D.P.

"D.P." is a short story first published in Ladies' Home Journal in August 1953 and reprinted in Canary in a Cat House in 1961, Welcome to the Monkey House in 1968, and Complete Stories in 2017. It was Vonnegut's first of three stories with that periodical.

Plot Summary

A Catholic orphanage with eighty-one children sits near the village of Karlswald, in the American Zone of Occupation following the Second World War. Often the nuns walk the children, two by two, through the village while the villagers entertain themselves by guessing the nationalities of all the abandoned children. One they can all agree on is a young, black, German speaking child with blue eyes at the end of the line named Karl Heinz whom they all call Joe Louis, the only black American they can name. He asks a nun if what he was told by the oldest boy, 14 year old Peter, is true: that his parents were an American soldier and German woman who abandoned him. The nun tells him only that his parents must have been good people, since Joe is so good. He asks what an American is and he is told that there are some nearby but their home is a different country across more water than Joe has ever seen. He asks if Americans are brown like him and learns that some are, but that he's never seen any because they don't live in the village. When Joe says he'd like to visit them since Peter says he can never be a real German, the nun tries to distract him by pointing out a sparrow with a broken leg, still trying its best. One summer day, Joe sees a muscular black man he assumes is his father, but the nun says the man is not his father and doesn't want to talk to him. After lights out that evening, the nuns find that Joe is gone.

That night, Joe watches a group of black American soldiers until he is discovered by the same sergeant he saw earlier that day. They are shocked to find that he only speaks German, but the sergeant comforts Joe with a hug and a chocolate bar even though they can't communicate with words. A German speaking lieutenant arrives and learns that he ran away from the orphanage to join his people. When they hear him identify himself as Joe Louis they all laugh except the sergeant who chastises them for making fun of a boy who's the most "displaced person" any of them have ever seen. Shamed, they agree. The sergeant and lieutenant decide to drive him back to the village, but Joe refuses to let go of the sergeant, whom he insists is his father. The soldiers give him various items—a wristwatch, a knife, a box of chocolate bars—to get him to let go, but Joe still holds on. The lieutenant explains that soldiers can't bring children with them, but they'll return to the village one day if they can. Joe wakes up in the orphanage the next morning with all the things the soldiers gave him. The other children are curious, but Peter is dismissive when Joe claims he got it all from his father. Joe replies that he knows his father is coming to get him, because Joe only promised to let go of him once he promised to to take him across the water back to his home.

Adaptations

The story was first adapted and renamed "Auf Weidersehen" for the third episode of the seventh season of General Electric Theater, hosted by Ronald Reagan, and aired on CBS on October 5, 1958. It starred Sammy Davis Jr. and Vonnegut was credited on the teleplay with Valentine Davies. It was again adapted as "Displaced Person" for the PBS anthology series American Playhouse. Starring Stan Shaw, written by Fred Barron, and directed by Alan Bridges, it first aired on May 6, 1985.