Pilot Ejected Over Enemy Territory.
Landed in a Stadium.
50,000 Germans Started Clapping
Imagine parachuting into enemy territory in the middle of a packed stadium with 50,000 Germans looking directly at you.
This pilot expected to be captured may be executed, but what happened next defied all the rules of war.
The Germans began to applaud.
This is the true story of one of the most surreal moments of World War II.
Stay until the end to discover how this pilot not only survived but became a legend respected by both sides of the conflict.
The date was August 9, 1942.
The sky over occupied France was filled with black smoke and the deafening roar of aircraft engines.
World War II was at its peak and the European skies had become the stage for brutal aerial battles between Allied forces and the Axis powers.
On that particular day, a young Royal Air Force pilot was about to experience something that would change his life forever.
His name was William Ash, but his comrades simply called him Bill.
He was only 22 years old, but he was already a seasoned veteran with numerous combat missions on his record.
Bill was piloting a Spitfire, the legendary British fighter known for its agility and speed.
His mission that day was to escort Allied bombers during a raid over Nazi occupied French territory.
It was a risky operation like all the others.
Every time he took off, Bill knew he might not return.
The fighting began quickly.
German Messersmid fighters appeared out of nowhere, diving from the clouds in attack formation.
The sky exploded in chaos.
Trails of smoke stre across the blue horizon as aircraft spun and fired in desperate maneuvers.
The roar of machine guns echoed everywhere.
Bill was skilled.
He maneuvered his Spitfire with precision, avoiding enemy attacks and returning fire.
For a few minutes, it seemed he would complete the mission and returned home.
But then, in a split second, everything changed.
A German projectile struck its engine.
The explosion was violent.
Black smoke began to pour from the front of the aircraft, and the control panel lit up with red warning lights.
Bill tried to maintain control, but the Spitfire began to lose altitude rapidly.
The engine sputtered and died.
It was falling.
There was no choice.
Bill needed to eject.
His heart racing and his hands trembling.
He unbuckled his seat belt, opened the hood, and threw himself out of the cabin.
The wind hit his face like a punch.
For a moment, he was in freef fall, the ground approaching dangerously fast.
Then he pulled the parachute.
The opening was abrupt, almost tearing his shoulders from their joints, but it worked.
The white fabric expanded above him, slowing his fall.
Bill hung from the harness, swaying gently in the air as he looked down.
That’s when he realized where he was falling.
It wasn’t an open field or a forest.
It was a city.
And not just any city.
Bill was descending directly toward a huge oval structure, a stadium, and it was packed.
Thousands of people filled the stands.
He could see their faces turned upward, watching him descend.
And then the terrible realization hit Bill like a lightning bolt.
He had ejected over occupied enemy territory.
Those people down there weren’t allies.
They were Germans and he was about to land right in the middle of them.
Time seemed to slow down as Bill Ash descended toward the stadium.
Each second felt like an eternity.
He could feel the cold wind against his face, hear the rustling of the parachute fabric above him, and see with increasing clarity the thousands of faces turned upward.
The stadium was hosting a sporting event.
Bill would later discover it was a football match between local French teams, but with a strong presence of German soldiers and Nazi officers in the crowd.
France was under German occupation, and public events like this were used as propaganda to show normality under the Nazi regime.
As he descended, Bill tried to steer the parachute away from the stadium.
He pulled on the cords, attempting to maneuver toward a less exposed location.
anywhere would be better than landing amidst tens of thousands of enemies.
But the parachute wasn’t responding well.
The wind was against him.
People in the stadium began to realize what was happening.
First, a few, then dozens, and finally thousands of heads turned to the sky.
The football match was interrupted.
The players stopped in the middle of the field and looked up.
The entire crowd was now focused on a single point, the British pilot falling from the sky.
Bill could see the expressions on the faces below.
Surprise, confusion, and on some recognition.
They knew he was an enemy pilot.
His RAF uniform was unmistakable, and everyone knew what happened to captured Allied pilots in Nazi territory.
Bill’s thoughts raced.
He’d received training on what to do if shot down over enemy territory.
Escape, hide, seek out the French resistance.
But how do you escape when you’re landing in the middle of 50,000 people? The ground was rapidly approaching.
Bill braced himself for impact.
He bent his knees, kept his feet together, and took a deep breath, and then with a dull thud, he hit the stadium turf.
