In the context of memory research, “memory” is social and collective and refers to the past as a lived experience,1Ricoeur, Memory, History, Oblivion. i.e. personal, emotional and even intimate perceptions of events and their evocation by subjects, rather than an objective representation of historical facts. In the case of World War I, memories of the event may overlap with the “trauma”2Berliner, The Abuses of Memory, p. 200. and continuity of a painful memory through “vicarious memories”3Teski and Climo, The Labyrinth of Memory, p. 3. or “aftermemory.”4Hirsch, The Generation Postmemory, pp. 103-128. Some authors, however, have highlighted the positive effect of forgetting in coping with traumatic events and possible unresolved conflicts.5Augé, The Forms of Oblivion, pp. 233-267.
War stories are often part of family histories and help convey relationships and shared narratives between generations. Silence about the events of war can also produce special forms of family memories. Among the interviews conducted and transcribed by Thomas Benedikter, there are “cultures of remembrance” of the war that can be discerned in the family narratives and contextualized in the interdisciplinary field of memory research.6For reference, see Thomas Benedikter's interviews in the Archive of interviews (Voices from Sesto/Sexten).
Although many interlocutors in Sesto/Sexten stress that the First World War is not and was not an issue in the family, and although the memories of this time are rather fragmentary and are often associated with memories of the more distant Second World War, the stories of the First World War are part of the local family and collective culture of remembrance. This memory is supported by research carried out by the Bellum Aquilarum association, among others.
However, there is also a “widespread” collective memory, linked to the family and intimate memories of grandparents and great-grandparents, and often anchored in the materiality of photographs and writings (diaries, letters, drawings), as well as in the materiality of family houses and certain places in the village, in the surroundings and in the mountains where the fighting took place. A memory, therefore, which is also inscribed in the landscape, reminds us of the soldiers, but also of the women, of the ancestors – at that time still children or young people – and of the neighbours in the mountains, not only those that were the war enemies. Beyond the rhetoric that has instrumentalized the First World War over the years for different political goals, and beyond the potential pitfalls that still exist in the topic of conflict, the local culture of remembrance of the post-war generations critically reflects the war drama. It is precisely this form of critical heritage that should be dealt with more closely in the future.

Based on the central research question of the project “Written in the Landscape”, our task was to collect and evaluate today’s memories and interpretations of the First World War of Sesto’s descendants. 30 people – inhabitants of Sesto/Sexten, experts and collectors – were interviewed in semi-structured interviews. We were able to inspect private collections and documents, visit the impressive holdings of private collectors and talk to many people in Sesto/Sexten and the surrounding area. A public information event in June 2021, a focus group discussion with selected younger descendants of the war generation in November 2021 and a video film with six Sesto/Sexten personalities complement the collection and evaluation of the results.

The empirical survey was based on semi-structured interviews with descendants of the war generation in Sesto/Sexten as well as with experts and collectors. In the run-up, a broad review of the literature on war in the Dolomites War was conducted. For each interview, a preliminary interview was required for preparation. The interviews were based on a guide of 105 individual questions on the phases of the course of the war, the post-war period and existing memories. In addition, documents and objects from private holdings were viewed and evaluated, and five collections of World War II relics were visited. Experts from Comelico and Germany were also interviewed.
At a public information event, the local population was informed and their involvement solicited. A focus group discussion explored the memories of the First World War among the younger descendants. Most of the interviews were fully transcribed from the Sesto/Sexten dialect into standard German. A portion of the contents of all 30 individual conversations is available. A selection of the empirical survey was compiled by filmmaker Rudy Kaneider into a video film with 6 selected interlocutors from Sesto. Interdisciplinary collaboration with the members of the research team complemented the survey.

A number of interlocutors have contributed by sharing memories and their own knowledge of the First World War in Sesto/Sexten; for example, Rudolf Holzer, Sigrid Wisthaler, Hugo Reider, Pietro Michieli, Hermann Rogger. Other descendants described in detail the fate of their grandparents, others were able to reproduce memories only fragmentarily. Often the First World War had been superseded by subsequent crises such as reconstruction, fascism, Option, Second World War. The memories were, however, cultivated in the circle of veterans. For today’s inhabitants of Sesto/Sexten who are at least 90 years old, the “Catacomb Schools,” the Option, the second world war, and the difficult post-war period from 1945 are much more present than the First World War. Often, they regret not having actively engaged in conversation with their grandparents, who in turn wanted to let this topic rest.
All in all, the time of exile of the Sesto/Sexten population from 1915-1918 does not seem to be very present in the memory of the population for the following reasons:
1. It’s been a long time (108 years since the beginning of the war in 1914).
2. In 1915, the people of Sesto/Sexten and their children were warmly welcomed by their compatriots in their immediate homeland and were able to live in similar social conditions as usual, albeit cramped and sparse; there were no refugee camps.
3. Typical for the women of the time and their social position was the limited possibility of writing down experiences. Later, the soldiers’ stories of war and captivity dominated, if veterans were even willing to address the subject.
4. In the post-war years from 1920 onwards, due to external circumstances (fascism, prohibition of maintaining tradition):
• no systematic recording and processing of the experiences of the World War. The contemporary witnesses have been deceased for 20-25 years. There is hardly any recorded narrated story through contemporary witnesses of the World War (written, audio, video).
• Soon the children of the war generation will die.
• The memories of the First World War in Sesto are only fragmentary in the generation of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
• There is no detailed chronicle of contemporary witnesses of the years 1914-1918 in Sesto/Sexten.
• Little writing of experiences, especially among women.
• Apparently, many Sesto/Sexten families, probably due to new challenges, quickly pushed evacuation and exile into the background.
• Within the family, there is probably a selective perception and memory of the war experiences at the front due to the widespread lack of discussion.
• In order to cultivate local historical awareness, production and mediation through modern media is required in addition to scientific survey and documentation.

