Parker’s Crossroads

Parker’s Crossroads, a decisive battle in the Battle of the Bulge four days before Christmas in 1944, was Jack Ebbott’s personal 'crossroads.'This is his story, which traces his life from its privileged beginning to its tragic conclusion-a journey he had not anticipated; an odyssey of unspeakable horrors, of depravity and suffering as a POW in German prison camps. As a combat medic, he attended to the deaths of his fellow prisoners and was a witness to the abject cruelty of his captors. Jack Ebbott and a group of allied prisoners were taken to a remote rail siding; there, ordered to dig a deep hole in the frozen ground. A boxcar was left at the siding when the hole was dug. The doors were opened, revealing the bodies of children stacked in cordwood. On the threat of death, the prisoners were ordered to bury the children in the hole. A few of the children still flickered with life. Up to this moment, Jack Ebbott thought that he’d witnessed the full extent of his captors’ savagery. But this act hurdled beyond it all.