The book Van den Grooten Oorlog

Unfortunately, the book is not available in English. It has been published in Dutch and in French (Témoignages de la Grande Guerre).

A special book that first appeared on 11 November 1978.

Of the editions from 1978 to 2004, 17,000 copies in total were distributed in Flanders and the Netherlands. The proceeds covered the running costs of the 11 November Group. You can also read a selection of the testimonies, in English translation, at Van den Grooten Oorlog: fragments.

The book was prepared at great speed in 1978, among other things to raise funds for the theatre project “NOOIT BRENGT EEN OORLOG VREDE” (Never Does a War Bring Peace). The recordings (from 1968 to 1978) of men and women who had lived through the First World War were listened to again by Marieke Demeester. Here and there, corrections were made. Many new stories were also included in the new edition of March 2016.

Van den Grooten Oorlog

In short, easy-to-read pieces
sixty men and women tell
what they experienced
during the First World War.
These are stories of “ordinary” people,
often sad, sometimes funny,
never prettified or embellished.
You are immediately gripped by
the captivating way
the witnesses tell their stories.
And so
their story
a hundred years later
becomes our story.

Publisher of all editions:
Malegijs vzw, Wijtschatestraat 2/B, 8956 Kemmel, Belgium.

Order the book from the In Flanders Fields Museum webshop →

Also available in French, translated by Noëlle Michel:
Témoignages de la Grande Guerre (In Flanders Fields Museum webshop).