One of the biggest American World War II cemeteries in Europe is in a small town in the Netherlands, where thousands of Dutch people continue the tradition to this day of “adopting” a fallen US soldier and checking in on his family. “The Monuments Man” author Robert Edsel joins Glenn Beck to tell this incredible story, which he documents in his new book, “Remember Us.”
Transcript
Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: Robert, welcome back to the program. How are you, sir?
ROBERT: Great to talk to you!
GLENN: It's great to talk to you.
Can you remind me? You were on with us, after Monuments Men. And you talked about this great service that is still going on, where people that -- they were still looking for paintings and pieces of art, that had been taken by the Nazis.
And if I remember right, didn't somebody in our -- our own audience reach out to you, and say, I think we found one of those paintings?
ROBERT: Yes, sir. Absolutely.
The Glenn Beck audience. And Glenn Beck, you yourself deserve a lot of credit.
Because I hadn't walked out of your studio last time. You know, in Dallas at Las Colinas.
Headed back to our office at Monuments Men and Women Foundation office, before someone in my office contacted me and said, we've already had a lead, as a result of your interview with Glenn. And it turned out someone whose aunt had been given two paintings during World War II.
She had worked for the government overseeing Germany, and these two paintings were missing.
We were able to identify who the rightful owner was, and get them back.
So it's a great thing that you performed. And, you know, it's a magnificent conclusion, though obviously a very difficult part of history.
GLENN: What was it like to give that back to the family?
ROBERT: It was a deeply moving experience. We -- the foundation found and returned more than 30 works of art, from paintings to documents, ancient books. Tapestries, to museums. Individual collectors, and so on.
And, you know, when we see, oftentimes, the people just stand there, and they cry.
They don't even know what to say. Because they may have worked 50 or 60 years, trying to find some work of art that's been missing. And they haven't had leads. And to -- to see us standing there, with something that belongs to them.
Not asking for anything in return. Don't charge anybody for doing it. Because we feel like everybody who went through World War II already paid enough.
Words -- words just fail. It's just pure gratitude.
GLENN: I can't wait for you to tell this new story.
Tell me the story of the care takers. The care takers of --
ROBERT: Well, it's a story that found me, just as Monuments did.
I have written about -- in the Monuments Men, I told the story of two Monuments Officers who were killed in combat, one British soldier and one American, Walter Huchthausen. And Huchthausen was killed. He once did a last casualty at war. He was killed in the last month of World War II, and is buried in the American benevolence, American cemetery, in Margraten in the Netherlands. I knew that story, and I had made mention of a young girl who was harbored in September '45, asking for the address of his mother, wanting to write her and tell her, that she walked 5 miles, several times a week, from her house to the American military cemetery. It was called then. To put flowers on his grave. Because her family knew them. And they were grief-stricken to know that they were killed.
And I knew that story too. I mentioned that. And then in 2015, the nephew of Huchthausen wrote me and included a photograph of this elderly lady with this crown of white hair. And he said, here's a photo with Frida, and I couldn't place who this was.
I had no idea who it was. And I realized, my God, this is that 19-year-old girl that is still alive. So I flew to England. She married a British soldier after the war. And I went to meet with her. She started showing me photographs of when the American -- Americans liberated her area of the Netherlands.
And all these American soldiers that they knew.
And she said, you know about the American military cemetery.
She said, have you been there?
And I said yes. And she said, so you know about the great adoption program?
And I said, what? She said, the great adoption program.
I said, I have no idea what you're talking about. So I started doing some research on this. And learned, at the end of World War II, our largest World War II cemetery in Europe, was not Normandy. It was the Netherlands American cemetery, where 17,800 boys and a few women buried at this cemetery by May 1946.
And by that time, every single grave had a Dutch person, a local person, who volunteered to be an adaptor of that brave.
Go out there on the first death date of the soldier, Veterans Day, Memorial Day.
And if they had the contact information for the next of kin, send them a photograph of the grave.
And a letter.
Because they realized, it was okay to adopt the bodies of dead boys.
But where the real need was, was to reach across the ocean, into the American homes and try to assuage the grief of the families.
And they knew some of these boys. And I found it the most heartwarming, uplifting, and certainly unique conclusion to a World War II story that I think has been written.
GLENN: So are they still some of them still doing this?
ROBERT: Not some. In fact, there were about -- in 1940, 748.
American families were given the choice to have their loved ones sent home, or to be left overseas in a military cemetery.
The Army had no idea, how many -- how many families would want their boys sent home, and as a consequence, they couldn't tell how many cemeteries they would need.
We thought almost everybody would want to have the families sent home. But it turned out not to be the case. So about 61 percent came home. About 39 percent stayed in Europe, which was about the numbers from World War I.
Although, the numbers in this area, in the Netherlands were higher.
The -- the graves that are there now.
There are 10,000 boys there. And four women.
8300 graves. 1700 names on the walls of the missing.
Every one of them has an adaptor for 80 years.
All those graves have been adopted, without interruption.
There's a waiting list of almost a thousand people in the Netherlands, to become a doctor. This is a -- not just a --
GLENN: This is --
JASON: A privilege. Because they take their kids out to the cemetery. They turn the cemetery into a classroom. And you go out there. And, yes, there's a somber element. They're instilling in their kids, you're able to think, and say what you want to. Because of the freedom that was given to you, by this American girl or boy. And we don't do that in our country anymore.
GLENN: So this is one of the most incredible stories that I've -- I've ever heard.
