Sparks in Time Episode 4: Memorial Day and Living Memory
On May 25, 2020 by adminThis special Memorial Day Episode focuses on a discussion of living memory and approaches for using living memory in writing. Information about the Memorial Day ceremonies discussed in this episode can be found on the American Overseas Memorial Day Association website.
Memorial Day
Every May, the American Overseas Memorial Day Association performs a series of solemn ceremonies across the beautiful country of Belgium, honoring the American servicemen who are buried there. The vast majority of these soldiers and airmen are buried in the large American cemeteries, Henri-Chapelle and Ardennes. Some Americans are buried at the Flanders Fields cemetery and still others at the Commonwealth cemeteries scattered across the Flanders region, and maintained by Commonwealth nations. But some of the most moving ceremonies are performed alongside isolated graves—graves that are in small family plots or town cemeteries (read about these Americans here).
It is during these ceremonies that attendees can experience the lives and loss of these Americans in a very personal way: through what I call “living memory”. My challenge to you this week is to seek out the living memory around you, and listen to the stories in a new way.
What do I mean by living memory? For many historical fiction writers, research consists of primary and secondary sources from a more distant past, where we don’t have the luxury of speaking to people who experienced it firsthand. Sometimes, however, we are fortunate enough to be able to experience history from people who are the living memory of the time. Who bore witness to the actual events.
In the past decade, we have forever lost the living memory of the First World War. Over the course of the next few decades, we will lose living memory of the Second World War. And this is why these small ceremonies at isolated graves have meant so much to be as an American, as a military officer, and as a student of history.
Americans in Belgium
So what does Belgium have to do with living memory? For me, working with the American Overseas Memorial Day Association through the US Embassy in Brussels is a vivid personal experience with living memory.
Americans fought and died in Belgium in both World Wars, though the vast number of the thousands buried there died between 1944-1945, during the breakout from Normandy. In World War I, dozens of Americans volunteered to fight alongside Commonwealth nations before America entered the war. These soldiers fought in the trenches in the fields of Flanders, with Canadian and British allies. However, unlike the Commonwealth soldiers of the Great War, the American government provided the next of kin the option to repatriate remains or to bury them where they fell.
Some families chose to bury their servicemembers alongside the men they fought and died with, and they remain there forever cared for in the Commonwealth cemeteries. After the United States entered the war, far more American soldiers were killed in Flanders, many of whom were laid to rest in the American cemetery at Flanders Fields.
In World War II, airmen who were shot down before the Normandy invasion may have found themselves being funneled through the Belgian resistance network to escape back to England via Spain, or—as the Normandy invasion neared, holding in place and hidden in Belgian attics and basements waiting to rejoin the Americans as they passed through.
Living Memory
Some of these Americans are buried in small community graveyards across Belgium, and were you to attend one of these ceremonies, you would meet the last remaining living memory of these men—members of the families who housed them, neighbors who kept the secret, and some who considered the American to be an older brother, as they became so integrated in the family’s war experience and survival.
If you took time to listen, in a mix of French, Flemish and English, you would learn the intimate stories of these American heroes and the brave, heroic families who took them in. And if you attended the ceremony in an American military uniform, you might just be taken aside, and through tear-stained eyes, be regaled by the whispered stories of those who had survived that era.
One experience I will never forget is an elderly woman approaching me, taking my hand, and thanking me for her freedom. It felt wrong to accept those thanks, as my military service is so disconnected from that conflict, from those American heroes. But for her, the sight of Americans in uniform brought forth that living memory of a different time. A memory of liberation.
Though I could never understand the depth of her experience, sitting with her and just listening to her brought me just a glimpse of that time, something for which I will be forever grateful. As we parted, she told me one last thing: that she will never forget what it felt like to live under occupation, and what it felt like to finally be free.
Though my children are young, I have brought my oldest to these ceremonies because his generation may never experience this living history when they are old enough to seek it out. Through attending these ceremonies, and participating in the wreath-laying, he has been able to talk with American veterans and Belgians who lived through their own experience of the war. I have watched him lean into a wheelchair, captivated as he listened to a Utah Beach survivor 93 years his senior. I realize that I had these opportunities all the time with my own grandparents, but it is something that may be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for him.
