I'm Sure They Didn't Mean It

Kurt Vonnegut, Kurt Vonnegut, His memory, I want it not. Slaughterhouse Five is apparently based on the author's memory of being held in Dresden as a POW during World War Two. He and his fellow captives were kept in a slaughterhouse that had been converted over for military use - but that's not as sinister as it sounds. Dresden was the city that got bombed off the face of the earth. Over a hundred thousand deaths. Firestorm. People melting to death in their beds. Little children liquified by the intense heat, the shadows of their cribs leaving an eerie imprint on their nursery walls. Wait a minute. That might be Hiroshima on that last one. After the bombing, the SS, who administered the cleanup of the bodies by captive labourers, strictly enforced the 'no looting' code. I guess it's bad enough when you kill everyone, you shouldn't go and rip them off afterwards. You've got to chuckle when you think of how awkward it was to be an allied POW emerging safely from a bomb shelter in Dresden at that particular moment. You're looking at the Germans eye-to-eye, on the ground, and trying not to look guilty. It's a good thing they needed help with all the corpse burning. One character, after spending the afternoon stacking corpses into a massive pyre, had the lightheartedness to spot a little treasure in the midst of all that death and ruin. Some kind of piano ornament. Then he held it up, smiling, for the SS to see. I didn't feel any remorse when they took him and led him off into the woods and the resounding discharge of a Lugar issued forth. It's also a very colourful account of the life of the lead character who shares the author's Dresden experience. Except that this character became unstuck in time and I'm not sure if that ever happened to Vonnegut.
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