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RN Documentary: The Best of Times, the Worst of Times - War and Memory

From Radio Netherlands | Part of the RN Documentaries series | 00:29:28
Producers: Dheera Sujan

 Credit:
How war influences identity and memory in both the individual and the national sense.

In Europe the signs of remembrance of war is everywhere. Fields in France Belgium and the Netherlands are still turning up traces of the untold numbers of war dead. In this program, Prof Jay Winter from Yale University and 3 war veterans talk of how war has shaped individual and national identity and how different wars are remembered in the collective memory.

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Review of RN Doc: The Best of Times; the Worst of Times. (War & Memory

In my father’s Brooklyn neighborhood of brownstones, there was a Korean War vet local kids referred to as “the ducker.” He wandered the streets, muttering, and when a plane flew overhead, he’d huddle in the nearest doorway, shaking, terrified. The community accepted his fragility, even the kids knew not to mock or disturb him. A Vietnam vet friend who served in the infantry, less traumatized, but no less, in Professor Winter’s phrase, “shadowed for life,” by his experience found the ambiance at home somewhat less sympathetic. This interesting, nuanced documentary brought both men to mind. In it, Professor Winter offers insights on the interplay between society’s framing of any war and how its survivors remember and tell their stories, particularly in wars lacking a national consensus. His comments are interwoven with interviews from Dutch veterans of the war in Indonesia, a conflict soldiers were told was a war of liberation. They discovered otherwise. The interplay makes for a textured conversation – the thoughtful professor speaking in general, the veterans recounting their painful specifics. This piece on war and memory is thought-provoking. Would be an obvious choice for Memorial Day or other war anniversaries, and given our current war, extended duty for reserve soldiers, and controversy over treatment of prisoners, well worth airing right now.

Transcript

Radio Netherlands presents Vox Humana. In this programme, The Best of Times, the Worst of Times, Dheera Sujan looks War Remembrance

MUSIC – MILITARY MARCHES LP “Madjoe” Tr 4 Feesmarch 250 jaar Batavia
LP 101.937 Comp: trad. Perf F.Markus. STEMRA 681417814

This Dutch military march, like most music of the genre was designed specifically to evoke a sense of nationalism and pride. And for war veterans the music must stir a myriad of emotions – the horrors of war, the brutalities, the grief, but also the intense comradeship that war inevitably brings with it. Many veterans talk of the wars they participated in even 50 years ago as the shaping event of their lives.

In Europe the spectacle of war and its remembrance is everywhere. Fields in France, Belgium and The Netherlands are still turning up traces of the thousands upon thousands of men who died there in the course of the...
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Musical Works

MUSIC – MILITARY MARCHES LP “Madjoe” Tr 4 Feesmarch 250 jaar Batavia
LP 101.937 Comp: trad. Perf F.Markus. STEMRA 681417814