We Killed Some, We Loved SomeM. R. HUNTZINGER

SHE certainly didn't look like the Ger-man women whom we had readabout before the war. She wastiny and slim, gray and wrinkled,

about five feet two inches tall and weighedabout a hundred pounds. Her sparklingeyes were sharp and expressive, and shewas quick, scarcely stooped and very spryfor a woman of such age. Her name wasBetsy Holtzendoner. She was seventy-fiveyears old, a widow and the mother of fivechildren.

Betsy, or Granny as I remember her,had two sons. Both had been German pilots.The youngest, Kile, had died after beingshot down during the Normandy invasion,and Donard, the other, was a Russian pri-soner of war.

During the week of ThanksgiVing, inNovember of 1944, our regiment was with-drawn from the front for a five-day rest.A rest camp had been constructed for ouruse in Berg, B'elgium. That is how I metGranny Holtzendoner and her daughter.

Every house in the little village wasprepared to house a few of us. We weretold that the residents were peaceful andthat they had been instructed concerningour arrival.

Five of us shouldered our equipmentand headed for the house with numberfourteen, which had been assigned us. We&plashed up a muddy little path until wesaw the number tacked on the pine-knotteddoor. Sam, our squad leader, knockedlightly and surveyed the old house atten-trvely. We waited, and the door slowlycreaked open.

There she stood, a black shawl draped"round her narrow shoulders, smilingbroadly, with deep dimples sinking into her

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ruddy cheeks. We stood fast. Foolishlyagog, we gazed at her as if she were aghost. She spoke softly and motioned forus to' come in.

In spite of fighting through France,Belgium and part of Germany, we hadnever stood face to face with a Germancivilian before. Of Course we had seenthem moving about, but we had alwaysbeen instructed to regard them as danger-ous enemies. Somehow this had flashedthrough my mind when the little old ladyfirst appeared before me.

Nevertheless, it didn't take long for usto become well acquainted. She remindedus so much of our own grandmothers thatwe called her "Granny" from our first intro-duction. Shorty Himelrich, a little Dutch-man from Germantown, Pennsylvania,ouickly put us all at' ease by formallyintroducing each of us in his broken Dutch.The little lady was greatly pleased that shebad some one that she could talk to.

On arriving at Granny's we were dirty,unshaven, wet and tired. I know we musthave smelled of filth, but neither she norher daughter let it bother them. Worn andrepulsive looking, we felt terribly inferior,but they were very understanding.

She heated water for us to shave, got useach a dry pair of stockings, fired the littlekitchen stove to a cherry glow, and thenushered us to the upstairs bed room. Itwassmall, with only one wooden bed, but itwas neatly made with clean linen andpatched blankets. When she found thatthree of us were going to sleep on it, shecoolly scratched her head, smiled inquisi-tively and descended the stairs. Three of usslept crossways on th~ J?(!d,and two menslept on the tloor.

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We put our weapons, ammunition,extra equipment and soiled blankets in onecorner and piled odds and ends in theothers. The room looked like a hobo heavenwnen we were finally settled. Grannymust have been amazed by this but shenever mentioned it.

A kitchen had been arranged by therest-camp cooks to furnish us two meals aday. That night we enjoyed the first warmmeal that we had eaten in two months.After chow, we all went back to Granny's",nd this was when we really got to know

and love her.It was almost dark when we returned

to the house and she had the kitchen firegoing full blast. She lighted a small kero-sene lamp, placed it on the table and went:J.bout finishing her work. We started apoker game and played steadily for abouttwo hours. Granny watched timidly andfinally we dealt her in. She caught on fast,Lut when we quit playing she owed useverything but the clothes on her back.She was frightened after she learned thisand we threatened to take her cows, chick-ens and tame rabbits for reparation of herdebts. Finally she saw we were joking, butshe never played poker with us again.

Our days were spent in writing letters,playing cards, reading, sleeping and doinga few details that were sent down from thec. o. However, the memorable things werethe words and doing of Granny.

