W stronę Drohobycza
Towards Drohobycz

Summary/Abstract: Tragically, Bruno Schulz died before he could draw artistic conclusions from the cruel hunt known to history – and whose victim he became. On the other hand, it is a good thing that his pre-catastrophe writings allow us to better comprehend just how radical was this tragedy. The visual material at present at our disposal – the food for our imagination and school aids, which could make it easier for us to understand the nature of life in shtetls scattered across provincial Poland – is extremely modest. As a rule it involves only black-and-white photographs showing poverty, emaciated horses pulling primitive carts, old women wrapped in scarves and shawls, humble and, as a rule, wooden houses or cottages, geese condemned to death and carried to markets, barefoot children running and playing in sand or mud, and old men resting on benches. Sometimes, there are also brief snatches of a documentary film. Was Drohobycz too the site of geese, scraggy horses, and carts? Probably. Did Drohobycz differ from other small towns? Perhaps not. Schulz’s prose does not transpire exclusively in Drohobycz but in all the places of residence of more and less pious Jews. This is by no means a black-and-white prose.

• Details
• Contents