AMERICANA / A VETERAN BORN ON VETERAN’S DAY

Kurt Vonnegut and fellow POWs took shelter in a basement meat locker to survive the firebombing of Dresden in 1945, an experience he wrote about in his novel Slaughterhouse-Five. 

By Thomas Shess, Jr.--Author Kurt Vonnegut was born November 11, 1922 and before he became a celebrated author of Cat’s Cradle, Breakfast of Champions, Slaughterhouse-Five, and others, he was in the U.S. Army. He was among those gallant men who fought in the infamous Battle of the Bulge alongside legions of others, including my father and father-in-law. It was during that 1944 battle that he and other U.S. soldiers were captured and sent to a Dresden POW building that the Germans called Slaughterhouse-Five. 

In February 1945, a siren announced a bombing raid. The Germans sent Vonnegut and fellow prisoners to shelter in a basement-level meat locker. When the raid was over they exited the locker to discover Dresden had been bombed to oblivion.