Tara laChance
June 7, 2015
Memory essay add-ons
(Insert page 8, 2nd paragraph)
Hermine offered almost no details regarding her American GI husband other than that she was madly in love with him. In the article, The Sexual Behavior of American GIs during the Early Years of the Occupation of Germany by John Willoughby, the author paints a not-so-pretty picture about the behavior of the American soldiers towards the Germany women. He speaks of the policies of the Army at that time, quoting, “The policy is just to give the brass the first crack at all the good looking women.” The first crack? That doesn’t sound very respectful to me. I wonder how the meeting between Hermine and her husband came about and if her age and naiveté factored in to her eventual marriage. Fraternization was frowned upon, according to the article, yet many American men came home with German wives. How did that occur? More questions…
(Insert page 1, after “This is her story.”)
From the article, ‘You’d stand in line to buy potato peelings’: German women’s memories of World War II, by Gail Hickey. “More than six decades after the end of World War II, the dead cannot tell their stories; many remaining survivors are in ill health or are too traumatized to recount their war memories.” I hope that my curiosity about Hermine’s past gives her a form of healing. She doesn’t let on that she was traumatized by the events of her childhood during the war but I can’t imagine how she could not be. She spoke about the fact that she worked in her foster-parents’ restaurant and it sounded almost like her saving grace because she didn’t have to experience hunger like other people of that time period. But, like Hickey mentions, “The government counted on women ‘to make up deficiencies in diet, clothing and comfort brought about by war’.” Hermine was a young girl, and those are big responsibilities for a young girl. This is yet another thing she and I have in common. My mother left my father when I was only 12 and I was left to be his counselor, companion and to grow up way too soon. These roles are not meant to be taken on by young girls. These are for grown women who have had the opportunity to grow up in due time.
(Insert page 6, after the second paragraph)
In the book, Behind the Lines, by Margaret Higonnet, she recalls a woman’s memory of the bombings, which she describes as having “a dreamlike quality”. These defense mechanisms that are brain uses to create memories that are bearable for us to recollect. It creates a sense of uncertainty in me, about the few childhood memories that I possess. Are they valid, accurate? Does it matter? Our mind attempts to protect us in order to keep us alive. If changing traumatic memories into dreamlike recollections is what needs to happen for us to be able to function in our daily lives, then so be it. Whatever it takes. Higonnet says, “Memories are constantly being recreated; there is no ‘original’ and therefore accurate memory.” (pg. 288) In my opinion, whatever comes up, and however it chooses to be expressed, is exactly the right thing in that moment.