The memories of the time of the First World War in Sesto/Sexten have been passed on primarily within the families in the form of stories of parents and grandparents to family members and later descendants. Only in a few cases have these been written down in the form of reports, stories, anecdotes and diaries. In numerous cases, it is reported that the war generation in the interwar period tried to suppress the experiences of the First World War and to spare the children and grandchildren from painful memories. Not least for this reason, there are sometimes major gaps in the culture of remembrance today.
Moreover, a public culture of remembrance could not be cultivated due to new traumatic experiences such as the fascist oppression of the German-speaking South Tyrolean population, the Option in 1939 with conflicts within the village community and the families themselves, the occupation by Nazi Germany with new conscription and the war. In the second post-war period (1950s and 1960s), grandparents hardly referred to the First World War, since it was the experiences of the Second World War that had to be dealt with. But similar to the rest of South Tyrol, Sesto/Sexten usually focused on important new challenges, namely the reconstruction of the economy, the struggle for autonomy and the return of those who opted out.
The interviewees were asked whether the First World War is still talked about within the families today and what memories are handed down today.

Hermann Rogger: “In general, not much has been written down from this time … I can’t imagine that. This happened simply too long ago. We have too much distance. If only the next generation of contemporary witnesses, i.e. the grandchildren, recounts [the history], then not much will come through. Or even the great-grandchildren, they don’t know anything anymore.”7Interview with Thomas Benedikter, 7.7.2021, Sesto/Sexten.

Albert Tschurtschenthaler: “There won’t be much left in writing [of the war memories]. The parents of Sonna Jörg, for example, and the grandparents (the parents were still children at that time) were in Vierschach [Versciaco] at the Klieber. Grandmother was already a bit demented at that time and I always asked her. The memories of the events remained, e.g. the memories of the destruction of their houses on Mitterberg, all this was still there. That was present, she told the same thing again and again, how she walked with Oma [grandmother] to the Waldkappelle and further to see what Sexten [Sesto] looked like.”8Interview with Thomas Benedikter, 17.6.2021, Sesto/Sexten.

Georg (Jörg) Lanzinger: “The story of my grandparents, but also the story of my uncles, is remarkable in this respect. Sometimes they just spoke a few sentences on the subject. But sometimes, when visitors came, the grandparents exchanged experiences with the visitors. As children, you don’t understand the context. Later, the uncles asked: Did the grandparents tell us anything about the war years? In fact, as children, we didn’t have that interest in learning more about the First World War. But I remember that in the 1960s, my grandfather talked to his colleagues about wartime.”9Interview with Thomas Benedikter, 8.7.2021, Sesto/Sexten.

Sigrid Wisthaler: “My mother told me that her grandfather didn’t want to talk about this topic. They talked about it with his good friends, i.e. among war comrades, but not in the family. An uncle of mine was very interested in the First World War and read up on it as a hobby archaeologist, so to speak. So he knew very well about the First World War in the Dolomites. I was with him a lot in the mountains and he explained me a lot about the traces of the war. Through this uncle I got a practical approach to this topic.”10Interview with Thomas Benedikter, 2 6.8.2021, Sesto/Sexten.
“It is interesting that my mother never told me about her grandfather’s fate in the First World War. Only in the course of the processing of the diaries did this time come into view, because only after the death of the great-grandfather did his wartime diaries come to light. During my studies, I dealt heavily with archive material and for this purpose I also had to read many texts in Old German script. So I was able to practice the old German script on the basis of my great-grandfather’s diaries.”11Interview with Thomas Benedikter, 2 6.8.2021, Sesto/Sexten.

Rudolf Holzer: “My family did not lose any relatives during the war. Sexten [Sesto] lost many soldiers in relation to its population, namely 54. This has to do with the Standschützenkompanie Sexten, which had many members. The commander was Vinzenz Goller, who had already reported for deployment at the front in May 1915. He married a woman from Sexten [Sesto]. All the fallen appear in the Heroes’ Memorial Chapel in Sexten [Sesto], which also includes the missing. None of my relatives was taken prisoner either.”12Interview with Thomas Benedikter, 29.4.2021, Sesto/Sexten.