Our Challenge: Conveying Memory in Literature
Ever since I was young, I have been fascinated by early 20th century history. I can trace this to the fact that I had extremely interesting elderly relatives and I enjoyed their company—and their stories— immensely. I considered our chats (and still do) as precious insights into a world that was fast disappearing from living memory.
From these chats, I gleaned details about living in Eastern Europe during World War I, rum runners in rural New England, the Polish Resistance in World War II, the camps, Normandy, the Battle of the Bulge, serving under General Patton, and life as an immigrant in 20th century America. Never the full story—the larger contexts I would learn later as I studied these topics in school—but little gems of someone’s personal experience that would never be captured in a history book. Instead, it would only live in the minds of those who saw it firsthand or those who took the time to listen to their stories.
But the great challenge as a writer has been how to preserve these memories. Throughout my fiction writing, there are flavors of the stories I listened to as a child. Particularly stories of rural Europe in the early 20th century, the experience of immigration, what the idea of America meant to people living under oppressive governments a hundred years ago. But while I want to address some of these topics head-on in future writing, I have always been very cautious of this venture. I have a strong sense of needing to do their stories justice. To bring them back to life in a responsible way.
Permission
Living memory can be intensely personal. While these stories can be captivating to audiences generations later, the firsthand experience is the story of a life–of love and loss, of difficult, sometimes tortuous memories. If you are fortunate enough to be able to engage with a personal history, it goes almost without saying that you should obtain permission to represent their story in any type of writing.
Thematic versus Direct Approaches
One way to tackle the project of preserving a history, or as I said above, to do it justice, is to decide if you want to take a more direct approach—where you use actual names and events to recount particularly intriguing stories (think Heather Morris’s The Tattooist of Auschwitz or Mark T. Sullivan’s Beneath a Scarlet Sky), or if you prefer a thematic approach.
Tackling history straight on is an intense undertaking—independent research, multiple interviewing sessions for each character that can still be interviewed. The sessions may be uncomfortable, deeply emotional, and you may feel guilty for even asking some of the questions you will ask. Many times, these works result in a final piece that feels a little like journalism.
Authors who take this route must decide early on if they want to take a journalistic approach (like Richard Rubin’s The Last of the Doughboys) or a fictional work that closely follows an actual experience. It’s certainly not an approach for everyone. It is a long-term commitment to a personal story, but when it is done well, it can bring a living memory back to life for a whole new audience.
Thematic approaches to incorporating living memory into your writing may allow you more flexibility in your writing, but you should still take care to represent the experience authentically—particularly if the experience could be recognized by the individual consulted as part of the project. Works of fiction that are not always meant to be close representations of true stories, but many contain pieces of stories that help to draw out literary themes.
Recommendations
The Last of the Doughboys: The Forgotten Generation and Their Forgotten World War by Richard Rubin. I thoroughly enjoyed this account of some of the last surviving American veterans of the First World War. In what became a years-long endeavor, Rubin raced against the clock to interview as many American veterans of World War I as possible. The result is a unique window into a distant time, that captures emotions and experiences, and documents these stories just before this precious living memory expired. This book follows a method that gives it the feel of a piece of journalism and relies almost entirely on series of interviews with veterans and their family members. I highly recommend this read for anyone who has an interest in these unique personal histories.
We Were The Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter. (Spoiler Alert!) This is a wonderful example of an author who wrote about her family’s epic story of survival while preserving the unique experiences. Hunter’s family survived the holocaust in Europe, the labor camps in the Soviet Union, and were miraculously reunited toward the end of the war. The story falls within the historical fiction genre, as the author takes some liberties to fill in conversations and details that she was not able to glean from interviews, but it is a close representation of the living memory she was able to capture. It is all the more fascinating to those who love historical fiction because it is an example of a history that was nearly lost, had it not been for a family reunion and late night conversation with en elderly relative. I highly recommend this read as a great example of preserving living memory, but also for the wonderful writing and powerful themes.
American Overseas Memorial Day Association 2020 Ceremonies
The Memorial Day ceremonies for American service members buried in Belgium will continue this year, but will be hosted online, beginning at noon EST. This is the first year any of the commemorations will be done online, and it’s a really unique opportunity to learn about some of these veterans without making the trip to Belgium. I highly encourage it!
How do I Stay in Touch with Scribble & Spark?
If you’d like to receive updates about Scribble & Spark publications, or the Sparks in Time blog, join our email list.
Love Book Reviews? Head over to The Book Review Haiku!
