Overview 1977 – now
In the 1970s, books about the First World War, "the Great War" of 1914–1918, were mostly accounts of operations and battles. They were written by officers, generals and army chaplains.
What was missing was the "voice" and the "view" of the soldiers in the trenches, of refugees, of women who had to fight to survive.
On 11 November 1977 Opbouwwerk Heuvelland, a local community-work organisation, invited young people. For them this "Armistice Day" was a day off, nothing more, nothing less. They listened to testimonies of Marie Beck and Oscar Ricour, recorded in 1968. The young people were moved by these testimonies.
They decided to visit regularly the same man or woman who had lived through the First World War. The young people ended up in families where they said to grandma: "Metje, do be quiet about that war, it's always the same story". This time grandpa, grandma, the neighbours received visits from young people who listened.
After a few weeks there were 40 volunteers, young and old, in the team that called itself the "ELFNOVEMBERGROEP" (11 November Group).
Where there was a good relationship between "old" and "young", the young people brought small tape recorders to record the witnesses' testimonies. In this way an important sound archive came into being.
Volunteers of the 11 November Group recorded testimonies in this region (on both sides of the Franco-Belgian border) from 27 men and 13 women (in Bailleul-F, Boeschepe-F, Dikkebus-B, Dranouter-B, Elverdinge-B, Hollebeke-B, Ypres-B, Jette-B, Kemmel-B, Klerken-B, Loker-B, Messines-B, Nieuwkerke-B, Poperinge-B, Reningelst-B, Steenvoorde-F, Voormezele-B, Westouter-B, Wijtschate-B, Wulvergem-B and Zillebeke-B).
Kurt Fagnoul from Eupen visited two German former soldiers in a nursing home in Monschau near Aachen. Edmond Dorémieux, a native of Bailleul living in Lot-et-Garonne, noted down a testimony in the region where he lived. Margaret Brooks, of the "Sound Records" department of the Imperial War Museum in London, supplied us with some testimonies of Britons:
A selection of these testimonies was published in the book "VAN DEN GROOTEN OORLOG", which first appeared on 11 November 1978. (The fifth edition appeared in 2004.) (Editions 1978–2004: 17,000 copies in all.)
These testimonies, recorded in the regional dialect from Steenvoorde-F to Ypres-B, were written out in Dutch, in a form that stays as close as possible to the spoken language, so that the book can be read throughout the Dutch-speaking area (Flanders and the Netherlands). In the Netherlands there was and is wide interest in the book. At least 1,500 copies were distributed in the Netherlands.
Inspired by these testimonies, Marieke Demeester, with the help of Stefaan Dehollander and Jan Hardeman, wrote a community play, "NOOIT BRENGT EEN OORLOG VREDE" (Never Does a War Bring Peace). 70 amateurs, led by professionals (direction: François Beukelaers, Brussels – choreography: Lea Daan, Antwerp – songs and singing: Wannes Van de Velde, Antwerp), rehearsed from April to November 1978. Gerard Alsteens (GAL) drew the poster.
The play was performed in Kemmel in a warehouse that volunteers had converted into a theatre with 800 seats (with the help of Circus Wiener, which supplied benches and a heating installation). First performance: 11 November 1978. The "front-line theatre" was sold out six times.
Two major peace organisations, the "Overlegcentrum voor de Vrede" (Flanders) and "Paix et Développement" (Wallonia), invited the 11 November Group to perform in Brussels at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in January 1979. It was a great success.
For the partly French-speaking audience we provided a summary in French and sang the closing song in French and Dutch.
During the following theatre season the group performed the play in Antwerp, Ghent, Hasselt, Ostend, Roeselare, Turnhout and again in Brussels. In all, 19 performances for 16,000 spectators. Dozens of articles appeared in the press at home and abroad (the group archive holds 88 press cuttings in 4 languages).
The French theatre magazine "Théâtre-Public" (Paris) wrote "L'Evénement théâtral de l'année" (the theatrical event of the year). At the UNESCO theatre conference in Vienna in 1979 a lecture was given on this community play. In 1980 the group received the Van Peene-Miry theatre prize.Under the title "ECCE HOMO" (Behold the Man) the 11 November Group organised a successful exhibition in 1988. The exhibition showed what people are capable of in wartime: positive and negative.
