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© 2018 World War II Research and Writing Center
Cemeteries
Locating Information on WWI and WWII Missing and Dead
Are you looking for information on family members who died or are still missing from WWI, WWII, Korea, or the Vietnam War? I can help you find that information. Learn more in our short video and schedule your free consultation today to discuss how we can help you Find the Answers.
© 2018 World War II Research & Writing Center
Why Do We Keep Repeating History? A Look at WWII.
Last weekend Johan and I traveled to the Dutch/German border near Aachen and spent a few days exploring WWII history and contemplating family history. I did a lot of writing on this trip. Musings. Questions. Concerns. Joyful things. All of this was captured in my journal.
One thing that keeps showing up the longer I am in Europe on this trip is that history keeps repeating itself. We are not doing enough to stop this.
In September while at the unveiling of a new WWII memorial in the Netherlands, during a speech someone said something to the effect that the Dutch have lived in relative peace for almost 75 years. The current young generations have no idea what it is like to live in fear or hunger. They in many ways take their freedom for granted as if this is how it has always been and this is how it will always be.
Wrong attitude.
The Dutch seem to be the only European country (that I have witnessed) consistently educating their youth on the history and events of WWII. I can say that having kids in American schools, they are not being educated on any of this beyond 5 minutes here or there. My boys know about our family’s history and sacrifices because I take time to explain it. They know how things work in other countries because I explain it. Knowing American schools are not educating about the past in a way that we can stop the division, anger, hate, and war in the present or cause our kids to QUESTION everything, stirs a lot of emotion in me. Rather than question, students are being taught to follow the crowd like sheep and buy into everything the media, government, school, church, etc. tells them is “truth”.
In the Netherlands, the school children participate in commemorations and other events so the history is alive. In other countries in Europe it seems to be covered up, changed, ignored, slid under the carpet.
Case in point, we watched a National Geographic investigative program on Mussolini the other night after we visited the Nazi Training Facility at Vogelsang in the German Eifel. I have not studied Italian history beyond early family history for a client so was unaware that Mussolini was in power so long in the 1930s and Hitler modeled himself after Mussolini. Then the historians in the program made an important point – when rulers are losing power or the country is going to hell, they create a DISTRACTION. That distraction is war.
Mussolini took his country into war with Ethiopia and won yet lost. WWII began and eventually Italy, who originally sided with Hitler, lost that connection and became an Allie. From the program and what I’ve heard, Italy does not educate their youth the way the Dutch do. There is a rise in Fascism today because people want a new Mussolini. They seem to have no concept of what happened in the past to bring him to power, the destruction he caused, and his downfall and the state of Italy afterward.
Thinking about all we have seen in the last two months in Europe, the programs I have watched, the places we visited, the history I read, the clients I have been working with, I did a lot of writing on this topic before we visited Margraten, the Netherlands American Cemetery for WWII. In this sacred place I wandered the graves, visited some specific soldiers, was snagged to stop and talk to others, and contemplated all of this. Having family members who fought, were changed, or died, in WWI and WWII, I do not understand why we keep forgetting the past. Why we continue to carry the sins of the fathers around like they are ours. Why we are so afraid to bring our family darkness to the light and explore it. Forgive it. Release it. Find closure.
Some of my thoughts are contained in this video. Some invitations and questions for YOU are also here. Have you taken the time to consider these things? What roles have your family members played in the past – whether WWII, WWI, or even before that, to continue looping history? Do you think it is time to let these things go and stop carrying them in our families?
Additional reading: for background on this trip and where some of my questions came from, you are invited to read the other articles I wrote where I touch on these topics.
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© 2018 World War II Research & Writing Center
A Walk in Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery, St. Louis, MO
Recently, Johan and I visited the Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri. We were traveling and he felt it was important to stop there while we were in St. Louis. I had never been there, although I have read through IDPFs (death files) for several group burials from WWII which are there.
We did not go to find anyone specific, though Johan did look up a couple of Airborne men he knew were there. After looking them up I said I wanted to find an area that had group burials from WWII. Wouldn’t you know, because the universe takes care of me, that’s the first place we stopped. And across the road from the section we started in were more group burials, not only from WWII but Korea and Vietnam. There are so many stories there. I took a lot of photos of graves and will do some research on those buried in them.
If you have followed me for any length of time you know for the last 3 1/2 years I have traveled extensively in Europe. I visit a lot of the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) WWI and WWII cemeteries. I visit British and German cemeteries. Interestingly and still on my list is to visit a Dutch war cemetery. Somehow after living in the Netherlands part of the year, that is one thing I have not seen.
My cousin James Privoznik is buried in the ABMC Luxembourg cemetery. The ABMC cemeteries have a much different atmosphere and energy than the National Veterans Cemeteries in the U.S. ABMC is strictly WWI or WWII. The graves are all the same – white marble crosses and some white marble Star of Davids. The energy of an ABMC cemetery focuses on, from my experiences, the stories of those men who died there in one war. A lot of history is contained in one cemetery.
National Veterans Cemeteries have a completely different energy and atmosphere. These cemeteries do not focus on one war but most wars. Jefferson Barracks even has a Revolutionary War section. At first this surprised me but after I stopped for a moment and through about my history and genealogy training I remembered that while the men and women who fought in the Revolutionary War were on the east coast, many received land patents and eventually moved west. So it is no surprise there are veterans buried in the Midwest.
Other things that are completely different, is in the Veteran Cemeteries many spouses and sometimes children are buried with the veteran. You do not see this in ABMC cemeteries for obvious reasons. There are monuments for all wars throughout the cemetery. Animals watch over our war dead, something I only once experienced in an ABMC cemetery and that was a snail. At Jefferson Barracks, the deer roam free and we found one sitting behind the Gold Star Memorial for WWI. The deer watched us slowly and quietly approach and once we acknowledged each other and the power we each held, the deer got up and left. Not long after, three more deer ran across the road out of a small wooded area near more graves, through the Gold Star Memorial area and into the woods behind it. It was a beautiful site.
While there is so much to say about Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery and so many stories there, I leave you with a couple more photos that impacted me. While I knew there were air crew group burials at the cemetery, I did not know there were Japanese POW group burials there. Inside the chapel, I saw a plaque honoring the men who died. Then Johan and I went back to a section we had previously been in, to find the grave. You can click the plaque and group burial photos to see larger images.
I would encourage you to visit one of our nation’s National Veterans Cemeteries on your travels even if you do not have a family member buried there. It is a humbling, moving experience to walk among the graves that roll over beautiful manicured green hills or plains, that tell an abundance of stories. What can we learn by spending time in these sacred spaces? Whose stories will we be inspired to research and tell? How will those stories and those lives connect with our own?
Have you had an experience at a National Veterans Cemetery you would like to share? Please feel free to tell your story in the comments.
© 2018 World War II Research and Writing Center