This is for my beloved Charlotte, she who threaded her way through isolation, relocation, and single motherhood on the way toward peace, happiness, and the enjoyment of grandchildren.

Introduction

Hans, Tommy, Ivan, and Joe gather round the table to discuss their memories of the Second World War. For men who are often talkative at home, they are rather quiet, humble even, as they begin to talk with others who had incredibly important experiences at the same time they did, albeit in the service of different nations.

Hans, who still has the long, lean lines of a German athlete, declares that his people never supported the idea of war with the rest of Europe; they voted for Hitler because this seemed the only way out of the Great Depression, which, in 1932, was pretty awful. Hans admits that he signed up too quickly for the German infantry, and that he might have done better to hold off. War fever in 1939 was powerful, however, and he says that he had the wish to accomplish what his father—and millions of other Germans—had failed to do in the First World War.

Everyone nods. They understand the power of parental influence quite well.

Tommy speaks next. Life has not been as good to him as it was to Hans: he moves slowly from the effects of both war wounds and arthritis. He shows no bitterness, however. Like Hans, he was very young when the Second Great War—as many Brits call it—began, and he had no hesitation about signing up. Early on, he had no bad feelings about the Germans, he says; it was only when he helped in the liberation of one of the death camps, in the spring of 1945, that he experienced incredible revulsion. For a long time he blamed Hitler and the Germans, he says, but viewing the world for the last fifty years, some thirty of them spent in retirement, has shown him that people everywhere are capable of cruelty and terrible deeds. The important thing, Tommy says, is to prevent them from having the means to accomplish such deeds.

This speech is not as universally acknowledged as the previous one, but everyone is very polite as they turn to Ivan to ask if he can comment. There’s a quiet respect in their voices, because they know that he—as a Russian—very likely witnessed unspeakable horrors to a great degree.

Ivan has bad words for Hitler and Mussolini, but he doesn’t think much better of Churchill and FDR. To him, all these leaders were savages who allowed the beast within humans to emerge and paved the way for the deaths of millions. He never had personal feelings against the Germans, he declares; rather, it was their system that he objected to. Everyone hums and nods their heads a little, and then Joe asks what Ivan thinks or feels about Josef Stalin.

The worst! Hitler was a raving lunatic, Ivan declares, and Mussolini and Churchill were cravens who let other people do their dirty work. FDR was a bit of a cold-blooded fellow, but Ivan would choose him over “Uncle Joe”—as Americans used to call Stalin—any day of the week. Ivan surprises his fellows by saying that when the Germans first invaded his country in June 1941 he welcomed them as liberators. That sentiment lasted about forty-eight hours and was destroyed by his witnessing acts of cruelty by the invaders. Thereafter, he fought valiantly for Mother Russia, he says, but never for Uncle Joe.

At this point the conversation turns in the direction of another Joe who sits at the table. The other three men ask him to express some of his thoughts, feelings, or beliefs.

Joe explains that he is reluctant to comment

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