Sixty-one years ago, two miserable German youths were crouching in a rainy hole under a groundsheet. Around them, in the same field behind barbed wire, thousands of other prisoners of war waited to find out what the Americans would do with them. To keep their minds off their hunger and the cold, the two boys - one from Danzig, the other a Bavarian - played dice and talked about their plans for the future, supposing that there would be a future. The Danziger wanted to be an artist. The Bavarian hoped to become a priest.

LRB 2 November 2006 | PDF Download