The landing was hard, but he managed to roll to absorb the impact.
For a moment, Bill lay there on the grass, dazed and trying to catch his breath.
The parachute collapsed beside him, a white pile of fabric.
Then he heard the sound.
Absolute silence.
50,000 people completely silent.
No one shouted.
No one moved.
It was as if everyone was frozen.
Unable to process what they had just witnessed, Bill stood up slowly, his legs trembling, he looked around.
The entire stadium was staring at him.
German soldiers began to move in the stands, descending toward the field.
Nazi officers shouted orders.
The siege was closing in.
This was the moment Bill knew he would be captured.
There was no escape.
He was alone, unarmed, surrounded by thousands of enemies in occupied territory.
His war, at least for now, was over.
But then something extraordinary happened.
Something Bill Ash would never forget for the rest of his life.
Something that challenged everything he thought he knew about war, enemies, and human nature.
The silence was broken by a single sound, a clap of hands.
Then another and another and then like a wave that grows and engulfs everything in its path, the entire stadium erupted in applause.
50,000 people were applauding.
Germans, French soldiers, civilians, Nazi officers, and ordinary citizens all standing clapping for the young British pilot who had just fallen from the sky right in their midst.
Bill Ash stood paralyzed in the center of the field, completely stunned.
He couldn’t understand what was happening.
Was this a trap, a trick? Why were his enemies cheering? But the applause continued.
Some in the crowd began shouting words of encouragement.
Although Bill didn’t speak fluent German or French, his tone was unmistakable.
It wasn’t hostility.
It was admiration.
In that surreal moment, Bill realized something profound.
Those people weren’t seeing an enemy.
They were seeing a courageous pilot who had just survived something extraordinary.
They were witnessing a feat of courage and skill that transcended the boundaries of war.
World War II fighter pilots were held in high esteem, even by their enemies.
There was an unwritten code among aviators on both sides.
They fought in the sky, but they recognized each other’s courage.
It was different from infantry or other forms of combat.
There was something almost chivalous about aerial battles.
German soldiers arrived on the field and surrounded Bill.
He did not resist.
He raised his hands in surrender while the applause continued to echo through the stands.
The soldiers led him off the field, but even they seemed to respect the moment.
There was no brutality or violence.
It was almost ceremonial.
As he was being led out of the stadium, Bill looked back one last time.
The crowd was still standing.
Some were still applauding.
Others just watched with expressions of admiration.
It was one of the strangest and most emotional moments of his life.
Years later, Bill would describe that moment in interviews and memoirs.
He said that in that instant he realized that even in the midst of the most brutal war in history, there was room for humanity.
People could recognize courage and skill regardless of which side of the battle you were on.
But Bill’s ordeal was only beginning.
Being captured was just the first step.
Now he would face interrogations, prisoner of war camps, and the long terrible years of captivity.
The ovation in the stadium would be a precious memory, but it wouldn’t change his situation.
German soldiers led him to a military vehicle parked outside the stadium.
Bill was placed in the back seat between two armed guards.
The vehicle sped away from the stadium as the sound of applause finally faded into the distance.
Bill gazed out the window at the occupied French city passing by.
Old buildings, narrow streets, Nazi flags hanging everywhere.
This was now his world, enemy territory, and he was a prisoner.
But even as he faced an uncertain future, Bill couldn’t get that moment in the stadium out of his mind.
The applause, the respect, the shared humanity, even amidst the hatred of war.
Bill Ash was taken to a German interrogation center in the city of Le in northern France.
The building was gray and imposing with armed guards at each entrance in barred windows.
It was there that newly captured Allied prisoners of war were taken for initial interrogation.
The process was intimidating.
Bill was led through dark, cold corridors to a small windowless room.
A single lamp hung from the ceiling, casting harsh shadows on the bare walls.
A table and two chairs were the only furniture.
He was instructed to sit and wait.
The German interrogators were professionals.
They didn’t use physical violence, at least not initially.
Instead, they tried psychological techniques.
They asked questions about your unit, your superiors, your missions.
They tried to make you believe that other prisoners had already told everything, so there was no point in resisting.
But Bill had been trained for this.
The RAF guidelines were clear.
Name, rank, service number, and nothing more.
He repeated these three pieces of information whenever questioned, refusing to provide any further details.
It was frustrating for the interrogators, but Bill remained firm.