The exhibition, at the Streekhuis Malegijs in Kemmel, confronted the many testimonies with photographs and objects from the First World War, with poetry and with works of art by, among others, Frank Brangwyn, Albert Hahn, Käthe Kollwitz and Frans Masereel.
In four weeks there were 7,000 visitors, a third of them from across the French border. There was a small guide in Dutch and French. "Le Monde" wrote of the first exhibition on the First World War "sans portraits de généraux" (without portraits of generals).
In 2002 we exhibited a copy of the large drawing by Frans Masereel: "France, juin 1940". The company Doublet in Avelin-F made a canvas of it, 33 metres long, which we pass on to schools and associations setting up peace work.
In 2004 we organised the exhibition "Fleeing… through the ages!" in Messines. In this exhibition photographs, documents and objects of refugees from our region in '14–'18 were set against photographs, documents and objects of refugees from the Second World War and from current events.
On this occasion a CD with testimonies of refugees was added to the fifth edition of the book "Van den Grooten Oorlog".
In 2006, after the death of the last witness (Martha Brion, born 1908, died 2005), we organised an evening at which people who had known the witnesses presented a few testimonies. At the request of the mayor of Boeschepe-F, a similar evening was held on 10 November 2008 in the Saint-Martin church in Boeschepe. Two people from Boeschepe also read testimonies there (for example, Charles Verdonck told what had been recorded in 1978 from his father). French and Belgian people presented these testimonies in West Flemish. This evening was included in the programme of the département du Nord.
In 2008 we produced two editions (German–Dutch and German–French) of the book that Adolf Sempf wrote in 1920: "DER TOD AM KEMMEL".
Marieke Demeester provided the Dutch translation. Gerd Schützbach and Martine Pottier provided the French translation.
The Dutch Press Museum in Amsterdam supplied two drawings by Albert Hahn: "The Sower" (6 April 1918) and "Ecce Homo" (13 April 1918).
Albert Hahn (Groningen 17 March 1877 – Amsterdam 3 August 1918) was an artist of fiery, driving conviction.
On 11 November 2010 we organised a multilingual poetry evening in Westouter, "War and Peace", where besides poems in Dutch and French, poems were also read in Danish, German, English, Yiddish and Polish.
We continue to collect poems about war and peace, together with the "Poëziecentrum" in Ghent and the "Maisons de la Poésie" in Beuvry (Pas-de-Calais) and Namur (Wallonia).
Over the years we have also received school groups. We arranged tailored walks and visits, with our own explanation, adapted to the class groups. In recent years only classes from the Da Vinci College in Roosendaal (the Netherlands).
For schools a play is ready, "Wachten op Gisteren" (Waiting for Yesterday), written by Marieke Demeester, which can be performed by pupils and one female teacher.
All the recordings of the witnesses (1968–1978 and later) were listened to again. We discovered that, in the rush to have the people's book VAN DEN GROOTEN OORLOG ready on 11 November 1978, a fascinating paragraph was sometimes left out. The new edition (March 2016) is considerably improved and contains many new stories.
The book "Van den Grooten Oorlog" is now also available in French. Noëlle Michel translated it: "TEMOIGNAGES DE LA GRANDE GUERRE".
In 2015 the 11 November Group opened a "MEMORIAL GARDEN" in Westouter (in the Hellegatstraat, a short distance from the village centre), where we remember that so many people in Belgium and northern France – and especially in this region – are children and grandchildren of REFUGEES. The space was developed by local businesses and by volunteers. The opening – in the midst of nature – was on World Refugee Day, 20 June 2015. On a wall of posts stand some thirty escape routes of families.
2026. "THE BOOK ON FILM". A series of short films is growing out of the book, with images made with AI after the words of the witnesses.
In his book "De Stilte van de Salient" (Lannoo 2005), which describes how the memory of the First World War developed in the Westhoek, Johan Meire devotes a chapter to the 11 November Group: Chapter 10 – pp. 239–247: