When One Person Reaches Out With Love
This was from the English textbook I use with my Korean university students:
Yevgeny Yevtushenko, one of the most loved Russian poets, transmitted a notable description of a transforming moment. In 1944, Yevtushenko's mother took him from Siberia to Moscow. They were among those who witnessed a procession of twenty thousand German war prisoners marching through the streets of Moscow.
When One Person Reaches Out With Love
By Yevgeny Yevtushenko
The pavements swarmed with onlookers, cordoned off by soldiers and police.
The crowd was mostly women - Russian women with hands roughened by hard work, lips untouched by lipstick and with thin, hunched shoulders which had borne half of the burden of the war. Every one of them must have had a father or a husband, a brother or a son killed by the Germans.
They gazed with hatred in the direction from which the column was to appear.
At last they saw it.
The generals marched at the head, massive chins stuck out, lips folded disdainfully, their whole demeanor meant to show superiority over their plebeian victors.
"They smell of eau-de-cologne, the bastards," someone in the crowd said with hatred.
The women were clenching their fists. The soldiers and policemen had all they could do to hold them back.
All at once something happened to them.
They saw German soldiers, thin, unshaven, wearing dirty, bloodstained bandages, hobbling on crutches or leaning on the shoulders of their comrades; the soldiers walked with their heads down.
The street became dead silent - the only sound was the shuffling of boots and the thumping of crutches.
Then I saw an elderly woman in broken-down boots push herself forward and touch a policeman's shoulder, saying: "Let me through." There must have been something abut her that made him step aside.
She went up to the column, took from inside her coat something wrapped in a colored handkerchief and unfolded it. It was a crust of black bread. She pushed it awkwardly into the pocket of a soldier, so exhausted that he was tottering on his feet. And now suddenly from every side women were running towards the soldiers, pushing into their hands bread, cigarettes, whatever they had.
The soldiers were no longer enemies.
They were people.
This was from the English textbook I use with my Korean university students:
Yevgeny Yevtushenko, one of the most loved Russian poets, transmitted a notable description of a transforming moment. In 1944, Yevtushenko's mother took him from Siberia to Moscow. They were among those who witnessed a procession of twenty thousand German war prisoners marching through the streets of Moscow.
When One Person Reaches Out With Love
By Yevgeny Yevtushenko
The pavements swarmed with onlookers, cordoned off by soldiers and police.
The crowd was mostly women - Russian women with hands roughened by hard work, lips untouched by lipstick and with thin, hunched shoulders which had borne half of the burden of the war. Every one of them must have had a father or a husband, a brother or a son killed by the Germans.
They gazed with hatred in the direction from which the column was to appear.
At last they saw it.
The generals marched at the head, massive chins stuck out, lips folded disdainfully, their whole demeanor meant to show superiority over their plebeian victors.
"They smell of eau-de-cologne, the bastards," someone in the crowd said with hatred.
The women were clenching their fists. The soldiers and policemen had all they could do to hold them back.
All at once something happened to them.
They saw German soldiers, thin, unshaven, wearing dirty, bloodstained bandages, hobbling on crutches or leaning on the shoulders of their comrades; the soldiers walked with their heads down.
The street became dead silent - the only sound was the shuffling of boots and the thumping of crutches.
Then I saw an elderly woman in broken-down boots push herself forward and touch a policeman's shoulder, saying: "Let me through." There must have been something abut her that made him step aside.
She went up to the column, took from inside her coat something wrapped in a colored handkerchief and unfolded it. It was a crust of black bread. She pushed it awkwardly into the pocket of a soldier, so exhausted that he was tottering on his feet. And now suddenly from every side women were running towards the soldiers, pushing into their hands bread, cigarettes, whatever they had.
The soldiers were no longer enemies.
They were people.
Redeemed by Our Savior, I work out my salvation with fear and trembling in Pohang, South Korea, where I live with my wife, daughter, and son and teach English at a science and technology university. Baptized a Methodist and raised a Missouri Synod Lutheran in Buffalo, NY, I spent six years as a guest of the Anglican Communion before being received by the Grace of God into the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church on the Feast of Saint Andrew, my patron, anno domini 2002.
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