A knock at the door 62 years ago is something Carl Zander remembers to this day.
Actually, it was someone pounding on the door of the boxcar where Zander and two other GIs were trying to stay warm after their train stopped during its retreat from Seoul in 1950 during the Korean War.
It was Christmas Eve.
There stood a mother and her three young children, shivering in their threadbare clothes, seeking shelter. He remembers the look: "The mother looked at us with pleading eyes asking for some help," said Zander, a retired Rochester public school teacher.
It wasn't much of a shelter, Zander said, but it was better than being out in the sub-zero temperatures as snow fell. The soldiers had loaded furniture and communications equipment into the boxcar as they quickly left Seoul. Now the furniture was being broken into pieces to fuel a fire in a 50-gallon drum inside the train car to keep the men warm.
"The sight of the boy with signs of ringworm on his head; the girl with cataracts in each eye and the crying baby was overwhelming," said Zander, an Army Reservist who was called back to service in the fall of 1950, just two weeks into a new teaching job at Battle Lake, Minn.
Soldiers had been warned to not assist the refugees, but the soldiers hoisted the family into the boxcar. Communication was hard, and the children huddled with their mother in the corner. It was warm, but smoky.
"We had a 50-gallon barrel in the center of the car — there was no chimney, only a few holes in the ceiling and a 6-inch crack over each sliding door," Zander said.
But gradually, they coaxed the family to try some of their food. The soldiers had traded a couple of food packs with coffee and cigarettes to Australian soldiers, who had packs that included chocolate.
"We thought we'd have Australian beef, but it was all gristle, just damn gristle," Zander said. "The kids tried it, but it made them sick."
Eventually, all of them fell asleep.
"When I awakened on Christmas morning, I found a sleeping baby in my arms and a small boy huddled up against me," Zander said. "We were covered with soot and were cold."
The train started to lurch forward, so they had to put the family out, but they handed them cookies, chocolate and canned food, hoping they'd be able to keep it but fearing others would take it from them.
On this Christmas, the Hankinson, N.D., native and his wife, Marian, will gather in a warm house full of people. The couple has three sons and a daughter, plus 10 grandkids. But Zander's mind still drifts back to that night in Korea.
"It's funny, 62 years later, I don't remember the names of the two GIs with me, but I'll never forget the Christmas Eve with those refugees and especially that baby boy," Zander said. "I still see those brown eyes and slight smile every Christmas Eve.
"I wonder what happened to that family. There were thousands like them in 1950."
No comments:
Post a Comment