April 8 event to focus on shared experiences of acclaimed author Vonnegut and former OHIO professor in World War II

The Menard Family George Washington Forum (opens in a new window) and the Contemporary History Institute will host Dr. Kevin C. Ruffner and Ohio University alumna Isabel Huber Planton discussing “I Too Was There: Gifford B. Doxsee, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., and their Shared Experiences at Dresden’s Slaughterhouse-Five,” on April 8, at 5:30 p.m. in The Friends of the Library Room (Alden Library 319).

The event will focus on Gifford B. Doxsee, a longtime professor of history at Ohio University, and renowned author Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., and their shared experience as prisoners of war during World War II. Doxsee and Vonnegut were among the thousands of American soldiers captured by the German army at the beginning of the Battle of the Bulge in 1944. For the next six months, Doxsee and Vonnegut faced extreme deprivation as prisoners of war until their liberation in May 1945.  

Vonnegut recounted parts of their POW experience in his popular novel, “Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children’s Crusade A Duty Dance with Death,” nearly a quarter of a century later.  Vonnegut’s fictional story reflected “what I saw and did in Dresden after it was firebombed so long ago, when, in the company of other prisoners of war and slave laborers who survived the raid, I dug corpses from cellars and carried them, unidentified, their names recorded nowhere, to monumental fire pyres.”

In 1981, Doxsee, who met Vonnegut in Dresden while serving on the same work detail, mailed Vonnegut a copy of his World War II memoirs, and commented that Vonnegut probably wanted to put the war behind him. “Still,” Doxsee noted, “since it was an important episode in our lives, perhaps this brief account will hold some interest for you. I hope so.” Vonnegut thanked Doxsee for his “remarkable letter” and claimed that Doxsee was “only the second person to write me, saying, in effect ‘I too was there.’”

Drawing upon Doxsee’s papers at Ohio University and those of the Vonnegut collection at Indiana University, Ruffner and Planton’s presentation will discuss the shared experiences of both men during World War II, especially how Doxsee and Vonnegut were affected by the deaths of two of their comrades in Dresden.

Expert speakers for the April 8 event

Kevin Ruffner (opens in a new window) served in a variety of domestic and foreign assignments with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from 1991 until his retirement in 2017. As a member of the CIA History Staff, he worked on major declassification projects, including the CORONA satellite system and Nazi war criminals and collaborators. The Agency subsequently declassified his publications as part of the 1998 Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act.

In addition to his civilian career in the Federal Government, Ruffner served in the Regular Army, the Army National Guard, and the Army Reserve from 1982 until his retirement in 2010. Ruffner earned a Ph.D. in American Civilization at the George Washington University. He is a 2024-2025 Broadening Academic Initiative Hybrid Fellow at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.    

Isabel Huber Planton (opens in a new window) received a BA in English Literature from Ohio University in 2006 and an MLS from Indiana University in 2008. She worked in the Teaching and Research Department at the Lilly Library at IU from 2011-2025, before recently taking a position as an Archivist at the Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan.

During her time at the Lilly Library, she became increasingly interested in the library’s extensive manuscript collections related to Hoosier author Kurt Vonnegut. Isabel has curated three Vonnegut exhibitions and given talks on various aspects of Vonnegut’s life and writings.

“The George Washington Forum is grateful to co-host this event with the Contemporary History Institute,” said Dr. Cortney Rodet, director of the George Washington Forum and associate professor of economics in the College of Arts and Sciences. “We have studied some of Vonnegut's work in the Forum as a way to integrate moral philosophy through literature into our curriculum. His work offers a unique juxtaposition to the often-technical perspectives of academic work in economics, history, or political science. Vonnegut's deft use of absurdity illustrates what it means to live a good life, to be a good person, and where we can find meaning.”

This event is co-sponsored by Ohio University Libraries and is free and open to the public. Refreshments and snacks will be available for audience members.