Disinformation From A World War II Veteran's Perspective
A short fiction of what happens when a holocaust denier faces his WWII veteran grandfather.
The cranberry sauce caught the light like scattered rubies across the dining table. Grandfather Frank watched his grandson Dylan spoon another helping onto his plate.
"Tell Grandpa about your history assignment," Sarah said. "The one Professor Martinez assigned."
Dylan's face brightened at his mother’s request. "Actually, yeah. It's about propaganda techniques during World War Two. We're supposed to analyse how different sides manipulated information. I found some fascinating stuff, Grandpa. You'd probably find it interesting."
Frank's fork paused midway to his mouth. Steam rose from the green bean casserole, carrying the scent of his late wife's recipe.
"Its about how photographs were staged or taken out of context. Look at this." Dylan said as he turned his phone towards his grandfather. Black and white images filled the display. "These are supposed to be from liberation, but if you look at the shadows and check the metadata..."
Frank calmly set down his fork.
"Pretty sophisticated stuff for the 1940s, right?" Dylan continued. "I mean, both sides were doing it. Propaganda was basically psychological warfare."
Sarah reached for the wine. "Your grandfather could probably tell you more about that than any professor."
"That's exactly why this is so cool," Dylan said. "I can cross reference primary source testimony with documentary evidence. Like, Grandpa, when you got to those camps, what did you actually see versus what you might have read about later?"
The dining room felt smaller suddenly.
"I saw..." Frank began, then stopped. The smell of Sarah's roast turkey had shifted somehow, carrying the acrid tang of burning cloth, the sweet rot of potatoes left too long in wet earth.
"The thing is," Dylan said, leaning forward with the enthusiasm of discovery, "human memory is incredibly unreliable, especially after trauma. There's this whole field of study about how our brains create false sensory memories to help us cope with stress."
Sarah cleared her throat as she forced a smile. "Different generation, different sources of information."
"Exactly," Dylan said. "That's what makes this so interesting from an academic perspective. Like, no disrespect, Grandpa, but you experienced everything through the lens of wartime propaganda. The army briefings, the newsreels, even the stories other soldiers told. It all gets mixed together in memory."
He glanced around the table, seeking the nods of approval that usually followed his explanations. Sarah's smile felt strained at the corners.
Frank's napkin twisted in his hands. Sarah noticed and began clearing plates that weren't empty.
"Dylan's just being thorough," she said. "Kids today fact check everything."
"I'm not trying to be disrespectful," Dylan added quickly. "I'm trying to understand how information gets distorted over time. Even by people who were there."
Sarah refilled her wine glass. "Granddad was there, Dylan. He saw things."
"Right, but seeing and interpreting are different cognitive processes." Dylan pulled up another screen. "Look, I found this article about olfactory hallucinations in PTSD patients. Did you know trauma can create phantom smells that feel completely real?"
The room went quiet except for the tick of Sarah's kitchen clock.
“That’s enough,” DYLANS DAD SAID
The computer screen's glow turned Frank's basement blue in the February darkness. He squinted at the Facebook page, hunting for the right buttons. The keyboard felt foreign under his fingers, but he kept learning.
He'd wanted to show Eddie Kowalczyk from the Veteran of Foreign Wars what his grandson was doing. Smart kid, Frank had planned to say. Really thinking things through. But the numbers on Dylan's page made no sense. Fifty thousand followers. Comments scrolling faster than Frank could read.
Frank clicked on a video thumbnail. Dylan's face filled the screen, sitting in his childhood bedroom with new lighting equipment Frank didn't remember seeing.
"What we discussed at Thanksgiving really illustrates my point," Dylan said to the camera. "Even family members who experienced these events first-hand exhibit classic symptoms of manufactured memory. My grandfather, for instance, insists he can still smell what he calls 'the camps,' but olfactory phantom syndrome is well documented in trauma literature."
Frank's hands found the edge of the desk. His chest tightened, vision blurring at the edges. Dylan had never mentioned phantom syndrome at dinner. Had never used those words. The basement's chill seeped through his sweater, into his bones.
The comments beneath the video moved like living things. Finally someone brave enough to question the mainstream narrative. Your grandfather sounds brainwashed by Allied propaganda. Keep asking the hard questions.
Frank scrolled back to Dylan's main page. Video after video, thousands of views each. The Liberation Photos They Don't Want You to See. Trauma Memory vs Historical Evidence. Why Family Stories Aren't Reliable Sources.
The basement door creaked open above him.
"Grandpa?" Dylan's said, voice carried down the stairs. "Mom said you were down here."
Frank didn't turn around. On the screen, Dylan's video had moved to a new topic: Patreon subscribers and merchandise links.
"Grandpa, you shouldn't be on my channel," Dylan said, reaching the bottom of the stairs. "Some of the comments can be pretty harsh."
Frank pointed at the screen. "You told them I said things I never said."
