Credit: Tim Gray Media
WXXI remembers Pittsford native Richard Brookins, who played the lead role in this documentary that tells the amazing true story of war, honor, luck and love.
The American St. Nick shares the remarkable story of a handful of American soldiers who during the chaos of war, help bring Christmas back a small Luxembourg town, and unknowingly create a holiday tradition that continues to this very day.
airs Monday, December 21 at 9 p.m. on WXXI-TV.
World War II exacted a heavy toll on the people of Wiltz, Luxembourg, nearly destroying the small town. Occupied by German forces for four years, the town was subject to the whims of Nazi leadership: streets were renamed, the native language was banned, religious freedoms were curtailed, and Saint Nicolas Day was outlawed.
st. nicholas friday and on a jeep. here s another piece from your film. let s watch. the holiday and luxembourg s version of santa claus were forbidden. solemn looking women and children made at the majority of the local population. as christmas 1944 approached, harry stutz, who was jewish, had been hearing about wilson st. nicholas day. so he got this idea of having a christmas party. he asked the company to make doughnuts and cookies for the children and he asked the gis that he could get a hold of to donate whatever they could to donate gift to the kids. martha: just a beautiful story and you look at those children and you think about what life would have been like a american soldiers and marines had not stopped hitler and nazi germany because they banned christmas in these towns and just basically robs these children of all of that joy that was brought back to them by these gis.