Chapter Twenty-Three - Benediction

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Chapter Twenty-Three
Benediction
Dresden
4 May 1945
 
In this chapter, the girls pass through firebombed Dresden, learning that Hitler is dead, and have a curious encounter with a Hungarian refugee.
 
City of Angels, Florence on the Elbe, gone:

Do not look away, friend. Memento Mori. This is war. Some of you will say well he deserved it, or 'they' deserved it. No human deserves this, or any of the other atrocities committed on all sides in this terrible war. Dresden in my memory stands as a symbol, not of German suffering, but of the absolute wrongness of war. Never Again!

Emperor Karl, Empress Zita, and Otto, at the Coronation in Budapest:
The Real Story of the Dresden Firestorm- TIKHistory. The best documentary on the web. Read the comments.
Slaughterhouse Five - Full Audiobook - The author, Kurt Vonnegut, was a POW in Dresden, and surivived. This is an anti-war book. 
"KURT VONNEGUT: UNSTUCK IN TIME" DRESDEN SEQUENCE - Vonnegut revisits Dresden. Brave. The aerial photos of the bombings are the first thing I saw about it as a young child now, on television, and they shook loose the then 23-4 year old pictures like those above in my mind.
Dresden Bombed To Atoms: World War II (1945) - British Pathé. This is the newsreel referred to in the text.
The "Final Solution" in Hungary - This is why there were refugees in Dresden, and on the roads. short vid.
Find the Führer: The Secret Soviet Investigation - Part One of Dr. Mark Felton's excellent series surrounding the death of Hitler, the management of the corpse, and where it is now.

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