Dylan moved closer, and Frank caught the scent of expensive cologne, something Dylan hadn't worn before Christmas. The boy paused, just for a heartbeat, before his expression smoothed back into certainty. "I never used your name. And I contextualized everything within established trauma response research."
"You said I was brainwashed,” Frank said, his left hand shaking.
"I said you experienced events through the lens of wartime information systems. That's completely different. Look, I get that this is uncomfortable, but the truth doesn't care about feelings."
Frank clicked on something labelled Super Chat donations. Numbers scrolled past, dollars attached to messages. Dylan, thank you for your courage.
Finally someone exposing the lies.
Keep fighting the good fight.
"Are you making money from this?” Frank said.
Another comment read Good to know there are people out there asking how could so many people die.
Dylan moved further into the room. "Patreon helps me stay independent. Unlike mainstream historians, I'm not funded by special interests or academic institutions with political agendas."
Frank turned in the desk chair, his knees protesting. The computer's fan hummed beneath Dylan's voice. Dust motes danced in the screen's glow. Dylan was filming him, phone held casually but clearly recording.
"Turn it off, Dylan."
“What?”
“Turn if off. Please. I don’t want to relive the memory,” Frank said.
"See, this is exactly what I mean about emotional responses versus rational discourse," Dylan said. "You're getting upset instead of engaging with the actual facts."
Frank stood from the chair, legs unsteady. "Why are you doing this?"
"Doing what?"
"Making me out to be..." Frank said as his voice caught with shards in his throat. "Do you really believe I'm lying?"
Dylan's thumb paused over his phone screen. "I believe you experienced trauma, Grandpa. But experiencing trauma and accurately remembering historical events are two different things."
"I need you to leave," Frank said.
Dylan lowered the phone but didn't put it away. The screen still glowed between them. "Grandpa, I'm trying to help you understand how memory works. I’m just asking questions. How trauma creates narratives that feel true but aren't historically accurate."
"Get out."
“What?”
“Get out.”
The June heat made Dylan's childhood bedroom feel smaller. Ring lights cast harsh shadows across the walls where his high school track medals used to hang. Frank could hear the family gathering in the backyard for a birthday barbecue, laughter drifting through the applewood.
Dylan sat hunched over his desktop, editing software flickering across multiple screens. His subscriber count had crossed six figures.
"Dylan?" Sarah's said from downstairs. "Can you come down? We're about to cut the cake."
"Five more minutes Mum," Dylan called back, not looking up from his timeline. Red bars showed where he'd cut and spliced his grandad’s words from their basement confrontation. "Almost done with the upload."
She appeared in the doorway, still wearing her barbecue apron. Her smile faltered when she saw Frank on the computer screen. "Dylan, Mrs. Kowalski from church pulled me aside today."
Dylan's fingers paused over the keyboard. "Yeah?"
"She asked if Grandpa Frank was... confused. About his memories." Sarah said as she stepped into the room, lowering her voice. "She said she'd seen some things online."
Dylan minimized the editing window. "What kind of things?"
"Comments on Facebook. People from the neighbourhood saying... Saying maybe he's making things up. About the war."
"Mom, I'm helping people think critically," Dylan said. "Grandpa's trauma responses are textbook false memory formation. It's actually really common in elderly veterans."
"Dylan. He's your grandfather."
"Age-related cognitive decline is well documented," Dylan said. "And emotional testimony isn't the same as historical evidence. Look, I've got peer-reviewed studies right here..."
Tom's footsteps echoed up the stairs, heavier than usual. He filled the doorway, barbecue sauce staining his shirt.
"Dylan, we need to talk."
"I'm in the middle of something, Dad."
"You're in the middle of destroying your grandfather." Tom stepped into the room, and Dylan instinctively angled his laptop screen away. "I want you to take down any content that mentions Grandpa."
Dylan's chair swivelled to face his father. "I never named him. And you can't censor me just because you're uncomfortable with intellectual challenge."
"This isn't about intellectual anything. Don’t play that game with me. This is about respect."
"Respect for what? Propaganda? Lies?" Dylan's said, raising his voice. "You want me to pretend his trauma memories are historically accurate just because he's family?"
Frank appeared in the doorway behind Tom, still holding his paper plate. Potato salad balanced on the edge, threatening to fall.
"What propaganda?" Frank asked quietly.
The room went silent except for the hum of Dylan's equipment. On the computer screen, Frank's basement interview was paused mid-sentence, his mouth open, eyes wide with confusion.
Dylan turned back to his computer. "Nothing, Grandpa. Just explaining to Dad about how memory works."
"Show me."
"Show you what?"
"The propaganda." Frank set down his plate and moved closer to the laptop. "Show me this documentation you keep talking about."
Dylan's fingers flew across the keyboard, pulling up browser windows. Wikipedia pages with edited timestamps. Photographs with doctored metadata. Forum posts from usernames that ended in random numbers.
"Look, these are primary sources," Dylan said, scrolling through the data. "This shows how the liberation photos were staged for propaganda purposes. And this analysis proves that survivor testimonies were coordinated by Allied intelligence..."
