Heinz K. Booch Endowed Scholarship
The Heinz K. Booch Endowed Scholarship was established in 2017 by Rev. David Williamson ’52 in memory of his dear friend from college Heinz K. Booch ’53 (1925-1999). In this clip from a sermon given by Rev. Williamson in 1995, he recalls the Summer of 1950 when he and Heinz both worked at the Salvation Army camp in Frankfort, KY: Christ is the Answer
Impact
Rev. Williamson recalls the first time he met Heinz in January of 1950:
“Heinz was a handsome young man, blond and blue eyed, over six feet tall. No wonder he had been selected for the elite guard unit of Herman Goehring, head of the Luftwaffe. When the war ‘heated up’ he was sent with his unit down through Italy and finally into North Africa in support of Field Marshall Rhomel’s Afrika Corps.
In 1942, he was captured by troops of the British Eighth Army and sent to England and then the United States as a prisoner of war. At one time, he was held at Fort Polk in Leesville, Louisiana, but for the most of the time he was in various camps in the state of Georgia. While he was at Camp Wheeler in Georgia, a Methodist pastor of a church in the area came out to the camp to minister to the men, just as a voluntary ministry. Pastor Hayes did not speak German, so he was glad to have the assistance of the young man (Heinz) who was relatively fluent in English.
After the war, the prisoners were repatriated, of course. In 1949, Pastor Hayes made a visit to occupied Germany with a most unusual mission. He had raised funds (and the promise of funds) from his church and other Methodist churches to provide a scholarship for one former POW to study at Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky. His choice turned out to be Heinz Booch, the young man of whom I have been writing.
That is how I came to meet him in January of 1950. I was in my first months of study at Asbury. Heinz and I became good friends from our very first acquaintance, and we maintained contact across more than 45 years. His wife, Ursula, was also a native of Germany, and we also came to love her as truly as we loved Heinz. They became legal immigrants to the United States, and loyal, grateful, naturalized citizens of the US. Their children are all native born Americans.
I remember well the first public statement I ever heard from Heinz, in a chapel service in Hughes Auditorium at Asbury College. Maybe not the exact words, but the message was this: ‘Only the love of God could bring together former enemies to love one another as we do’.
No one knows that better than I, because of this good friend who brought so much joy and love into my life.”