On our second night we bathed, gaveeach other haircuts and went to bed early.Granny collected our dirty clothing andshe and her daughter, Lena, washed, driedand ironed it for us before morning.

The next night, through Shorty's inter-preting, we learned all about Germany andthe little rural village. In the fifty yearsthat she had lived in Berg, the little villagehad been forced by German boarder mfli-tary officials to surrender its rights as aBelgian village and serve Germany. She

related that various boarder conflicts hadcaused this to happen several times. Whenthe war broke out between Germany andRussia, the little village once again had togive up its rights as a Belgian possessionand serve Germany. When asked .abouther feelings toward Hitler's Nazi rule, shesaid, in effect, that Hitler had had theirrespect for many years, but after they sawthe war brewing from the result of hisgreed for power, they looked upon him astreacherous and immoral.

One night after one of our long andinteresting fireside conversations, Grannycarried her spinning wheel into the kitchenplaced her antique spectacles loosely on he;nose and prepared to spin. It was the firsttime any of us had had an opportunity tosee this.

We gathered around closely, moved thelamp so that she could see and had thepleasure of watching the community's old-est and most efficient spinning artist. Lay-ing the bag of loose wool at her feet, shegrasped a small tuft of it, pulled a fewstrands between her thumbs and fingers,hooked it over a small nail on an apparatusof the spinning wheel and pumped the floorpedal rhythmically with her right foot. Asthe wheel turned, she continued stretchingand twisting the strands of wool betweenbel' thumbs and forefingers. Once her taskwas started, she never looked at the wheel,but looked around at us, or talked or evenread her prayer book to break the whirlingmonotony of the wooden wheel. Her daugh-ter darned and knitted the spun yarn intostockings and other needed 'garments almostas fas as Granny could spin it.

Every morning Granny would get upfor five o'clock mass, milk her cows, feedher chickens and rabbits and then getbreakfast. Lena did the fuel gathering,the shopping, house cleaning and most ofthe laundering and scrubbing. She wasvery quiet and spent most of her time

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sewing, reading and cooking. She wasn'tpretty but she was clean, robust andextremely handy at everything. At firstshe acted like she was uneasy in ourpresence. However, she quickly becameinterested in our different manners andhurnerous acts. Although it seemed toembarrass her, she often would burst outlaughing at us because of them. The thingthat struck her funny was Shorty's imita-tion of "Snafu The Detective." Placing hishelmet sideways on his head, he would tip-toe into the room, make a gesture for every-one to be very quiet, sneak by the windows,crawl under chairs and furniture, spythrough the keyholes, rummage through allthe cabinets and drawers, look behind pic-tures and calendars and then stop and actvery puzzled. After doing this a coupleof times he would prepare to make his exit.Silently sneaking between chairs and otherturntture, he would creep toward the door,reach for the knob and stumble over a rug.His fall would actually jar the house, muchto Lena's hilarious amusement. He couldalso give various bird calls, blow enormoussmoke rings, crack his knuckles, wiggle hisears, look cross-eyed, make his tongue dis-appear, do card tricks and change his facialexpression into a dozen different types. Allof these things pleased Lena and Grannyvery much and Shorty always had some-thing to do that would make them laugh.

It rained practically all the time westayed at Granny's. It was cold and muddy,and we had feverish colds. She mixed someherbs, extracts, spices and wine into oneof the best cough remedies that I evertasted. We took it as she prescribed beforegoing to bed. The next morning she hadus take the same dose again. It worked\~i"ondersfor us without the bad effects of a"hangover."

The day before Thanksgiving, severalof the fellows received Christmas packagesfrom home. They opened and displayed

their contents with nervous hands, strew-ing the wrappings and cords over the floorlike children. They offered Granny every-thing from sewing kits to candy sticks, butshe lowered her head in her chaffed handsand wept chokingly. In spite of her cour-age and usual cheerfulness, she was likeall mothers. The packages brought backsad memories of both her dead son andbel' captured one. She had written and sentDonard many packages, but she was afraidhe had never received them. Even know-ing of the Germans and their mad efforts,I couldn't help being sorry for her and herson.

