Defeat as Childhood Experience --- MEMORY EPLAINED AND HOW I USED IT IN THIS BOOK -- especially for TEACHERS.
Defeat as Childhood Experience: WWII’s Shadow Remembered, Revisited, and Researched By Karla Poewe @2024 Available Amazon.com
Memory Points
In this book memory is used in a very down to earth manner. Memory is a multi-functional faculty that we all have and use daily. For practical purposes I suggest memory consists of the following types:
1. There is the immediate memory that comes into play when we repeat tasks on an everyday basis to enhance our practical, physical, and mental skills be they for work at home, in industry, the trades, the arts, or academia.
2. There is long term memory that we use for remembering old or ancient histories, written or more often ritualized as annual memorial events that contribute to a group’s, a country’s, or an international sense of what and who we are as human beings.
3. There are childhood memories that originate in extreme and prolonged conditions, for example in war or postwar periods. How good these memories are has to do with both the changing conditions and the changing age of the child. In my case, memories often started with simple happenings and were usually accompanied by fairy tales, religious stories, or funny commentaries told me by one or other significant adult. In retrospect, it became clear to me that these remembered happenings-cum-conversations played a vital role in shaping my mental, social, and physical growth. And while this being shaped started before the occupying forces were ready to help with my defeated country’s recovery, positive encouragements from relevant occupiers when it came, made for immediate active participation on our part. It meant, of course, that future interaction between the defeated and victor became positive and increasingly natural. And this is a vital achievement.
4. There are also memories that function as research tools: for example remembered addresses, colours, sounds, moods, and unique events. In research for this book, e used such memories to take us to other resources of knowledge about my past like archives, or to documents stored in private or public institutions, like orphanages, churches, or hospitals, and so on.
In this book, it is memories of type 3 and 4 that were most useful. By contrast memories of type 1 or 2 are especially useful for trade, industry, or for national and international purposes of celebration or identity creation and affirmation. Importantly, type 2 memories are used to underline universal morals and values, especially ones that are intended to guide or shape international relations.
