Missing The Boat: War Stories of Thomas Alan Dirkin

15 Butter After being captured on the French coast, my dad took “a walk” with his fellow POWs to Poland, a total distance of about 800 miles. Most likely, he walked two hundred and fifty to three hundred miles in about three weeks. The remainder of the journey was by rail, stuffed into overcrowded cattle cars. The German game plan seemed to include a reduction in force. By hard marching, day after day for several weeks in the summer of 1940, on minimal food and water rations, casualties began to rise. One day the POWs were spending the night in a farmer’s field. My dad woke before dawn. Driven by hunger, with a touch of opportunism and partly for the sport, he crept towards the farmhouse. Peering through the open window he lucked out and realized he had found the kitchen. Not being completely stupid, he grabbed the only thing that was available within reach, a large hunk of butter, about one and a half pounds in weight. Slipping back to his sleeping spot he hid his prize inside his jacket. The taste! After losing 20 pounds or so in body weight, any food would taste good. In this case the creamy delight was heavenly. Soon, he was marching again. As body heat rose with the sun a slow moving yellow river began to cascade from his chest. Opening his jacket, a chaotic invitation was given to a swarm of hungry friends-fingers reaching in and coming out as buttery popsicles! The whole scene and process was hilarious. My dad would enjoy telling this story, laughing years later at the visual and tactile scene. My dad had a love affair with butter for the rest of his life. I remember him buttering a thin slice of white bread on both sides, making up some story of local tradition to justify his preparation. Maybe he just liked butter. Maybe the theft from the farmhouse, intertwined with day to day survival and a few moments of hilarity left him addicted to that creamy comfort food.