JAMES W. KING: Exhibiting the golden rule

The way to have a friend is to be a friend. In 1945, two years before I was born, German POWs were brought out to work on my father’s farm in rural Irwin County to harvest peanuts.

The first day, my father saw them jump off the trailer which was being pulled by a tractor. They began eating green pears that were nowhere near ripe. He knew they were hungry.

Every day they were brought into the house (against the rules) and fed dinner at noon. The last day, they ate homemade ice cream prepared by my mother along with the big meal (cooked on a wood stove). They said it had been six years since they had gotten to sit at a table and eat.

They gave my mother an album with pictures of each one to keep so it could not be taken, lost or destroyed. I have that photo album. They were not Nazis, just young and middle-aged men drafted into the German army.

They were moved to Mr. Fletcher’s Irwin County farm nearby to help harvest peanuts. One middle-aged German POW was named Paul. On the last day at that farm, he got the truck driver to stop and asked my mother to write his brother in New York and tell him he was OK. My mother did. Paul could not speak English, so another POW explained to my mother about writing. When the truck stopped and my mother walked out to meet it, she said, “I see Paul” and he was grinning ear to ear.

One German POWs, Eric Kunzman, and my mother exchanged Christmas cards until they both died about 1983. Eric always signed the card he sent “Your Grateful Eric.” Around 1970, my sister went to Germany and met him and his family. We still have contact with his daughter Magdalene.

My mother received letters of appreciation from several of the others after they were back in Germany, but she never heard from Paul. She assumed he was from the area Russia took over.

My mother acted according to the Golden Rule. She said she treated them as she would have wanted her brothers treated if they had been captured. Her brothers — my uncles — were U.S. Marines fighting Japan and fortunately they were not captured.

JAMES W. KING

Albany