Freud_Burlingham_1943_War_and_Children_k_text

—"Do you remember the first night here whenwe all were so noisy that the Germans droppeda bomb on our house? But it was so very faraway. Do you know it still?"Janet's first part of the story is probably acorrect report of what had happened to hernearly two years ago, when she and her familyhad their house destroyed above them. Thesecond part of the story contains a mixture ofreal and imaginary elements of what happenedlast year. A stick of bombs was actuallydropped not on, but in the neighborhood ofthe Country House and not on the first night,but a little more than a week after the arrivalof the children there. This is a good exampleof a child's interpretation of such a happening.In Janet's mind the bomb was droppedas punishment because the children were toonoisy. Her smile and the contradiction in thestory itself "on our house, very far away"prove that Janet is herself well aware of herown additions to the truth.She herself had at the time commented, withevident relief, after the raid was over: "It wasa kind German, he did not drop the bomb onour house."Though this sounds like a rather alarmingnew conception of kindness—to drop bombs onother people's houses only—it means to Janetsomething completely different; the German178