Robert Edsel, bestselling author of Monuments Men (adapted into the hit movie starring George Clooney and Matt Damon), joins Big Jim from Big Jim’s House on WCSX to discuss his powerful new book, Remember Us.
In this exclusive interview, Edsel shares the moving, untold story of the 10,000 American soldiers buried in the Netherlands—and the Dutch families who have lovingly tended to their graves for generations. It’s a remarkable tribute to sacrifice, respect, and the lasting bond between two nations forged through war.
In this exclusive interview, Edsel shares the moving, untold story of the 10,000 American soldiers buried in the Netherlands—and the Dutch families who have lovingly tended to their graves for generations. It’s a remarkable tribute to sacrifice, respect, and the lasting bond between two nations forged through war.
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00:00Robert, how are you?
00:01Doing great, Jim. How are you?
00:03Good.
00:04How about that, huh?
00:05He's been on my mind for the better part of a day.
00:09Yeah, Silverstone, yeah.
00:11Well, you know, he's one of only 483 boys, sons of Michigan, that are buried at that cemetery.
00:185% of the people buried in the Netherlands are from your state.
00:22I always wonder, you know, we always hear the story that about, and we're talking about the book Remember Us.
00:27And, Robert, you know that the middle class started here in Detroit.
00:31You always hear the stories, you know.
00:32But any time that we talk about it on the air here in Detroit, there is this sense of duty that generationally that you see so many men and women will step up to serve.
00:42And you've got people that served in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf, everything.
00:46Do you find that to be true?
00:48Well, no question about it.
00:51And I'm counting on that because, as you know, aside from telling this amazing story that I think we'll see a film of, and really an untold story about what happens to soldiers when they're killed on the battlefield.
01:05How did they get where they got to?
01:07Who dug these graves?
01:08What was that experience like?
01:09What were the families experiencing that were worrying about where their boys were or those that had gotten the worst news possible?
01:16But there are still, out of these Dutch grave adopters, that every single grave has someone in the Netherlands that watches over the memory of that family and corresponds with the American families if they had the contact information.
01:30But the Army refused to provide that information at the end of the war, and no one's ever given it to them since.
01:36So they have about, of the 10,000 graves that are there today, all men except for four women, they only have contact information for about 20% of the American families.
01:47Why?
01:48Well, I think the government was concerned about privacy issues, and there were scams at some other cemeteries with people putting down flowers, taking a photograph, and sending it to some relative in 1947 saying,
01:59and send me $5 for the photograph.
02:01That didn't happen out there at the cemetery, and so the government just kind of blanket said, we're not going to provide it.
02:06So the Monuments Men and Women Foundation, in conjunction with the Dutch Adoption Foundation, created a program called the Forever Promise Program.
02:14Foreverpromise.org is a website, and we have listed all 10,000 men and women that are buried there.
02:21It's searchable, and we're asking people to go there, see if there's a relative of yours that's buried there.
02:26If there is, there's a short questionnaire that pops up.
02:29It asks, what's your relationship?
02:31Are you aware there's an adoption program?
02:33Are you in contact with your adopter?
02:34Would you like to be?
02:36Will you let us share your contact information with the Grave Adoption Foundation in the Netherlands?
02:40Because some of these families in the Netherlands that have watched over the American boys have photographs or unsent letters from the times that the boys were living in their home or living in their barn,
02:51and they are literally dying to share it with the Americans, but they don't know how to reach them.
02:55So this is a chance.
02:57As I said, I'm counting on that incredible loyalty of people in Michigan to come forward and go help us find those families,
03:05and let's put them in touch with the Dutch adopters and finish in 2025 what they tried to do in 1945.
03:12Tell me about Jeff Wiggins.
03:15The story of Jeff Wiggins to me is it's heartbreaking what he went through, but for you personally, when did you discover Jeff,
03:22and how did you come to write this into the story as part of it?
03:25Well, I wrote Jeff.
03:27Jeff Wiggins was a black American who was born in Dothan, Alabama,
03:31and his earliest memory at six years old was hearing a crackling sound outside the shack he was living in with his brothers and sisters,
03:38and he opened the panels and saw a burning cross in the front in the yard at his house,
03:44and there were 25 Ku Klux Klanmen, including boys his age wearing hoods that were there to hang his daddy over the impardonable sin of selling a bale of cotton
03:55because his family was starving, and the farmer didn't want to sell it because prices were low.
04:01And his grandma always told him, excuse me, if you can ever get out of here, do it.
04:06So he volunteered to go into the Army.
04:09He was 16 and a half.
04:10He lied about his age.
04:11He went in as a quartermaster troop, but he wanted to prove that he was just as worthy as a white American,
04:17and then he was on the back of a truck one morning, and his commanding officer said,
04:22get the guys ready, 4 a.m. in the morning.
04:24Where are we going, sir?
04:25You'll find out when we get there.
04:26And they pulled up and heard the sound of picks and shovels hitting the ground.