Thanksgiving Day proved to be themost memorable day of all. Granny hadreturned from mass and was stirringaround the kitchen when we arose. Shewas humming and seemed very happy andcheerful. Shorty was putting wood on thefire, carrying out ashes; he looked as if hebad been up for an hour or so. He waswhistling and also acted extra excited aboutsomething. As soon as the coffee began toperk, we knew what was coming off. ThenLena took a large white cake from thecabinet and Granny placed two lovelypumpkin pies in the oven. We were notguessing now. It was very plain. Onenight while Shorty was on guard duty hehad stolen some sugar and other suppliesfrom the rest-camp mess tent and hid themin our room. He and Granny were theonly ones who knew about this untilThanksgiving Day. With the stolen goods,food from our packages and her own con-tribution of dairy products, Granny pre-pared one of the finest meals I have evereaten. We gathered around the littlewarped table, bowed our heads; and aftermaking the sign of the cross, she said ashort prayer. We ate like starved men,loosening our belts to the last notch.

That afternoon we left for the frontlines again. We dreaded to leave. Granny

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stood at the door with tears streaming downher cheeks. I wanted to grab her in myarms and hug her, but instead I swallowedthe dry lump in my throat, smiled andstarted splashing down the path. As soon

2S we heard the door close, Shorty spoke."Ain't it hell" he said, "we kill some, welove some." "Yeah" the squad leader an-swered, "God never meant it this way."

HollywoodismFRANK SLUPESKY

(The reader is asked to imagine himselfIiving in another part of the world in theyear 9,948 A. D. reading a book about thehistory of civilization. Please bear also inmind that this is not meant in all respects

DUE to recent excavations of ourarcheologists in the area whichwas known to the Americans asSouthern California, we have

every reason to believe that one city in thisarea was quite similar in materialisticsplendor to the city of Babylon, which justa few thousand years before flourished inAsia Minor. Our excavators agree that thiscity, called Hollywood, was the center ofthe curious craft of motion picture making.This is a significant fact since the motionpicture, rather than any other phase inAmerican life, epitomizes the shallownessto which American culture had degeneratedby the end of the second millennium A. D.

It seems that these films were made inHollywood and then distributed to all partsof the country so that not one Americanwas too distant from a theatre or temple tosee his favorite performers reflected on ascreen. Perhaps for many Americans, thisdevotion to motion pictures was a substitutefor religious fervor. A poll taken shortlybefore the terrible catastrophe befell theNorth Americans shows that about one-halfof the population were members of some

to be a definition of the American motionpicture as we know it, but rather a defmi-Lon which could be inferred from a fewarcheological facts which the people livingen earth 8,000 years hence might uncover.)

branch of the Christian belief, but only asmall portion of that one-half actively par-ticipated in their religion. That the motionpictures were somewhat of a substitute forreligious devotion is shown by the specta-tors who, upon seeing a favorite on thescreen, would sometimes scream or swoon.The sight of a movie celebrity in personcaused an even increased furor. On morethan one occasion actors by the names ofSinatra and Johnson were thoroughlymauled due to the ecstatic outbursts ofmovie fans who had the great honor of see-ing in person these revered individuals. Asa result most dignitaries travelled incognito.

The leaders of this cult of Hollywood-ists led lives not entirely unlike that of theGreek gods and goddesses. Certainly, theywere equally as promiscuous. A celebrityseldom lived more than a year or two withthe same mate. They made marriage vows,the same as did the rest of the Americans,but it seems that these vows could be in-val idated at the slightest provocation. Thesecelebrities were given by their patronsfabulous riches. In the year 1947, for in-stance, seven out of the ten largest salaries

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