punishment was handed out for fraternizing with the enemy. The other well documented mingling of soldiers happened in 1944 during the Battle of the Bulge. On Christmas Eve Three American soldiers, one with severe injuries, were lost in the Ardennes Forest and stumbled upon a hunting cabin in the thick woods. They knocked on the door and were met by Elisabeth Vincken and her son. She did not speak English and the Americans did not speak German, so communicating was tough. They both knew some French so they were able to communicate enough to let her know they were lost and almost frozen and meant no harm to them. They just needed shelter until the morning and then they would leave. As the night wore on she cooked a chicken and potatoes and had planned for a peaceful night when there was another knock on the door. Thinking that it was more lost Americans they opened the door and were shocked to see four German soldiers. Knowing that they could be shot for sheltering the Americans, Elisabeth greeting the Germans and closed the door behind her, hiding the Americans. She then told the soldiers about the Americans and how one was wounded and they were freezing just like the Germans were. The soldiers stared hard at her and she firmly told them “Esist Heiligabend und hier wird nicht geschossen” ”It is the holy night and there will be no shooting here” She told them to leave their weapons outside and then they followed her in. She made the Americans do the same. The meal started out tense, but as the night wore on things relaxed and in short a good night was had by all. In the morning the troops awoke and thanked the host and each group headed outside to gather their weapons and head back to their respective camps. The ranking German even gave the Americans a compass to use to find their way back. To make this story even more fascinating, the son of the cabin owner survived the war and eventually moved from Germany to Hawaii and opened a bakery. Through the years, as he ran his bakery, he would often think about the Americans that found their way to his parent’s cabin on that cold Christmas Eve. As luck would have it he was watching Unsolved Mysteries and they ran a story on one of the men who were at the cabin that night. When the bakery owner realized this was the same man that showed up on Christmas Eve he hoped on a plane and flew all the way to Maryland to visit him. When the baker met the old GI at the nursing home they were overcome with joy and reminisced about their chance encounter back in 1944. To the baker’s amazement the old man still had the compass and map that was given to him by the ranking German on that very cold Christmas day. Now that you’ve had a short history lesson, go fourth and spread random acts of kindness throughout the Christmas season and appreciate the peaceful times we are living in compared to that cold day in 1944.
Another year has flown by and we find once again we are nearing Christmas. We have so much to be grateful for and hopefully you and your family are doing well. Even though we are enjoying a peaceful year this year, there have been many times in the US and the world over where we have not had peaceful Christmases. During both World Wars Christmas day was treated like any other day, and there were no time for presents or celebration. Even though this was the case a majority of the time there were instances where there were some truces on Christmas. The most famous happened in 1914 during WWI. British, French and Germans put down their weapons and met in no man’s land and exchanged gifts, food and stories. The practice was severely frowned upon by the generals, so in the future severe punishment was handed out for fraternizing with the enemy. The other well documented mingling of soldiers happened in 1944 during the Battle of the Bulge. On Christmas Eve Three American soldiers, one with severe injuries, were lost in the Ardennes Forest and stumbled upon a hunting cabin in the thick woods. They knocked on the door and were met by Elisabeth Vincken and her son. She did not speak English and the Americans did not speak German, so communicating was tough. They both knew some French so they were able to communicate enough to let her know they were lost and almost frozen and meant no harm to them. They just needed shelter until the morning and then they would leave. As the night wore on she cooked a chicken and potatoes and had planned for a peaceful night when there was another knock on the door. Thinking that it was more lost Americans they opened the door and were shocked to see four German soldiers. Knowing that they could be shot for sheltering the Americans, Elisabeth greeting the Germans and closed the door behind her, hiding the Americans. She then told the soldiers about the Americans and how one was wounded and they were freezing just like the Germans were. The soldiers stared hard at her and she firmly told them “Esist Heiligabend und hier wird nicht geschossen” ”It is the holy night and there will be no shooting here” She told them to leave their weapons outside and then they followed her in. She made the Americans do the same. The meal started out tense, but as the night wore on things relaxed and in short a good night was had by all. In the morning the troops awoke and thanked the host and each group headed outside to gather their weapons and head back to their respective camps. The ranking German even gave the Americans a compass to use to find their way back. To make this story even more fascinating, the son of the cabin owner survived the war and eventually moved from Germany to Hawaii and opened a bakery. Through the years, as he ran his bakery, he would often think about the Americans that found their way to his parent’s cabin on that cold Christmas Eve. As luck would have it he was watching Unsolved Mysteries and they ran a story on one of the men who were at the cabin that night. When the bakery owner realized this was the same man that showed up on Christmas Eve he hoped on a plane and flew all the way to Maryland to visit him. When the baker met the old GI at the nursing home they were overcome with joy and reminisced about their chance encounter back in 1944. To the baker’s amazement the old man still had the compass and map that was given to him by the ranking German on that very cold Christmas day. Now that you’ve had a short history lesson, go fourth and spread random acts of kindness throughout the Christmas season and appreciate the peaceful times we are living in compared to that cold day in 1944.
