Wiltz, Christmas, 1944 -- ii

There was a lull, and that's when it all began, just a week before St. Nicholas Day. As you might guess, the idea of doing something for the kids swelled like a clear blue sky. They'd get something approximating a costume from the local priest, dress a couple of little girls up like angels, put the three of them in a jeep, get the teachers to call off school, and run through the town as if there were no fighting anywhere. A real holiday celebration, as if there were no war.

The men scrounged through their aid packets for all the chocolate and goodies they could muster. The company cooks made donuts and cake, and Harry Stutz's hair-brained idea blossomed, mid-winter, into the biggest celebration the town had since the Nazi occupation had begun, when any and all celebrations ceased under penalty of law. 

The 28th Division, torn-up and tattered from horrible conflicts through France, did something extraordinary: they threw a St. Nick party not to be believed or forgotten by a host of thrilled kiddies from Wiltz. And it was huge. Even invites, printed up beautifully. "The 28th Signal Corps. . .is happy to have the children of Wiltz as their guests for our Santa Claus Party On Tuesday, December 5, 1944."

Stutz's buddy Cpl. Richard Brookins got talked into playing the central role, outfitted in broad, white robe, the bishop's mitre aboard his noggin--way too tight, Brookins said. There they went, up and down the streets of the village, a pied piper in a Santa Claus beard (a mop), collecting children, all of them perfectly wide-eyed.

The whole thing was not to be believed, but to be loved. Stutz, the Jewish guy, pulled it off, the whole thing, one big party for the sweetheart children of a war-torn village at the foot of a forest soon to be in the line of fire for bloody hostilities. 

Richard Brookins loved it, relished every moment of the party, replayed every last gift in his mind and heart, played the role like a saint, and when it was over was perfectly thrilled--but somehow disappointed because it seemed no one recognized him, no one knew it was him beneath all that wardrobe. When it was over, no one said a thing.

But if you know the story, you can't help thinking his remarkable anonymity that cloudy December day was verifiable proof of the success of the idea a Jewish man named Stutz had created. To the kids--and even to his buddies--for a couple of hours, far from home, Richard Brookins hadn't been Cpl. Brookins at all. To everyone around town, he'd been Santa Claus, for real.

There would be much more war to come in just a few days. Hitler threw everything he had at the woods where there'd been a lull, everything, pulled out all the stops, even took some of his best troops from the Eastern Front. The Battle of the Bulge ensued; thousands would die in the biggest single battle of the war.

But for one solitary day--and for years and years thereafter--everyone who was there remembered the astounding day St. Nicholas came up the streets of town giving away candy in a jeep. It was--and in Wiltz still is--a Christmas to remember.