Re-mapping Polish-German Historical Memory: Physical, Political, and Literary Spaces since World War II

Uncanny Gdansk/Danzig: Memory, Forgetting, and Reconciliation in the Works of Gunter Grass and Stefan Chwin

Uncanny Gdansk/Danzig: Memory, Forgetting, and Reconciliation in the Works of Gunter Grass and Stefan Chwin Joanna Kedzierska Stimmel There is the city where you arrive for the first time; and there is another city which you leave never to return. Each deserves a different name...1 Multi-ethnic as a Hansa city, cosmopolitan as Freistadt under the League of Nations between the world wars, distinctly German during the Nazi rule, and almost entirely Polish since 1945-Danzig/Gdarisk is not only a concrete geographic and historical location but also a discursive topos, located at the juncture of personal recollections and national memories. The city holds a firm place in literature, most notably in the oeuvre of the Nobel Prize laureate and former resident of Danzig , Gunter Grass2 Reminiscing about his beginnings as an author, Grass thus linked his writing to the city: If by telling tales I could not recapture a city both lost and destroyed , I could at least re-conjure it. And this obsession kept me going. I wanted to make it clear to myself and my readers, not without a bit of a chip on my shoulder, that what was lost did not need to sink into oblivion, that it could be resuscitated by the art of literature in all its grandeur and pettiness: the churches and cemeteries, the sounds of the shipyards and 1 Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities, trans. William Weaver (New York: Harvest Books, 1978), 125. 2 Having immortalized his former hometown in the "Danzig trilogy" - Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum, 1959), Katz und Maus (Cat and Mouse, 1961), and Hundejahre (Dog Years, 1963) - Grass returned to the theme of the city in his first work following the unification of Germany, Unkenrufe (The Call of the Toad, 1992) and, to a lesser extent, in the novella 1m Krebsgang (Crabwalk, 1998). Justyna Beinek and Piotr H. Kosicki, eds. Re-mapping Polish-German Historical Memory: Physical, Political, and Literary Spa ces since World War II. Bloomington, IN: Siav ica, 2011 , 153- 75. (Indiana Sla vic Studies, 17. ) 162 Joanna Kedzierska Stimmel smells of the faintly lapping Baltic, a language on its way out yet still stable-warm and grumble-rich, sins in need of confession , and crimes tolerated if never exonerated.3 Grass's statement beautifully ties the process of writing to both the memory and the locale of his childhood and adolescence. Acknowledging the finality of his loss, the author seeks to rescue the image of his native city as he remembers it. His is the work of turning a quintessential Gedenkort (site of remembrance)-that is a location remembered only by those who lived there-into an Erinnerungsort (site of memory) at which the image of the past is passed onto new generations, even if only to point out irrevocable losses and historical fissures.4 Undoubtedly the most renowned writer of Danzig/Gdansk, Grass is certainly not the only one. Since the 1987 publication of Pawel Huelle's novel Weiser Dawidek, a growing number of Polish "Gdansk books" hit the bookshelves in Poland, and, in translation, also beyond Poland's borders.s Polish Gdansk authors seek a way to anchor their biographies in the cultural landscape shaped, at least partially, by a "foreign" past. Their works imaginatively negotiate between individual and collective memories and local and national histories tied to the city. One of the writers of this "literature of small fatherlands" (literatura malych ojczyzn)6 is Stefan Chwin, who made Danzig/Gdansk into 3 Gunter Grass, To Be Continued... (lecture, Nobel Prize in Literature, 1999), trans. Michael Henry Heim, 8 March 2007 http://nobelprize.orglnobel_prizes/ Iiteratu re/lau reates/1999/1 ectu re-e.htm I. 4 Aleida Assmann, Erinnerungriiume: Formen und Wandlungen des kulturellen Gediichtnisses (Munich: Beck, 2003). 5 The most prominent of Gdansk authors are Pawel Huelle and Stefan Chwin, whose texts are discussed in the following analysis. Huelle's texts include Weiser Dawidek (Gdansk: Wydawnictwo Morskie, 1987); Opowiadania na czas przeprowadzki (London: Puis, 1991); Pierwsza milosc i inne opowiadania (London: Puis, 1996); [nne historie (Gdansk: Slowolobraz terytoria, 1999); Castorp (Gdansk: Slowolobraz terytoria, 2004). 6 The term "small fatherland" is close to the German notion of Heimat-the difficult-to-translate, emotionally charged idea of homeland with the emphasis on the local or regional. The critical function of this writing in the process of German-Polish reconciliation is discussed at length by Katarzyna Sliwinska in a recent article. Sliwinska ties the Polish writers' interest in the German [3.129.249.105] Project...