Frank leaned closer to the screen. His hands shook slightly as he read. "Where did you find this?"
"Independent research networks. Historians who aren't funded by special interests." Dylan clicked through more pages, his confidence building with each window.
Frank's breathing grew shallow. Tom noticed and moved closer.
"These aren't real historians," Frank said.
"How do you know? Because they disagree with what you were told?" Dylan spun his chair to face Frank directly. "Grandpa, I know this is hard, but your memories don't match the documented timeline. The liberation of Buchenwald happened on April 11th, but you've said it was April 10th. That's a factual inconsistency."
"I never said April 10th."
"You did, though. In our basement conversation. I have it recorded." Dylan clicked to another window, showing the editing timeline where Frank's words had been spliced together. "Right here, at timestamp 14:32, you clearly state..."
"That's not what I said."
"I exposed historical lies. The mainstream narrative is lying. If that makes you uncomfortable, maybe you should ask yourself why."
"Your destroying my life for internet points," Frank said.
Dylan's thumbs moved across his keyboard, already drafting his next post. "I exposed historical propaganda that's been accepted without question for decades. Truth matters more than feelings, Grandpa."
"Then you're no grandson of mine," Frank said.
Dylan looked up from his phone, fingers pausing mid-type. For a moment, the room held nothing but the sound of Frank's laboured breathing and the distant murmur of the barbecue below.
"At least I'm not a liar old man."
The August cemetery stretched flat and green under a cloudless sky. Frank's headstone sat simple among the others, new granite catching the light. No elaborate memorial, just his name and dates, the way he would have wanted it.
Dylan stood at the graveside without his phone. His hands felt empty, purposeless. Around him, family members spoke in hushed voices about Frank's sudden heart attack, about funeral arrangements, about anything except the livestream that had captured their final words. The silence Dylan had created sat heavy between them all.
His father approached him, carrying a wooden footlocker Dylan recognized from the basement.
"He wanted you to have this," Tom said quietly. "Left instructions. Said maybe someday you'd understand what truth really costs."
Tom's eyes avoided his son’s. Sarah stood near the car, arms crossed, watching from a distance. The family that had once gathered around dinner tables now scattered like leaves.
The footlocker felt heavier than it looked. Dylan set it on the boot of the car in the cemetery parking lot, his family climbing into their vehicles without goodbye.
Then they drove home.
Dylan sat in his childhood bedroom, surrounded by ring lights and camera equipment, all of it dark for once. The footlocker rested on his desk where his laptop usually lived. He'd carried it up from the car like a man sleepwalking.
Inside, folded military uniforms lay beneath sheets of tissue paper. Patches Dylan had never seen before. Numbers and letters that meant nothing to him. A faded newspaper clipping, yellow at the edges. He lifted it with trembling fingers.
"6th Armored Liberates Buchenwald - April 11, 1945."
Dylan stared at the headline. His chest tightened. Below the newspaper, a small leather journal tied with string.
The first pages were filled with Frank's handwriting, young and careful. April 1945. The dates Dylan had questioned. The timeline he'd dissected for his audience.
April 11, 1945 - We broke through the gates this morning. I drove the third Sherman.
Dylan's hands began to shake.
I will never forget what we found inside. The smell hits you first, then you see them. Living skeletons in striped rags. Mountains of bodies. Children among them.
Dylan could not blink.
Someone has to remember. I hope someday I can tell my family, help them understand why we fought. Why it mattered.
Dylan turned the page, then another. Frank's handwriting grew shakier as the entries continued.
April 12 - Tried to help bury the dead today. Couldn't finish. Found a child's shoe in the ash pile. Jason, one of ours, broke down today. Our OC looked like he was holding his own demons back.
April 13 - We counted 900 survivors. Fed them from our rations. Some too weak to eat. Their eyes follow you. They want to tell you things but most can't speak.
The words blurred. Dylan wiped his eyes and kept reading, each entry another twist of recognition.
April 15 - I cut a piece of fabric from one of the uniforms in the pile. I know it's not right to take things but I need proof. I need a reminder of what happened. Need something to show people back home that this really happened.
So we never forget.
At the bottom of the footlocker, wrapped in oiled cloth, Dylan found the fabric. Thin stripes, blue and grey, coarse under his fingers. He held it up to the light, this fragment that his grandfather had carried for seventy years.
A journal revealed itself as Dylan processed what he had done. In that aging book, Frank had pasted photographs. Tanks rolling through camp gates. American soldiers staring at ovens. And there, in the corner of one photograph, a young man in a tank driver's helmet. Frank. Twenty years old.
The final entry was dated just days before Frank's death:
Dylan's been asking questions about my memories. I want to tell him everything but I don't know how. How do you explain smell to someone who wasn't there? How do you explain such evil to anyone? Maybe it's better he learns from books. I pray he never has to understand what I saw.
Dylan closed the journal.