After several days of unsuccessful interrogation, Bill was finally transferred to a prisoner of war camp.
Not just any camp, but Staligl 3, one of the most famous camps of the war located in occupied Poland.
It was specifically designed to house captured Allied Air Force officers.
The arrival at the camp was a shock.
Barbed wire fences stretched in every direction.
Watchtowers with spotlights and machine guns monitored every movement.
German guards patrolled constantly.
But inside the camp, there was a vibrant community of prisoners who had created their own society.
Bill quickly discovered that many of the prisoners at Staliglo 3 did not passively accept their fate.
There was a culture of resistance.
Groups of prisoners constantly planned escapes.
They dug tunnels, forged documents, hid provisions, and created elaborate escape plans.
Bill joined these efforts immediately.
He had an indomitable spirit and refused to spend the war sitting idly by.
For him, it was his duty to try to escape, not only for his own freedom, but to seize enemy resources that could be used in the war effort.
Bill’s first escape attempt was relatively simple.
He and some companions tried to cut the fence during the night and flee to the camp.
They were captured just a few kilometers from the camp.
The punishment was solitary confinement in a dark, cold cell for 2 weeks.
But that didn’t stop him.
Bill tried to escape repeatedly, each time with a different method.
Sometimes disguised as a German guard in counterfeit uniforms, other times hidden in delivery trucks.
Once he even tried to hide in a garbage pit to be taken out of the camp.
Each attempt failed, and each time Bill was captured and punished, but he never gave up.
His fellow prisoners began to admire him for his tireless determination.
The German guards knew him by name and watched him especially closely.
Bill Ash was building a reputation, not just as a tough prisoner, but as someone who embodied the spirit of never giving up, no matter how impossible the situation seemed.
In March 1944, Stalig lift 3 became the site of one of the most ambitious and famous escape attempts of World War II.
The operation would later be known as the Great Escape, immortalized in books and the classic Hollywood film.
The plan was audacious.
Prisoners had spent over a year digging not just one but three secret tunnels beneath the camp.
They called them Tom, Dick, and Harry.
The tunnels were impressive feats of engineering, excavated 9 m deep to avoid detection by German seismic microphones and extended more than 100 meters beyond the camp fences.
Bill was deeply involved in the project.
He worked as a digger, spending hours crammed into the narrow tunnel, digging with makeshift tools and pushing loose soil back into buckets made from tin cans.
It was claustrophobic and dangerous work.
The tunnel could collapse at any moment, burying him alive, but the risk was worth it.
If the plan worked, hundreds of prisoners could escape simultaneously, causing chaos among the German forces and potentially allowing many to reach neutral or allied territory.
The night of the escape was March 24, 1944, a cold, moonless night, perfect for the operation.
The prisoners selected to escape met in secret, wearing carefully falsified civilian clothes and carrying forged identity documents.
Bill was among the first in line.
His heart pounded as he waited his turn to enter the tunnel.
Adrenaline coursed through his veins.
This could be the chance at freedom he had been waiting for for so long.
One by one, the prisoners descended into the tunnel and began to crawl.
It was cramped, dark, and suffocating.
Bill crawled on his stomach, pulling himself up with his elbows, pushing with his knees.
The wood creaked dangerously around him.
Small mounds of earth occasionally fell on his head.
It took him almost an hour to crawl the entire length of the tunnel.
Finally, he saw a small opening ahead.
Fresh air rushed into his lungs.
He had made it.
Bill emerged into the forest outside the camp, free for the first time in years.
But the euphoria was short-lived.
The escape wasn’t going as planned.
The tunnel had shortened by several meters, ending up still partially visible from one of the watchtowers.
The guards would eventually notice, and worse, the evacuation process was taking much longer than expected due to the tunnel’s cramped space.
Bill didn’t wait.
He stood up and ran into the darkness of the forest, getting as far away from the camp as possible before the alarm sounded.
Behind him, more prisoners continued to emerge, each running in different directions.
But then, as feared, the sirens blared.
Search lights swept the area.
Dogs barked furiously.
The leak had been discovered.
Of the 200 people planned to escape, only 76 managed to get out of the tunnel before the Germans discovered it.
And now they were all fleeing through occupied Poland, hunted by thousands of German soldiers, police, and Gustapo members.
The real ordeal was only beginning.
