Diverse Memories of War

My great uncle who fought in Europe during WWII refused to talk about the war until he was over 90 years old. Then, near the end, he began to recount some of the images he remembered, such as the trees filled with body parts that lined the roads they walked through the forests of the Low Countries and Germany. The reality was lived by people like this German kid:

The American media and the US Government have cultivated an image of the WWII veteran as a tough guy with no regrets. We have a name for those people. They’re called sociopaths, and much of the WWII narrative is built around them. If one takes the time to talk to the veterans who aren’t filled with bluster, the picture becomes far more complex. This video explores one such situation:

Germans in the Woods from StoryCorps on Vimeo.

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