Ancient Nightmares

Slaughter-House Five

Kurt Vonnegut        

         Flashbacks, are they memories? Or are they visions? World War II is part of my past. So as Billy emerges into a series of flashbacks, I will zone into the world of war. Into a place that is familiar to me. There is no baby fat in these stories. There is only bony bodies. There is only one chance to survive, and it is to become unstuck.

                   1942 Puica and Sara Bercovici 

                        It was 1945, and Lieselotte Viktor, had left her hometown, Bythom, Poland. For her family had Jewish friends and were constantly persecuted. As her mother led her to a train station, Lies’s eyes filled with terror, for the space was diminutive and she was about to live there for three weeks. The cart was filled with crying infants, and when disease spread they died. They had to be tossed out of the train and soon there was silence. There was no longer any crying, no longer any words.

           

            Her mother was desperate to get off of the train. She would say they would step out of the wagon as soon as they reached a German city. Finally, they reached Dresden and as fast as they got off of the train they got back up. The streets were filled with injured and dead American and English soldiers.They thought that would be the worst thing they would ever see, until they looked back and  saw the city explode into flames. All the houses and buildings were destroyed. Only ashes were left behind. Ashes that could have been the Viktor family. Ashes that disappeared in mid air. So it goes.

            The Americans had invaded Walter Munstermann’s village, Rodenberg.  The houses were being taken over all the soldiers, and his house had been seized as well. His whole family was homeless. There was no food. There was no water. There was no place to go. After being accepted at a neighbors house, the Munstermann family discovered there were hidden foodstuffs inside a chest in the families old backyard.           

Walter, a 10-year old boy was the only person in the village who knew English, with this ability, this young boy had to demonstrate bravery and heroism by going to his house, where all the American soldiers were resting. Once he got to his home, he began to speak to these men, surprised at the boy’s abilities, Walter became an intimate friend to these soldiers. When lunch time came, Walter would join the Americans in their meal.

           

            Walter was a leader in his village. His job was to activate the  flieger alarm when allied planes would come near the village. This young boy would run up to a high hill and bang the alarm as hard as he could. People would then hide in basements. As the alarm would screech, the small German village street’s would die out. So it goes.

            

               Puica Bercovici, was originally from Romania, however she went to live in Iasi with her parents. Death camps were only near her house, and her father’s soap factory was the reason she wasn’t in the camps. Puica was Jewish and there had been times where German soldiers would storm into her home and push her against a wall. As these Nazi’s were about to kill Puica and her mother, Samuel, her father would  desperately interfere and show their papers. The Bercovici family was lucky. The government needed their soap. Soap was their savior. Soap never got to the German consumers. So it goes.

So it goes. So it went. World War II isn’t what Billy Pilgrim describes it to be. Roland Weary is fictional in the real world. Where time is not an illusion. Where baby fat is a myth. Where war is not something to remember but to relive in Pilgrim’s book.