Bill Ash ran through the dark forest, his lungs burning and his heart pounding.
Every shadow seemed a threat.
Every sound could be a German guard or a hunting dog.
He knew he needed to put as much distance as possible between himself and the field before dawn.
His plan was to travel south towards Czechoslovakia, where he hoped to find help from resistance groups.
He had a rudimentary map memorized, some bread marks hidden in his coat, and forged identity documents identifying him as a foreign worker.
But traveling through occupied Poland was extremely dangerous.
The country was under brutal Nazi control.
Police checkpoints were everywhere.
Anyone without proper documentation was immediately suspect, and the local population, while often sympathetic to the Allies, was too terrified to openly help.
Bill traveled mostly at night, sleeping during the day in abandoned barns or hidden in dense woods.
He avoided main roads and towns whenever possible.
The March cold was biting and his thin civilian clothes offered little protection.
On the third day, while crossing a rural area, Bill made a fatal mistake.
He was spotted by a local farmer who immediately notified the German authorities.
Minutes later, a German motorized patrol arrived in the area.
Bill heard the vehicles approaching and tried to hide in a newly planted wheat field.
He lay face down on the cold, wet ground, trying to blend into the earth, but it was useless.
The soldiers had tracking dogs.
The German shepherds found Bill within minutes.
They barked furiously as soldiers surrounded him, pointing rifles at his head.
Bill slowly raised his hands.
His escape attempt was over.
He had been free for only 72 hours.
The recapture was bitter.
Bill was brutally handcuffed and thrown into the back of a military truck.
The soldiers were furious.
The mass escape had caused enormous embarrassment for the camp authorities and the German command.
They wanted revenge.
Bill was taken back to Stalft 3, but not to the main camp.
He was placed in the cooler, the punishment block, a series of cold, isolated cells where problematic prisoners were kept in solitary confinement.
The cell measured approximately 2 m by 3.
It had a narrow bed, a bucket for a toilet, and a small, high window with bars.
The food was minimal, stale bread and water.
No contact with other prisoners was allowed.
It was designed to break a man’s spirit.
Bill spent weeks in that cell.
The days were long and empty.
He exercised to maintain his sanity.
Push-ups, squats, running in place.
He recited poems and stories he knew by heart.
He sang softly to himself, anything to keep his mind active.
But it was during those long weeks of isolation that Bill heard devastating news.
Of the 76 men who escaped during the great escape, 50 had been recaptured and executed by the Gestapo under Hitler’s direct orders.
It was a brutal massacre and a clear violation of the Geneva Convention.
Bill had known many of these men.
They were friends, comrades, brothers in arms, and now they were dead, murdered in cold blood.
The news of the executions deeply shook Bill Ash and all the other prisoners at Stell Luft 3.
The massacre had crossed a line that even in the brutality of war seemed unthinkable.
German officers within the camp itself were horrified when they learned what the Gestapo had done.
When Bill was finally released from solitary confinement and returned to the general population of the camp, he found a grim atmosphere.
Many prisoners were traumatized.
Some had lost the will to resist, but others, including Bill, had become even more determined.
For Bill, the executions reinforced something he had always felt, that not fighting, not resisting, would be a betrayal of the values he was fighting for.
Every escape attempt, even if it failed, was an act of defiance.
It was a way of continuing the war, even behind barbed wire.
Life in the camp continued at its strange pace.
The prisoners created a complex society within the fences.
There were educational classes where men taught languages, mathematics, and history.
There were elaborate theatrical productions with costumes and sets made from scrap materials.
There was even a trading system where prisoners exchanged cigarettes, chocolate, and other items from their Red Cross packages.
Bill participated in all of this, but his mind was always planning his next escape.
He studied the guard’s patterns, observed the camp’s routines, looked for weaknesses and security.
It was an obsession, but it also kept him mentally alive.
In late 1944, as Allied forces advanced through Europe after D-Day, conditions in the camp began to deteriorate.
Food became scarcer.
Heating was minimal.
Red Cross rations arrived irregularly.
German guards, knowing the war was lost, grew more nervous and unpredictable.
In January 1945, with the Soviet Red Army advancing from the east, the Germans made a drastic decision.
They would evacuate the camp.
Thousands of prisoners would be forced to march west, deeper into German territory to avoid liberation by the Soviets.
It was the beginning of what would become known as the Death March.