04:31They could begin to smell the smells, and they opened the tarp on the back of the truck and realized they were there to dig graves.
04:38And this is incredibly dangerous because a lot of the soldiers' bodies had live ammunition on them,
04:44an incredibly tactile task because there weren't any coffins.
04:48There wasn't any wood.
04:49They're burying the bodies in bed sacks, and it's just the most gruesome task of the Army,
04:56but it's a functional element of war we've never heard about.
05:00No, no.
05:00We haven't.
05:02Sure, it's depressing, but that's not the end of our story.
05:06And our story is inspiring because of what the Dutch did to honor and thank their American liberators.
05:13I mean, even during the war, they're trying to find an answer to the question, how do you thank your liberators when they're no longer alive to thank?
05:19And that's what led to them creating this grave adoption program.
05:23It is.
05:24I come.
05:25I spent eight years in the submarine service, and my dad was a ranger in Korea, and I had uncles in Germany and Korea in the 50s and stuff.
05:32So, and my family, and I always wrestle with certain stories when the curse sunk.
05:38It was very personal to me.
05:39My wife understood.
05:40I get emotional thinking about it because I could relate to those men on that submarine, what they were going through.
05:45And I think as I'm starting to read this book, and my son Adam is 21 years old, and Robert, he found it on his own.
05:52I didn't even have to tell him I was talking to you.
05:54There are generations of people on this side of the pond who are trying to understand what was given and what these families had to deal with.
06:03How do you keep yourself emotionally in check during this writing process?
06:09I tell my wife at the end of each day, instead of asking me how my day was, asked me how many times I cried.
06:15Really?
06:15And I still do.
06:16I mean, I speak to audiences.
06:19In fact, I'll be in Detroit at the Detroit Athletic Club on June 1st.
06:25I'll be there.
06:26June 2nd.
06:27I'll be there.
06:28Please come introduce yourself.
06:31And I don't ever make it through presentations without crying several times because, you know, so many, and during World War II, and you know this,
06:41we had 125 million Americans and 15 million men and women who were in service,
06:45but everybody that wasn't in service was somehow engaged in the war.
06:49Nobody escaped it.
06:50Now we have 335 million Americans being protected by one and a half million Americans.
06:55And unless you have a family that's in military, you don't have to care.
06:59You don't have to be involved.
07:00And that's not right, in my opinion.
07:03So what I'm trying to do is get people to understand, you know, Memorial Day, go to the baseball park, enjoy your three days off.
07:10But that's not what it's about.
07:11It's about saying thank you to the men and women who have allowed us to go to the baseball park and do all the other stuff that we do because freedom is not free.
07:20And this book is an effort to tell you, you know what, it's not only not free, it's costly, it's ugly, it's painful, and you need to know all that.
07:30It's not a Game Boy.
07:31It's not a Marvel movie that blows up.
07:33This is what really happens, and this is the cost of it, and why we should be so grateful for the freedom we've got.
07:40When was the first time you went to Lindbergh?
07:41I actually went there in 1997 or 98 because they had a big art fair, and I was studying art and architecture, working on the Monuments Men story.
07:52And I knew about the cemetery, and it wasn't until 2015 I met this amazing woman named Frida who watched over one of the graves of the American Monuments officers,
08:03the one Monuments officer that was killed during combat, and she asked me, have you been to the American Cemetery?
08:08And I said, oh, yeah, I've been there.
08:09And she said, are you sure?
08:09And I said, yeah, I'm real sure.
08:11I've been there.
08:12And she said, so you know about the grave adoption program?
08:14And I said, the what?
08:15And she said, the grave adoption program.
08:17And I said, I have no idea what you're talking about.
08:19And I was embarrassed.
08:20And I think that the Dutch have been doing this for so long, for 80 continuous years, that they think it's normal.
08:28And therefore, it all stays within the community.
08:30They have 1,000 people on the waiting list to become adopters.
08:33The turnover is only 30 a year.
08:35Never knew the story.
08:37Never knew the story, Robert.
08:38I've never had anybody interrupt me and say, oh, I know about it.
08:42I haven't had it happen yet.
08:43Wow.
08:44Hey, I'm looking forward to having you here in Detroit.
08:46More importantly, I encourage everyone.
08:50We do a feature here called I Thank You Friday.
08:52Every Friday, we feature a veteran or an organization just to let people know it's not just Memorial and Veterans Day.
08:58You say thank you every day.
09:00They signed that blank check.
09:02They signed a blank check knowing full well.
09:05And this guy, Robert Silverstone, 1942 is when he joined.
09:09He passed away.
09:10He died when he was 24 years old.
09:12He never got a life, but we did because of men and women like this guy.
09:15Thank you so much for this book, Robert.
09:17Thank you, Jim.
09:18Appreciate your support and look forward to meeting you soon.
09:20Take care.
09:21Take care.
09:21Take care.
09:21Take care.
09:21Take care.
09:21Take care.
09:22Take care.
09:23Take care.
09:25Take care.
09:25Take care.
09:26Take care.