Sixty-five years after the conclusion of World War Two its history is
still being written, and the reckoning is still taking place.
Facts are being unearthed, interpreted and debated, and individual
stories are being told. A new contribution to what may be the
most thoroughly documented event in world history is
"In the Neighborhood of Zero" by William V. Spanos.
In general outline, the story may resemble millions of others: a
son of Greek immigrants who grew up in a small town in New England
was drafted into the U.S. Army, sent through military training and
into combat. He was taken as a prisoner of war by the
Germans, forced to do hard labor until the final decisive battles
drove his captors into disarray and he was repatriated. The
soldier returned home and resumed his life and studies, finding
success and admiration in his profession. William
Spanos is now a Distinguished Professor of English and
comparative literature at Binghamton University.
Reading the detail of those events makes
"In the Neighborhood of Zero" an especially powerful and
disturbing slice of history. As a member of an ethnic
minority, William Spanos felt like something of an outsider in
American society. He was a good soldier but not enthusiastic
about military service. Assigned to an antitank unit in what
would become known as the Battle of the
Bulge, Spanos was taken prisoner after only about two weeks and
shipped to a labor camp near Dresden. It is amazing that he
survived. He became one of the last people to see the old
city of Dresden.
Its beauty was awesome. The spires and domes of cathedrals
and governmental and cultural buildings against a sky enflamed by a
falling sun and the river winding through the city were
breathtaking. The buildings were constructed of rust-colored
stones, and their hybrid architecture was a combination of baroque,
rococo and eighteenth-century classical styles, all of which
conveyed the aura of an old and venerable but lively city that was
defiantly indestructable, immune to the ravages of time and
history.
-- from "In the Neighborhood of Zero"
Within days "the
Florence on the Elbe" would cease to exist. It had
remained intact after years of war because it wasn't
considered of military importance, even though it was a
transportation hub with some defense industries. Germans
fleeing the advance of allied forces from both east and west had
streamed into Dresden for safety. On 13-14 February 1945 more
than 800 bombers pelted the city with incendiary bombs. The
death toll from the fire-bombing of Dresden is still debated,
but the slaughter that William Spanos witnessed he called "a
calculated act of terror perpetrated by the Allies on an utterly
unsuspecting and defenseless population of civilians." Three
months later the Nazis surrendered.
The cessation of fighting seemed to Spanos "a time of
de-creation". He and a fellow former POW took off on their
own to find their way around a despoiled land fallen into
anarchy. They find a cold shower and hot food at an abandoned
German barracks, are almost taken into custody by Soviet soldiers,
then receive the hospitality and physical comforting of two forlorn
German women. Those days "were devoid of any logic and thus
resist being reduced to a story." Nonetheless, "In the
Neighborhood of Zero" is a powerful memoir of the absurdity of
war.
Spanos chose not to not speak about his wartime experiences for
many years, but was influenced by Kurt Vonnegut's novel "Slaughterhouse
Five". Vonnegut was also a POW in Dresden at the time of
the bombing raids. Though sympathetic to his fellow survivor,
Spanos believes "Slaughterhouse Five" misses the broader historical
implications and the "horrific singular reality" of the destruction
of Dresden.
William V. Spanos
joins Bill Jaker on OFF THE
PAGE to recount his experiences and the demands of understanding
and explaining that experience. To join in the conversation
call during the live 1:00 PM broadcast to 888/359-9754, or send an
e-mail to OffThePage@WSKG.ORG.