In the dead of winter, with sub-zero temperatures and deep snow, more than 10,000 prisoners of war were forced to walk hundreds of kilometers across Germany.
They had little food, no adequate shelter, and were dressed in clothing unsuitable for the brutal climate.
Bill was among them.
He dragged his feet through the snow one step at a time, battling the biting cold and constant hunger.
Men around him collapsed from exhaustion and freezing.
Some died where they fell.
The German guards themselves suffering from the conditions rarely offered help.
The march lasted for weeks.
They slept in freezing barns or outdoors.
They ate whatever they could find or begged from German villagers.
Many prisoners contracted pneumonia, severe frostbite, or simply lost the will to live.
But Bill survived.
His determination, forged through years of escape attempts and confinement, kept him going when others gave up.
He helped weaker companions, shared his food when he had any, and constantly encouraged those around him to keep going.
It was a final test of his willpower and humanity.
In April 1945, after months of brutal marching and inhumane conditions, the group of prisoners to which Bill belonged finally stopped in a small village in central Germany.
The German guards, now aware that the war was completely lost, were increasingly disorganized and indecisive.
News was arriving from everywhere.
The Western Allies were advancing rapidly from the west.
The Soviets were crushing German resistance in the east.
Berlin was surrounded.
Hitler’s thousand-year Reich was collapsing after only 12 bloody years.
Bill and his fellow prisoners could hear the distant sounds of artillery.
Each day, the noise grew louder, closer.
They knew liberation was coming, but the question was, would they survive long enough to see it? There was a real danger that fanatical Nazi officers would order the execution of the prisoners before the Allies arrived, or that in the chaos of defeat, they would simply be abandoned without food or protection.
Every day was tense with uncertainty.
Then, on the morning of April 29th, 1945, something extraordinary happened.
Bill woke up to the sound of approaching tanks, but they weren’t German tanks.
They were American Shermans.
The United States forces had arrived at the village.
The German guards, seeing the tanks, simply abandoned their weapons and fled or surrendered.
There was no fighting.
It was just over.
Bill froze for a moment, unable to believe what he was seeing.
American soldiers jumped out of the vehicles, shouting in English.
They were carrying chocolate, cigarettes, and rations.
Their uniforms were clean and new.
They were smiling and then it hit Bill.
He was free.
After three years as a prisoner of war, years of confinement, escape attempts, punishments, hunger, cold, and suffering, he was finally free.
Emotions overwhelmed him.
Tears streamed down his face.
He was not alone.
Around him, skeletal and exhausted prisoners wept, laughed, embraced each other and the American soldiers.
It was a scene of pure joy, but also of profound sorrow for what they had all suffered.
The Americans quickly organized medical care for the liberated prisoners.
Many were severely malnourished and ill.
Bill was significantly underweight, suffering from respiratory problems due to the cold and malnutrition, but he was alive.
In the following weeks, Bill was transported across liberated Europe back to England.
The journey was surreal.
He saw cities devastated by war, millions of displaced refugees, and the smoldering remains of what had been the Third Reich.
When he finally set foot on British soil again, he was received as a hero.
But Bill didn’t feel like a hero.
He felt like a survivor.
He had lost years of his life, seen friends die, experienced suffering that would mark him forever.
The war in Europe officially ended on May 8th, 1945.
But for Bill Ash and millions of others, the scars of that war would never fully heal.
They would carry those memories, those traumas for the rest of their lives.
Bill was home.
He was free.
But a part of him, a part of his youth and innocence had been left behind in those prisoner of war camps, in those dark tunnels, in that stadium where 50,000 Germans had once cheered.
Returning to civilian life after years as a prisoner of war was not easy for Bill Ash.
England in 1945 was a transformed country.
Cities were bombed.
The economy was devastated.
And millions of families mourned the loss of loved ones.
But there was hope.
The war was over.
Nazism was defeated.
Bill spent months recovering physically.
He had lost a lot of weight during his captivity and the death march.
His health was failing, but gradually with proper nutrition and rest, his body began to recover.
His mind, however, would take much longer.
He suffered from frequent nightmares.
He dreamt that he was still in the camp, trapped behind barbed wire or crawling through dark tunnels or being chased by German guards.
He would wake up in a panic, sweating, taking seconds to realize he was safe in his own bed.
Bill discovered that many of his fellow prisoners faced similar struggles.
