image: S/Sgt Max Chotin, American hero, © Mr. Arthur Chotin
By Beata Bruggeman-Sekowska
My husband and myself were honored to attend the celebrations of the Memorial Day at the The Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial, the only American cemetery in the Netherlands where 8288 American heroes who died in World War II are buried and 1722 heroes missing in action are honored at this vast cemetery of 65 acres. They fought for our freedom and we should never forget them. We have also adopted a grave of an American hero as many Dutch families to show our gratitude and honor their sacrifice.
During the ceremony we were enormously moved by a speech of Mr. Arthur Chotin who is the son of S/Sgt Max Chotin, one of the many American soldiers buried in Margraten. We are convinced that this speech should be shared with the rest of the world, all generations and especially the young generation to make them aware of the sacrifice of the heroes like S/Sgt Max Chotin and the impact of the war on those they left behind.
During the Memorial Day ceremony Mr. Arthur Chotin shared with those present what the loss of his father meant to him, his mother, his family. He also expressed gratitude on behalf of the many surviving relatives for adopting the graves in Margraten.
The impressive speech can be read in its entirety below. We would like to thank Mr. Arthur Chotin for this impressive lesson of history and sharing with us his personal, moving story and also for this wonderful opportunity of being allowed to share his address with our audience.
REMARKS OF ARTHUR CHOTIN
Memorial Day Ceremony at the Netherlands American Cemetery Margraten, Netherlands
May 26, 2024
Honored guests especially our World War II veterans, Dames en Heren.
D-Day: Thousands died on the beaches. Survivors fought their way through France and Belgium; but many did not survive those battles. And many of them rest here.
Cemeteries serve two purposes: to give the dead a place to rest and to honor and remember them. But beautiful cemeteries like this, cared for by the staff of the American Battle Monuments Commission; places where the dead are buried far from home and those who loved them, have additional impact: they reveal the consequences of war.
When I visited here the first time I wrote to my mother “before the old men who send young men into battle are given the power to make those decisions, they should be required to visit a place like this.” Because these dead are the consequences of those decisions; with unintended consequences changing the lives of those left behind.
On November 3, 1945, the war was over. But my father, delivering paperwork to begin sending men in his unit home, was killed when a truck collided with his jeep. He is buried here. His grave has been adopted by Boy, Petra and Pim Naaijkens, a remarkable family I am honored to call my friends. Thanks to the Stichting Adoptie,
the Adoption Foundation, every grave and name here has been adopted; On behalf of these soldiers, their families and the American people, I say to the Foundation and to the Dutch people, thank you so very much!
I never knew my father. He was killed a month before my first birthday. Even though I didn’t know him, I think of him every day. But how I think of him has changed.
First, the pain was mine. When the kids in class made Father’s Day cards, I was the one without a father. I cried for myself.
Later I realized it was not all about me. My mother had only been married for three years. She never came here. She never remarried. Deep inside she believed that one day there would be a knock at the door. There wasn’t. So I cried for her.
Now I realize that the saddest loss wasn’t ours. It was his. He would have been proud to have served his country but he too had dreams: he was a CPA. He had parents who relied on him, a wife and a baby who was supposed to be the first, not the only. His whole future was ahead of him. Until the day his future stopped and he
became fixed in time with no chance to achieve his dreams. I cry for him.
Today, I am almost 50 years older than that father I never knew. He is always 30, and, together with the 10,000 other servicemen and women here deprived of the chance to live out their future, they are fixed in time and I cry for them.
We all cry watching military funerals and their folded flags. But the impact on those left behind just begins when that flag is folded. Spouses find themselves single-parents raising children whose lives have been shattered. Parents have the pain of living longer than their child.
And while some can take pride that their loved one was a hero, almost half of those we remember on Memorial Day did not die in battle. My father was just a soldier who got into a Jeep at the wrong time on the wrong day. But these dead were related to heroes.
The wife who kept the memory of her husband alive for her children, when even talking about him brought back the horror of the uniforms and chaplain at her door. The husband explaining to his children why their mother will never be able to come to their school play. The grandparents who want desperately to make their dead child more than just a story for their grandchildren. People struggling to find words, who fought through the sorrow, the anger, the grief, just to get to the next day.
They are heroes. When lesser people would crawl into bed and never take off the covers, they stood up and lived. They kept alive the memories of their dead. Their dead who, fixed in time, will be forever young, always the age we see in their photographs; photographs which, thanks to the Faces of Margraten project, are seen here at the Cemetery’s incredible Visitor’s Center.
When he came here at 15, my son David brought a letter to my father. He wrote:
”I wanted to say thanks. What you did, what all the soldiers did, was make this world a place where people could live, and flourish, and make their own choices instead of having someone like Hitler make the choices for them. [He concluded]…I just want you to know…I remember and appreciate what you and all the[se] soldiers did to keep humanity free [from] tyranny. ”
My wife, my older son and I remember as well. In 2015 when I spoke here, I said of my father “I hope he would be proud of me.” I have never once said until today,“Dad, I am so proud of you.” So today we join to remember and honor all of them, including my father, S/Sgt Max Chotin; and their loved ones, including my mother,
Sylvia Chotin, who I pray is with my father today. And all the parents and all the children left behind. The heroes who kept their memories alive. To these dead I say, you are:
Voor altijd geliefd: Forever loved
Voor altijd herinnerd: Forever remembered
Voor altijd gewaardeerd: Forever honored
as you remain, like your photos,
Voor altijd jong: Forever young.
Bedankt.
Author: Beata Bruggeman-Sękowska is an award-winning international journalist, TV correspondent, author, chief editor of international journalism centre, Central and Eastern Europe Centre, president of the European Institute on Communist Oppression and a sworn translator. She was born in Warsaw, Poland and has also Armenian blood and roots in Lvov, which is part of Ukraine. She has been living in Heerlen, the Netherlands since 2005.
