Sylvie Steffen and her husband joined the American Luxembourg Society back in the 1980s. A long time ago, maybe, but still a century after the society was born: the American Club, as it was originally known, was founded in 1882 by Luxembourgers who had emigrated to the US and then returned home. Steffen took over presidency of the organisation--fearing that nobody else would step up--last autumn. Her husband is the treasurer.
Both are Luxembourgish, which begs the question: why are they so interested in the US?
“We love America,” says Steffen. “There are so many special places there.” She and her family have travelled countless times across the Atlantic, from big cross-country holidays when their kids were younger to, nowadays, yearly visits to friends in Florida.
More than that, though, Steffen feels--and is perhaps part of a generation that feels--warmly towards American soldiers from several generations ago: “We need to be thankful for the Americans who liberated Luxembourg in World War Two,” she says. “A lot of American soldiers came here, died here and are buried here.”
The US Army indeed liberated Luxembourg on 10 September 1944, although violence returned three months later when the Germans counterattacked in what became known as the Battle of the Bulge (or the Ardennes Offensive). In Luxembourg, there was fighting in the north and east of the country, as one faction of the German army was deployed near Echternach and tasked with protecting the flank of the offensive.
Some Luxembourgers still remember the American soldiers from this period as liberators who interacted with local people: they gave sweets to local children who had been impoverished by years of war and commandeered white sheets to use as camouflage. Famously, soldiers in Wiltz staged a visit from Saint Nicholas in December 1944.
Part of the ALS’s mission is therefore to commemorate these soldiers and their sacrifice: the society observes US Memorial Day every year by laying flowers on graves at the Luxembourg American Cemetery in Hamm, where over 5,000 American soldiers are buried. They also observe Veterans Day and organise a yearly trip that often involves war history, e.g. to Hinzert, Germany, site of a concentration camp; or Verdun, where a major battle was fought in World War One.
They also celebrate Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July.
US–Luxembourg friendship
The spirit of the organisation is friendship, Steffen says. She explains that many Luxembourgers emigrated to the United States during the nineteenth century, many of them ending up in the Midwest. As of the 2000 US census, the states with the biggest Luxembourger-American populations were Illinois (7,000), Wisconsin (6,600), Minnesota (5,900) and Iowa (5,600). The total number of Luxembourgers coming to American shores during this period has been estimated as high as 70,000, although recent research from the University of Luxembourg puts it closer to 20,000, which is nevertheless a significant number.
The other part of the ALS’s mission, therefore, is maintaining these links of friendship. Americans periodically contact the organisation seeking help to find relatives. Sometimes this is followed by a visit. “When I have time, or somebody else from the society, we go with them to search for their families,” says Steffen. The society has also visited Wisconsin a handful of times.
Although the ALS did not have a direct hand in it, Junglinster became sister cities with La Crosse, Wisconsin, in 2023, which shows that this international friendship remains strong.
Aging membership
The ALS has 130 members at present, most of them Luxembourgish. But the number is trending downwards, says Steffen, as aging members are not being replaced. “We need young people,” says the president. “But they are not so interested.”
She estimates that membership peaked about 20 or 30 years ago at around 250 members.
Culture shock
“The people are different,” says Steffens, asked to comment on the strangest thing about Americans. “You enter a shop and somebody says, ‘Oh, hello! How are you?’ In Luxembourg, when you go into Cactus--” she laughs. “Nobody says, ‘how are you?’”
“The people are really honest,” she says.
