Where the Birds Never Sing

Where the Birds Never Sing is a non-fiction book by Jack Sacco, published in 2004. It is written as a first-person account of the author’s father’s experiences in World War II, from his induction into the army through the liberation of the concentration camp at Dachau in 1945. The book was nominated for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize.

The book opens with a brief flash forward as Joe Sacco and the rest of his unit liberate what they assume to be a standard prisoner-of-war camp at Dachau. As they enter the lightly-defended camp, however, they immediately know something is different, and Sacco comments that he could not comprehend what he was seeing.

The story then flashes back to 1942 in Birmingham, Alabama, when Sacco was eighteen and living on the family farm. He reflects on their peaceful lives and status as immigrants; his parents came from Sicily, and the location of their farm was dictated by the racist locals who designated certain areas appropriate for non-natives, including Italians. One afternoon after working in the fields, Joe receives his draft notice.



His grandfather gives him a crucifix to protect him. His father drives him to the bus station, and Joe admits he is afraid. He meets another draftee named Tony Palumbo and they immediately become friends. They travel to Fort McClellan and are met by Sergeant Turner. The men were forewarned by the bus driver not to obey any orders until they were sworn in; when Turner orders them to pick up trash they all refuse, and his trick is spoiled.

Sacco is transferred to different training camps, eventually landing at Camp Maxey in Paris, Texas, where he is designated for the signal corps. He meets a fellow soldier named Averitt. While engaged in basic training, Joe’s grandfather passes away. Joe is very homesick, but takes his service to his country very seriously. While training on setting up poles and stringing wire, Joe falls and is badly hurt. Averitt thinks he might be able to get Joe excused from further service due to the injury, but is unsuccessful.

Joe goes through several different stages of training, and meets different men, including men named Tex, Silverman and Chandler, who become his friends. At first there is a great deal of racial and territorial animus, and Joe is the subject of some anti-Italian sentiment and racist comments. However, as the day of their deployment grows closer, Joe reports that the men began to stop with these biased attacks and became increasingly a unit. At Christmas in 1943 they spend some time in New York City with Silverman’s fiancée.



Sacco and the other men from his unit are shipped out to Ireland; Joe is the only man who does not become violently seasick during the journey. They continue to train and prepare for what today is known as the D-Day invasion of Normandy, forming deep friendships in the process. They are moved to Oxford, and volunteer in the hospitals where they get their first indication of how awful war will be. They hear a speech by General George S. Patton, peppered with profanity, that serves to inspire them to be the soldiers he sees them as.

Sacco describes his first experiences of combat in harrowing detail, noting the chaos that sowed death all around him. Sacco comes through the invasion unscathed, and is stunned at the lack of purpose to many of the deaths he witnesses. Tex is informed that his son has died, but is refused permission to go home. Tex then loses a leg in combat.

Sacco and his unit push deeper into Europe as part of the Allied invasion. As part of the Signal Battalion, Sacco and his fellow soldiers are tasked with stringing communication wires as the troops advance through France. During the winter in France, Sacco and his unit bunk down with a French family in a rural area. One night a cow gives birth and a neighbor girl named Monique comes to help with the calf, and Joe is smitten. He and Monique spend a lot of time together and fall in love, but he is forced to leave her behind when his unit is ordered to advance once more.



As they push into Germany, the destruction and bombing is monumental, and then dies down. Chandler is killed by a German tank as they fight street by street in a German city. Silverman is also shot and killed. In April 1945, Sacco and his unit arrive at Dachau. They find railroad cars filled with corpses, and the surviving prisoners appear like scarecrows, they are so thin. Joe witnesses the crematory bursting with ash, and witnesses some Americans shooting Nazi guards in summary executions on the spot. He also sees prisoners beating a guard to death and feels nothing.

After the war, Joe returns home and discovers that he could have gotten an exemption from the draft. He has stayed in touch with Monique as much as he can, and returns to France to search for her, but discovers that she was raped and murdered by German soldiers shortly after he left her.