J. D. Salinger_ A Life - Kenneth Slawenski [72]
A deeper description of the surreal scenes that Salinger was forced to process can be found in the personal diary of an average soldier, a member of the 552nd Field Artillery Battalion, which was attached to the 12th Infantry Regiment during the closing weeks of April 1945.
When the gates swung open we got our first look at the prisoners. Many of them were Jews. They were wearing black and white striped prison suits and round caps. A few had shredded blanket rags draped over their shoulders.… The prisoners struggled to their feet after the gates were opened. They shuffled weakly out of the compound. They were like skeletons—all skin and bones.42
In 1992, the 4th Infantry Division was recognized by the U.S. Army as a liberating unit of Nazi concentration camps, and it is evident that J. D. Salinger was called upon to take part in the liberation of victims of the Dachau concentration camp system. Like so many who encountered such scenes during the war, Salinger has never spoken directly of his experiences, and we cannot be certain of exactly what his intelligence duties demanded of him in these places. The subcamps of Dachau liberated by Salinger’s division were Horgau-Pfersee, Aalen, Ellwagen, Haunstetten, Turkenfald, and Wolfrathausen.43
In Bavaria, Salinger’s fragile ties to normalcy were strained to the point of rending, while at the same time his pockets burned with pages of The Catcher in the Rye, with their scenes of children ice skating and little girls in soft blue dresses. During that chilly April of 1945, J. D. Salinger was changed forever, a witness not only to the carnage of innocents but to the mutilation of everything he cherished and had clung to for sanity. It was a nightmare that, once entered, created an indelible pain. “You could live a lifetime,” he mourned, “and never really get the smell of burning flesh out of your nose.”44
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When the Second World War ended on May 8, 1945, J. D. Salinger had served in the army for more than three years. Since mid-1943, he had consistently expressed a longing to return home to New York and civilian life. Even before entering combat, he claimed to have given up on finding happiness until after the war and was uncertain how much of his former life would remain.45 He had entered the army anxious to serve, believing the surroundings would afford him the leisure to write at will. Three years on, he was jaded and bitter over the realities he had encountered. The scars, both physical and psychological, would remain with him for the rest of his life. Hurling himself for cover, he had broken his nose, a disfigurement he refused to repair. The sound of explosions had stolen much of his hearing, and by war’s end he was partially deaf. Constant combat served to cut him off from his own feelings and left no time to deal with the horror he had lived through. As the war began to wane, new atrocities arose to haunt him. Unlike most of the soldiers he had originally embarked with, from D-Day to VE Day, he had somehow managed to survive. Throughout the war, he had conducted himself with professionalism. His service had been honorable. He had never let his men down, crumbled under pressure, or failed to deliver in times of need. But by May 8, he had given everything. Now drained, there could be no one more anxious for the discharge due him. The war was over, and it was time to go home.
But Salinger did not go home. On May 10, the U.S. Army established Counter Intelligence Corps Detachment 970