And I'm shocked that the world doesn't know this!
Is -- have you -- is there anything like this, anywhere else in the world?
JASON: No. We couldn't even find a comp of any nature.
There are -- that is not to say, the people in Normandy area, don't care about Normandy and other cemeteries. They do, of course. As do the Belgians in other cemeteries.
But there's no place that created an organic great adoption program, during the war, in January 1945!
These people in this area of the Netherlands were so grateful, having been neutral in World War I.
And having not lost their freedom for 100 years!
And they didn't like it!
And when the Americans liberated them in September 44. I'll never forget this woman Freda. This elderly woman I met, looked at me, the first time I interviewed her. I knew her for eight years. The last eight years of her life.
I delivered a eulogy two summers ago. She looked at me, there were the eyes of the 19-year-old. And she said, when I saw that first tank over the hill and I realized, we were saved.
I looked at my dad, and I said, Papi, these American boys come all the way across the ocean to say this. And there were tears in her eyes.
Because they didn't -- they couldn't imagine how we could have moved that equipment across -- across the ocean.
And why we would have cared so much.
So there isn't anything like it.
But January 45, these people in this little town of Margraten.
A mile from the cemetery, organized a meeting of the town leaders. The town who got 1200 people.
And they were trying to find an answer to the question: How do you thank your liberators, when they're no longer alive to thank? And they came up with this idea of this great adoption program, and it's a story that I tell, following the lives of about 12 different American combat soldiers.
Bomber recipients.
Tankers.
Because we don't know that story.
We don't what knows to an American story, when they're killed on the field of battle.
Because it's depressing.
We move on to the next scene in a movie.
Well, I want people to know, you started your program with freedom is not free.
It's ugly.
Let's talk about that. Let's talk about what the cost is.
Let's talk about the stripping line that the body goes through, and the removal of dog tags, one being put in the mouth, if there's still a head. And the other being nailed to the cross, because they don't have time to stencil the names on yet.
Let's talk about that, and let people know, it's not just a Marvel movie. Or a gang war.
This is real. This is painful. And, of course, at the end of the war, when we Americans declare victory, and move on with our lives, there's millions of family members in the United States, whose lives will never be the same.
So it is -- it's still happening today. It's still happening today.
GLENN: The name -- the name of the book is Remember Us.
And take us -- I mean, because that's really kind of the -- the -- the beauty of it.
Take us through the rest of the book, just briefly.
It starts with what?
ROBERT: Well, I follow -- I began what a nice life was in the Netherlands. Until May 10, 1940.
And the Netherlands does not get much attention from World War II, and yet everybody has heard of Battle of the Bulge. And Battle -- those are all within 50 miles of what we're talking about.
They happened around there. Of course, World War II, in western Europe, begins right here in this area. Because the German tanks roll across the border.
So I cover the life of these 12 different Americans. I interviewed all their family members. Some make it through the war. Some don't.
You read the book, you realize who makes it, who doesn't. But their lives converge around this area of the Netherlands. And when post-world War II stories end, with the war being over, remember us kicks into a transcendent moment when the Dutch come up with this idea of this great adoption program. The Americans refuse to provide the names and addresses of the next of kin.
So they're foiled with trying to achieve their ultimate objective. Which is to try to contact all the American families.
And frustrated, there was -- one of the key figures of the book.
A woman who is the mother of 12 children.
Who takes it upon herself. She's a woman of action.
She writes president Truman. And pleads for him to get involved.
When that doesn't work. She gets on the first airplane, she's ever flown on. She leaves her kids behind.
She flies to New York. Lands in LaGuardia Field.
She goes to Washington, and meets the members of Congress. Including a young guy from Texas, named Lyndon Johnson.
Who says, young lady, you need to go to Texas. Because there are so many military bases there.
She flies to our hometown. And lands in Lovefield.
In June of 1946. And is met by two family members. And for five weeks, she lives with American families, that lost somebody during a war.
And to each of them she says, leave your boys with us. When the election comes.
We will watch over them, like our own forever.
And they have done that. Now, today, these 10,000 Dutch doctors only have contact information for 20 percent of the American families.
They couldn't ever get the others.
GLENN: You're kidding me. Where is the list? Do you have a list?
ROBERT: Yeah. The Monuments Men and Women Foundation entered into a joint venture with the Dutch Foundation for Adopting Graves.
Not charging anybody for this. And we have created a website called foreverpromise.org.
And on that website is a list of all 10,000 men and women, more women that are buried at the cemetery, or whose names are on the walls missing.
And it's a searchable database. We're asking people to go and see. Do you have someone you know, or a relative, who is buried there.
And if so, we have a short questionnaire. What's your relationship? Are you aware of this great adoption program? Are you in contact with your adopter? Would you like to be? Would you allow us to share your contact information?
I connected a lady from Richmond, Texas. Saturday night. To her -- to this young Tammy, that's the adopter of her brother.
She's 93 years old.
She was in tears. At the thought when she leaves this world, there will be someone there to watch over her brother.
And that's what we're all about is this connecting.
GLENN: Rob, I have to tell you.
You've really done something with your life. I mean, I know you don't need me to say it.
But what a great job you have. And what a great service you have done for so many years.
Thank you so much.
Please, look this up.
The forever promise project.
You can find it at foreverpromise.org. Foreverpromise.org. Robert Edsel is the author's name. The book is Remember Us. It's a perfect read for this week.
