There is the famous unofficial truce on the bleak, muddy western front during World War One, when British and German troops began singing carols in their respective trenches one Christmas Eve. After a while they began singing the same carols together, sometimes in English or in German but more naturally in their own mother tongues.
Christmas day dawned, and tentative signals were sent about meeting each other in No-Man’s land between the lines. Gradually, but increasingly, soldiers went over the top of the trenches and exchanged gifts, photographs and shared their food.
To the frustration and embarrassment of the top brass from both sides, this truce lasted almost four days, when the whole compulsory insanity gradually resumed.
Similar events happened in prisoner of war camps, most notably when a Salvationist guard or prisoner would whistle a distinctive Salvation Army Song or march, to find the melody or a harmony line being taken up from the other side of the bars.
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