Armistice Day

[chani]

I learnt on television today that there were only 6 "Poilus" left in France and I wondered how many World War I veterans  were still alive in other countries...

 

 

I also wonder if that "Great War" is still taught in details in other countries. It seems that the 2nd World War and its genocide have taken such a room in our folk memory...and in the the way we teach History these days.

Who still remembers the horror that 14-18 war was? Or rather who, among young people, really knows about it nowadays? Who will?

Because there's a big difference between History and "Memory Duty" or commemoration. I know it's a commemorative day, but as a Historian I wish we'd stop get everything mixed up. I have nothing against commemorative events. They are a political ritual and it's important for the res publica to have such moments.

But History is another matter. It isn't about civics, nor morality nor about the society's needs nor about the political norm. It's a job for Historians, not for politicians who want to dig in to revel in politically correct or please certain lobbies (like with that outrageous law about teaching colonization by emphazing the "good sides" of it!). And nowadays politicians and lobbies are trying to interfer more and more with teaching, telling us what we should teach as a matter of priority and the way we should do it. It goes against the principles of  laïcité as well as the religious signs we ban inside of school. It's kinda like what is happening in certain American schools about biology courses and  the whole Intelligent Design vs Evolution.

It's the kind of thing you find in dictatures and totalitarian States. Something is going on, and I don't like it. I'm going to be very not politically correct and I might shock some people but I'm really fed up with all the Shoah stuff  I've been receiving in my teacher box, almost every week, for a few years. Stop covering me with that Gospel and let me do History damnit (and no, don't worry I am not a revisionist at all) !

Sorry for the digression but my point was that I have the feeling that War World I is going to be less and less known in the future because of some people's priorities. Yet it's a very interesting matter.

At least some film makers evoke it like in "La Chambre Des Officiers" a few years ago or Genet and his "Un Long Dimanche de Fiançailles". But artists and films won't replace History. They should not.

Anyway I may go see "Joyeux Noël" tomorrow. It's a movie about Christmas 1914, when German soldiers did that incredible thing: they decided to fraternize with the ennemy, left their trench and shared that night with French/Scottish soldiers. And it's a real event. It happened despite all the propaganda and the horror that were the first months of that war (more soldiers got killed during those months than during the 4 following years).

But of course historical accuracy  in no way guarantees that the film will be a good one. I'm afraid it's gonna be a bit too tears-jerking and over the top. Sometimes when directors aim at moving people they overdo.

Comments

[pfeifferpack.livejournal.com]

He is not alive but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that my father was in WWI (and WWII and in between for that matter). He was born in 1901 and graduated from high school at age 12 (wish I had his mind!)...he faked his age and enlisted in the Army. They discovered his underage situation and sent him home. He got his parents to sign a waver and enlisted in the Navy six months later, still underage but legal. He was mostly stateside in that war but was all over north africa and the pacific theaters in WWII. He was a Navy medic and in WWII he was part of a "raider" group (they were groups of 10 - 12 Marines...the US Marine Corp uses Navy for medical corps....who went in advance of a "landing" and secured a beachhead for the approaching Marines.).

My father was a loving and gentle man for all his military history. He saved lives and took lives as well. He had shrapnel in his leg bones that set off airport security the rest of his life. He had multiple scars from wounds and his eye was cut out in hand to hand combat on Okinowa. He rarely spoke of his wartime service and never of his box of medals and awards.

He passed on in 1982 at the age of 81.

Kathleen

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

I recall you mentioned it at least once. My grandfather (from my father's side) did both wars too. I never knew him, he passed away as he slept a few years before my birth.

He was my grandmother's second spouse. The story is kinda tragic but she married her first husband in Summer 1914 and he immediatly went to the front and never came back. He got killed in action quickly. Sp she actually never lived with him, but when she was in her 80's, before her death, her memory got wonky and the only husband whom she recalled and talked about was the first one, not the second one with whom she had lived for years and who fathered her children, she had completely forgotten my grandfather....

*hugs*

[pfeifferpack.livejournal.com]

Funny, my mother was that way at the end too. She remembered so well her first husband and some of my father but the memories were mostly the first marriage. The mind is a funny thing indeed.

Love,
Kathleen
{{{{hugs back}}}}

sad how humanity changes so little except in our technology!

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

Looks like human memory is made of layers, like geological strata. The freshest memories are the first to go, the old ones are the ones that remain the longest.

Of course when it comes to erosion, there's also the resistance factor. Tender layers vanish and hard rocks show on the surface...

[pfeifferpack.livejournal.com]

Then there are all those fossils *G*..A good analogy actually.

Love,
Kathleen