quote:

The long-standing view of the Children's Crusade is some version of events with similar themes. A boy began preaching in either France or Germany claiming that he had been visited by Jesus and told to lead the next Crusade. Through a series of supposed portents and miracles he gained a considerable following, including possibly as many as 20,000 children. He led his followers southwards towards the Mediterranean Sea, where it is said he believed that the sea would part when he arrived, so that he and his followers could march to Jerusalem, but this did not happen. Two merchants gave passage on seven boats to as many of the children as would fit. The children were either taken to Tunisia and sold into slavery, or died in a shipwreck on the island of San Pietro (off Sardinia) during a gale. In some accounts they never reached the sea before dying or giving up from starvation and exhaustion. Scholarship has shown this long-standing view to be more legend than fact.

quote:

Explanation of the novel's title

"Slaughterhouse-Five" refers to the slaughterhouse in which the main character, Billy Pilgrim, stays as a POW in Dresden during the firebombing. Vonnegut, as he does in some of his other works such as Breakfast of Champions, uses an alternate title for the book; in this case it is The Children's Crusade. He explains this in the first chapter as referring to the Children's Crusade of the 13th century, in which children were sold as slaves (the facts of the actual historical event are disputed, but for literary purposes, the purposeful selling of children into slavery is the intended meaning). This is used to mirror war which, in Vonnegut's opinion, is comparable to selling children into slavery.

quote:

Any progress on this mr. Arkan?

quote:

Maybe there is a guilt factor, considering that most of the children were French