Monday evening I gave a program in Goirle, Netherlands called Stories of the Past. In the program, I asked serious questions about researching the past and writing our stories. Why?
Because……
Stories can save us.
Stories have the power to heal.
There were many questions I posed during the program:
- Where do we find the stories of our past and how can we capture them?
- What do we do with the stories when we find them?
- What commonalities do we find between us and others involved in the war?
- What lessons can we learn? How can we find and offer forgiveness, provide closure and healing?
- How do we honor the memory of those who died?
- And, how can we preserve the stories and pass the lessons to future generations?
Is it important for us to understand what our relatives endured and survived during World War II? Can we put their experiences into context and view it through the lens of the 1940s rather than 2015? Can we attempt to understand why our relatives are the way they are because of the war and why we are because of the way they lived after?
© 2015 Jennifer Holik
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