The Friends of the Case Memorial Library is offering an historical presentation titled “This Business of Fighting: A Human Face on World War II” as told by Arnie Pritchard, a noted Connecticut storyteller.
The program will be offered via Zoom on Jan. 27 at 7 p.m.
Pritchard’s presentation is culled from the contents of his father’s World War II Army footlocker. He discovered hundreds of letters and other family papers in it describing his father’s Army experiences in the front lines in Europe and subsequent work in the United Nations Refugee Program in postwar Europe. His father’s letter from Luxembourg dated February 1945 reveals the raw fear and fateful reckoning faced by young men in combat: “The closer one gets to the point where a guy points a rifle at another guy and pulls the trigger…the harder it is to preserve a trifle of human decency and dignity.”
Pritchard has a PhD in history from Yale and has been involved in storytelling since 1997. He is former chair of the board of the Connecticut Storytelling Center and the coordinator of the group of storytellers at the Institute Library in New Haven.
Register online at casememoriallibrary.org.