Today’s college students, and most Americans, have never experienced anything approaching World War II. Now, with the help of some Washington University students, a Ken Burns documentary featuring stories from those who experienced World War II could provide valuable insight into how all Americans were impacted by the war.
The documentary, titled “The War,” is currently airing on PBS. The documentary focuses on how the war affected four American towns. As part of the documentary, Burns asked people to submit stories about their World War II experiences. Burns, a three-time Emmy award-winning documentary producer, is most famous for his Emmy award-winning “The Civil War.”
The response was much greater than anticipated. According to Barbara Liebmann, administrative assistant at the Center for the Humanities, the University was contacted by St. Louis Public Television, KETC, to see if students would be interested in helping with the project and examining accounts.
“People were sending in so much information that they needed help from the students to sort out what would be actual experiences,” said Liebmann.
The History department and the Program in Film and Media Studies both had students interested in examining the submissions. By examining these submissions, the students are helping preserve the record of a critical time in American and world history.
Senior Traci Horner, one of the students working on the project, said that the concept of the project is very interesting because it collects personal histories before they are lost forever.
“The idea I think that Ken Burns had was he heard some statistic that so many World War II veterans are dying every day, and that statistic inspired him, so he started [the project] and everyone realized that it’s important to get these people’s voices and get their stories recorded in some form or another,” said Horner.
Horner, a history major, said that she was contacted by the History department about an internship associated with “The War.” She is working with KETC to sort through the submitted documents.
“We’re getting letters, books, interviews and oral histories that people have written down and are sending in. It’s basically all types of media,” said Horner.
Horner has gone through various types of documents ranging from a memoir to a pamphlet, both written by people who lived during the war. According to Horner, recorded phone conversations and television interviews are also included in the collection of primary documents.
All of the documents that Horner deals with are from people with some sort of connection to the St. Louis area. According to Horner, St. Louis has received a third of all submissions.
In addition to Horner and the other students from the University, students from St. Louis University are also helping with the project, and there are people working all over the country to examine the documents. Horner said that her aunt is working on the same project in Houston, Texas.
“Everyone has their story and it’s really special to the individual people and they want to be heard. Everything is being collected and sent to the Missouri Historical Society after we deal with it, so it’s still going to be on record,” said Horner.
According to Horner, some of the documents include personal letters written to people serving during the war. She said that it was unexpected that people would be willing to share such personal accounts.
“That’s a really personal thing that someone is willing to share,” said Horner. “It’s been a shock to the people who work there. They didn’t expect so many people to want to talk about it. I’ve read a story from a person from Greece who watched his village get burned when he was ten.”
Horner said that she had not been interested specifically in World War II history, nor had she done much with it personally before this project.
“I’ve kind of shied away from it because I felt it was a topic that everyone covered, but now I’m realizing why everyone covers it,” she said.
Horner said that it is important to listen to the stories because others can relate to them.
“It’s really cool to hear these people’s stories because they were our age when these events happened. I feel like we can relate to it and it’s cool to have this intergenerational connection,” she said.
“We were talking today about the magnitude of World War II and it was such a group effort on such a large scale that it is hard to conceptualize. The closest thing I can think of is when September 11th happened. Everyone has a story of where they were.”