World War II Anniversary: Echo of Oskar's tin drum in the streets of Gdansk

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Gdansk, Poland - When German author Guenther Grass was born in a suburb of this historic city on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea 80 years ago it was known to most of the world as Danzig.

By Andreas Heimann

The port now goes under the Polish name of Gdansk and the district of Langfuhr, where Grass first saw the light of day, has changed its name to Wrzeszcz.

A great deal has happened in the meantime including a war unleashed by the Germans which killed 50 million people and destroyed the Free City of Danzig. The Old Town was reduced to rubble. The German population was forced to leave and only a small ethnic minority remained. Thanks to excellent restoration work, the seaport is now as handsome as it was before hostilities began.

Once a free city under the Protection of the League of Nations, the Danzig of yore lives on in the novels of Nobel Literature laureate Guenther Grass. Echoes of the heroes of his first and probably best-known novel Die Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum) - especially of the diminutive Oskar Matzerath - can be found in the streets of the old Hanseatic city.

Gdansk attracts countless tourists who are fascinated by the places which inspired the work of Germany's most famous post-war novelist. Their numbers are sure to increase in the run-up to the author's 80th birthday on October 16.

Langfuhr or Wrzeszcz used to be on the outskirts of Gdansk but is now an integral part of the city. Mieczyslaw Abramowicz, a member of the Guenther Grass Society in Gdansk, has devised a route through Wrzeszcz which follows the biographical and literary footsteps of the author. A total of four such tours are planned in various parts of the city.

Last June saw the inauguration of the first of these literary round trips, one which has been given the name "Eight gifts to mark the 80th birthday of Guenther Grass". Each of the "presents" is a place which reminds visitors of the writer or one of his characters - such as the old brewery in Langfuhr or the Church of the Sacred Heart. Grass was christened here, just like Oskar Matzerath, whose frenetic drum-playing later gets him into a lot of trouble.

Abramowicz is very familiar with all these places, such as the market square in Wrzeszcz where in The Tin Drum Oskar's grandmother Anna Koljaiczek peddles her eggs, butter and geese every Tuesday with hot bricks secreted under her skirts in order to keep warm. Not far from here is the site of the former synagogue in Wrzeszcz, which has since been converted to a school for music. It was sold by the Jewish congregation even before war broke out. Most Jews in Danzig had fled the city before the tide of anti-Semitism. Most of the Jews who did not leave were simply murdered.

Most tourists who come to Wrzeszcz find their way to a street which used to be called Labesweg. Here stands the house where Guenther Grass was born. It was a cramped place and he often alluded to it in his writings. The street has been renamed Ulica Lelewela, but the appearance of number 13 has hardly changed down the years. It is easy to imagine how uncomfortable it must have been to grow up here.

Grass has long been an honorary citizen of Gdansk and plans to erect a statue in his honour have been on the cards for years. Grass suggested using the money instead to pay for inside toilets to be installed in houses in the Ulica Lelewela. "They still haven't got them", said Abramowicz. And there is no sign of the proposed monument to Grass either. A statue of Oskar Matzerath does exist though and can be found not far from the Ulica Lelewela.

One of the most memorable passages in The Tin Drum describes how World War II was triggered when Germany attacked Poland. The first shots were aimed at Danzig. They were fired on September 1, 1939 by the elderly German battle cruiser Schleswig-Holstein.

A German police unit then stormed the city's Polish post office building. In The Tin Drum, Oskar's uncle and his assumed father Jan Bronski were among the "defenders of the Polish Post Office" who were later murdered. The original building remains standing and parts of it are still used by the postal authority. The other half is a museum dedicated to those dramatic, opening events of the war. Plaques above the main entrance list the names of those who died in the fighting there.

From the Post Office the city's main attractions are only a few metres away. It is just a short walk to the church of St. Mary, the largest brick church in the world, the Golden Gate (Zlota Brama), built in 1612-14 and the Long Market (Dlugi Targ) with its famous Neptune fountain. Equally close by is the famous "Krantor" medieval crane on the Mottlawa river. The Polish restoration teams made such a good job of restoring the ruins of these ancient buildings in the 1950s and 1960s that they are scarcely distinguishable from the originals. Thanks to them, Gdansk is the most handsome city in Poland next to Wroclaw.

One of the few houses which escaped destruction is the old Town Hall in the city centre. A stairway laid out with a red carpet leads up to the first floor where magnificently-decorated chambers bear witness to the prosperity of Gdansk in its trading heyday. Right next to the entrance is the "Turbot" restaurant which takes its name from the Polish word for "Flounder".

The restaurant is owned by Maciej Krainski, president of the Guenther Grass Society, who named it after the 1977 Grass fable Der Butt (The Flounder). Members of the Grass-Society meet regularly on these premises.

What the Krainskis have in common with most of its fellow society members is that they came to Gdansk after the war. They were strangers to the city. "Yet through Guenther Grass we came to learn so much about the complicated history of the region," said Maciej, It is a feeling shared by many people who have made the journey to Gdansk.

Internet:
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