Carrying Each Other

On inheritance and obligation: my grandfather's experience as a prisoner of war in WWII

Note: I’m resharing this essay from February 2025 —one that didn’t reach many readers the first time around, but one I keep thinking about. It felt like the right moment to reshare it. This essay is a departure from my usual newsletter; it’s more personal than most.

This morning, the house was filled with what my son calls his ‘bird whistles’ - a newly acquired skill of his that makes our home sound like a menagerie. I’m equal parts charmed and annoyed by this constant soundtrack.

As he turned seven this week, I’ve been thinking particularly about the stories we inherit and how family history is transmitted. I have what my kids call my ‘treasure chest’ - filled with mementos: a matchbook from my great-grandmother’s house, a token from a carousel in Paris, a rock I’ve carried since I first found it in a creek in the hills behind my childhood home in Vermont, and, tucked in the back corner is my grandfather’s battered U.S. Army compass.

My grandfather was a fighter pilot in WWII, and after flying many combat missions, his plane was shot down in a firefight over North Africa. He and his copilot parachuted to safety, only to be captured by the Germans.

He spent the rest of the war in a series of prison camps where there wasn’t enough food or medical care. His Nazi captors conducted ‘forced marches’ between camps - misery deliberately engineered - and prisoners who collapsed were summarily shot. During one such march, my grandfather passed out - from hunger - from dehydration - from exhaustion. And the story could have ended there, before my mother was born, before my sister and I, before my children arrived.

However, in that moment of peril, another prisoner - just as starved, just as desperate to survive - picked my grandfather off the ground and carried him the rest of the way to the next camp on his back. Yes, he carried my unconscious grandfather on his back for miles. It is hard for me to breathe every time I think of this man’s courage, of his generosity, and of his grit - step after step, mile after mile.

I first heard this story when I was seven, and whenever my grandfather reached this part, he would get a vacant look on his face, his hands busy, moving coins in his pocket or folding a receipt.

When he woke up in the next camp, he was alone. He never knew the identity of the man who had carried him.

After the war, my grandfather became a lawyer and spent the rest of his life as a professor, teaching international tax law at Tufts University and training a generation of diplomats at the Fletcher School of Diplomacy. His students still periodically reach out to my mother, sharing how much he taught them and how much he meant to them.

As my son’s whistles drift through the house, I think of how the stories we inherit carry not just memories but obligations, too. If he were still alive, my grandfather would be on the phone; he’d be in local politicians’ offices. He could be delightfully (embarrassingly) shameless when the cause demanded it (he once took me along on an uninvited visit to the Governor of Massachusetts’ house). At his best, my grandfather was unflappable and fearless. He would see through the chaos and posturing. He’d be angry at the willful disregard for the rule of law. He would be appalled at the murders of Renee Good and Alex Jeffrey Pretti. He’d be making noise with humor, intelligence, and charisma. He would want all of us to find our courage; he’d want us, despite the odds, to keep going, to carry each other, and choose action when despair would be easiest.

I’ll be back next week with my usual newsletter format. In the meantime, stay safe, stay warm, and, as a friend who lives in Minneapolis wrote to me earlier tonight, “we can’t let this occupation drive us inward and away from one another.” Here in Connecticut, that means I’m texting neighbors to check in during the storm, making extra soup for a family with a newborn; basically doing everything I can to stay connected.