Remember Us: American Sacrifice, Dutch Freedom, and A Forever Promise Forged in World War II

Robert M. Edsel’s Remember Us: American Sacrifice, Dutch Freedom, and a Forever Promise Forged in World War II (2025) is a work of historical nonfiction that chronicles the experiences of American soldiers, Dutch civilians, and Allied officers whose lives intersected during and after World War II. A #1 New York Times best-selling author best known for The Monuments Men, Edsel specializes in uncovering lost wartime stories. The book combines biography, oral history, and narrative nonfiction, to address themes such as The Moral Cost of Freedom, Remembrance as Resistance, and The Humanizing Power of Connection.

This guide references the 2025 Harper Horizon e-book edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of racism, graphic violence, and death. In particular, the text has discussion of antisemitism, wartime executions, and trauma.

Summary

The book opens at the Netherlands American Cemetery at Margraten, a carefully tended field of marble crosses and Stars of David that mark the final resting places of more than 8,000 American soldiers who died in the European theater of World War II. The cemetery is maintained by the Dutch grave adoption program, started by local citizens who have formed lasting relationships with the families of the dead.

The narrative moves to the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands in May 1940, seen through the eyes of Emilie Michiels van Kessenich, wife of Maastricht’s mayor. As the Nazis occupy the country, she tries to maintain her morals and dignity while raising a family. Her husband, Willem, initially complies with the occupiers but eventually resigns under moral pressure. As the years pass, Emilie secretly documents events in a “Memory Book,” shelters those in danger, and becomes a symbol of resistance.

Meanwhile, in the segregated American South, a Black teenager named Jefferson Wiggins lies about his age to enlist in the Army, hoping to escape systemic racism. Another Black man, Bill Hughes, enters the Army after leaving a federal job in Washington, DC. Both men face intense discrimination but are eventually assigned to all-Black units—Wiggins to the 960th Quartermaster Company and Hughes to the 784th Tank Battalion.

Other American figures emerge: Lieutenant Colonel Robert Cole, a paratrooper who volunteers for the Army’s first airborne units and eventually leads one of the war’s most legendary bayonet charges; Chaplain Paschal Fowlkes, an Episcopal minister who joins the Army to offer spiritual comfort to men at the front; and Stephen Mosbacher, a German Jewish émigré turned intelligence officer, whose return to Europe to fight the Nazis adds emotional complexity to his mission.

On the Dutch side, teenager Frieda van Schaik and her father, Dave, help preserve cultural treasures by hiding masterpieces in the caves of Sint Pietersberg. Over time, Frieda becomes a trusted figure within both the Resistance and the American Civil Affairs office in Maastricht. She befriends Walter “Hutch” Huchthausen, a US Monuments Man, assigned to protect war-damaged sites like Aachen Cathedral.

The book weaves these stories together across major historical events: the Allied invasion of Sicily, D-Day and the liberation of France, the failed Operation Market Garden, and the final push into Germany. Through the lens of its subjects, Remember Us captures the emotional stakes of these battles. Robert Cole dies during Market Garden, and Paschal Fowlkes is killed in his first combat jump. Hutch dies while investigating looted art. These losses are mirrored by grief and resilience back home—from the Norton family in South Carolina, who lose both of their twin sons in combat, to Lib Fowlkes, who receives her husband’s final letter months after his death.

As the war winds down, the focus shifts to Margraten, where Jefferson Wiggins and other Black soldiers of the 960th are ordered to bury the dead under horrific conditions. Working side by side with Dutch volunteers like Joseph van Laar, Wiggins confronts not only death but also the contradiction of honoring white soldiers while being denied basic dignity. This part of the book highlights the structural racism of the American military and the emotional toll it took on those who served in segregated units.

After liberation, Dutch civilians like Emilie and Frieda begin caring for the cemetery. Emilie organizes morale-boosting dances for Allied soldiers despite criticism from conservative voices in the community. Frieda, who mourns Hutch’s death, lays flowers at his grave and helps design beautification plans for the cemetery grounds. In time, Emilie adopts multiple graves and receives hundreds of letters from grieving American families. When a photo of her daughters tending a grave appears in Life magazine, she’s inundated with requests from Americans hoping to connect with the people caring for their loved ones.

In 1946, Emilie travels to the United States as a civilian ambassador for the grave adoption movement. Though rebuffed by military officials at first, she eventually finds support from political figures like Congressman (and later President) Lyndon B. Johnson and the grieving families she meets along the way. Her trip becomes a moving success, helping establish Margraten as a sacred international site of remembrance.

The final chapters revisit Frieda, now a young woman in Haarlem who unexpectedly reconnects with Gordon Gumn, a British officer she had befriended during the war. They marry in Maastricht in 1946, and Frieda lays her wedding bouquet at Hutch’s grave, affirming her new sense of peace. Meanwhile, other American families make pilgrimages to Margraten or write letters seeking photographs and contact with Dutch adopters. Some, like Helen Moore, ultimately choose to leave their loved ones buried abroad, trusting the Dutch to honor them.

The Epilogue reflects on the cemetery’s transformation into a permanent site of memory. About 46% of families chose to leave their loved ones in Europe rather than repatriate their remains. The grave adoption program endures into the 21st century, eventually earning recognition as part of the Dutch National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage. Edsel closes the book with a return to Margraten, joined by Frieda (now in her nineties), to reaffirm the bonds of memory that define the cemetery.