They had been tested in ways most people could never imagine.
Some adapted well to civilian life.
Others never truly returned, their minds permanently scarred by the traumas of war.
But Bill was resilient.
He decided to channel his experiences in a positive way.
He went back to school and eventually became a television producer and screenwriter.
He worked on educational programs and documentaries using the creative skills he had developed during his years in the prisoner of war camp.
He also began speaking publicly about his experiences.
At first, it was difficult.
Reliving those moments brought pain.
But Bill realized that his story had value.
It taught important lessons about courage, resilience, and the capacity of the human spirit to endure seemingly impossible adversity.
One of the memories Bill always shared was that moment in the French stadium, the 50,000 Germans cheering as he landed by parachute.
For Bill, that moment represented something profound about human nature.
Even in the midst of the most brutal conflict in history, even when entire nations were committed to mutual destruction, there were moments of shared recognition.
Those people in the stadium didn’t just see an enemy.
They saw a human being accomplishing something extraordinary and instinctively they responded with respect.
Bill married and started a family.
He had children and eventually grandchildren.
He lived a long and productive life far beyond the years he spent as a prisoner of war.
But those years never left him.
They were part of who he was.
He kept in touch with other survivors of Stalague left three.
They met regularly, sharing memories and supporting each other.
There was a brotherhood among them that only those who had gone through similar experiences could truly understand.
Bill also developed a surprisingly balanced perspective on his former enemies.
He distinguished between the fanatical Nazis who were truly evil and the ordinary German soldiers, many of whom were simply men doing their duty under terrible circumstances.
Some of the camp guards had treated the prisoners with relative decency within the limits of their orders.
Bill remembered these men without hatred.
The war had placed them all in impossible situations.
As the decades passed, the wounds of war slowly healed, although the scars always remained visible.
Bill Ash lived to be 86 years old, passing away in 2014.
Throughout his long life, he became not only a survivor, but a symbol of unwavering resilience and courage.
His story inspired generations and taught valuable lessons about the human spirit.
In his final years, Bill finally wrote his memoirs in a book titled Under the Wire.
The book detailed his 13 escape attempts, more than any other Allied prisoner during World War II.
Each attempt was a refusal to accept defeat, an act of defiance against tyranny.
Bill’s story resonated deeply with readers around the world.
It wasn’t just a war story, but a story about never giving up, no matter how impossible the situation seems.
It was about maintaining dignity and purpose even in the most degrading circumstances.
The moment in the stadia remained the most powerful symbol of his experience.
He spoke about it frequently in interviews and lectures.
For Bill, that represented the possibility of humanity persisting even in the midst of war.
It was a reminder that beneath the divisions of nationality, ideology, and conflict, there was a fundamental recognition of human courage and skill.
Historians later confirmed the details of that extraordinary day.
The stadium was in Le, France.
The crowd actually cheered the British pilot who had just made an emergency parachute landing during a football match.
It was a unique moment in the war, witnessed by thousands and remembered for decades.
Bill received numerous decorations for his service during the war.
He was recognized not only for his actions as a pilot, but for his tireless resistance as a prisoner of war.
His escape attempts, though never successful, occupied significant German time and resources, contributing in a small but real way to the Allied war effort.
Most importantly, Bill became an educator.
He visited schools and universities, sharing his story with younger generations.
He wanted them to understand not only the facts of the war, but the deeper lessons about character, courage, and morality.
He emphasized that heroism is not the absence of fear but action despite fear.
He had felt fear constantly during his years of captivity.
Fear of execution, fear of permanent confinement, fear that the war would never end.
But he acted anyway.
He continued to resist anyway.
Bill also spoke about the importance of never dehumanizing enemies.
Even having suffered at the hands of his capttors, he never succumbed to blind hatred.
He recognized that most people on both sides of the war were simply human beings trapped in historical forces greater than themselves.
When Bill Ash passed away in 2014, obituaries around the world celebrated his extraordinary life.
He was remembered as one of the last heroes of the great generation, those men and women who confronted and defeated fascism.
But perhaps his most lasting legacy is simply the story of that moment in a French stadium in 1942.
A pilot falling from the sky, a crowd of supposed enemies, and 50,000 people choosing for just a moment to see beyond the war and simply acknowledge human courage.
It was a moment of light in the darkness.
And it continues to shine decades later.
End.
