1. Transnational Aspects of Postmemory in Third-Generation Fiction on WWII and the Holocaust The (Contrapuntal) Cases of Piotr Paziński and Erwin Mortier A FTER M EMORY. C ONFLICTING C LAIMS TO WWII IN C ONTEMPORARY E ASTERN E UROPEAN L ITERATURES Berlin, ZFL, 6-8 Nov 2015 kris@vanheuckelom.be

3. Warsaw 2010

4. Amsterdam 1999

5. ° 1973, Poland°1965, Belgium

6. “Schulz-derivative literature” - Bruno Schulz (1892-1942)

10. ° 1973, Poland°1965, Belgium

12. Mortier “That boy [Marcel],” she said, “has been lying there all alone for so many years now. I remember him in my prayers every day. He saved us from Bolshevism.” I thought she was referring to yet another mysterious disease. (M 16)

13. Paziński She [Mrs. Marysia] was not ashamed of the number, but she did not allow to touch it, although it tempted me. I was curious how it was done. Dark dots somewhere in the skin, or what? (P 41)

14. Paziński / Mortier I once snuck into the men’s bathroom to see this secret world. (P 40) I slunk to the corner between the wardrobe and the wall, sank to my knees and vanished under the sewing table. (M 31)

15. Paziński Through the crack I can see Mr. Leon, or perhaps Mr. Chaim, in a robe of coarse material in white and grey stripes. A striped pyjamas [pasiak]. Do not say that, it is a very bad word, Mr. Chaim would be sorry if he heard! A forbidden place. Not for small children. (P 39)

16. Mortier “They picked on Maurice [a convicted collaborator] just to make themselves look better. Every single textile firm made money of the Germans. Good money, too.” [the grandmother said.] “All those little men in the camps on television,” Stella blurted, “where d’you suppose the material for all those striped pyjamas came from? Am I right, Andrea?” “Whenever I see those old films,” the grandmother said, “I think: there goes the Flanders rag trade. And who gets the blame? Maurice. Or me.” (M 32)

17. Mortier Mondays were devoted to pattern drawing, design adjustments and the strategic deployment of pins so as to hide unwanted folds of the body. “A good garment,” she [the grandmother] affirmed with deeply held conviction, “both conceals and reveals.” (M 24)

18. Mortier At the end of each working day the snippets of dress material and tangled threads lying in frivolous anarchy on the floor were swept into a heap for the rag-and-bone man. (M 21)

19. Paziński They collected everything that remained after the war. (P 23) One more collector. In this house everyone collects and hoards something for eternal times. (P 86)

20. Paziński Mrs. Tecia stood in the middle of her kingdom. (...) A domestic archive, dusty piles of yellowed papers, stored wherever possible. Important articles! An entire life of gathering. Porcelain tableware. Treasures never used. (P 19)

21. Paziński Rags in bags, sorted: flax and cotton, various types of nylon. For sewing, and the inferior materials for carding. (…) And yarn for sweaters, the habitat of moles which silently flew out of these multicolored clusters, made some nervous circles above the storage room and immediately returned to their woolen headquarters, deterred by the stench of mothballs and twigs of swamp. Objects more alive than people. Now abandoned. Who will bury them, so they will not wind up on some garbage heap? (P 19)

23. Paziński I sat there probably an hour, while ignoring Mrs. Tecia and trying to decipher the contents of the subsequent packages. The room was getting darker, and I did not want to get up and switch on the chandelier. The letters in these letters, which were anyhow almost illegible, melted into the darkness. (P 24)

24. Paziński In any case, only single words remained, scattered here and there. It is hard to read anything, as if it was written not with ink but with onion juice. (P 23)

25. Paziński Mrs Tecia’s package was very heavy, as if I was not carrying old photographs, but stones. I was not even curious about my room, I just quickly dumped the contents of the bundles on the table and began to arrange some kind of solitaire. (P 43)

26. לדור ודור l l’dor vador

27. Paziński I wanted to run away, but I felt some power holding me back, drawing me to the place and not allowing me to move (...). “I am coming to you!” I cried. “No, no, why do you say that, where did you get that idea from?” “It’s our forest and we don’t need anyone here!” “It’s Bronka’s grandson. Where will he go now?” (...) The last of the generational links, attached to the very end. It was deep night, when I got to the station. (P 134-135)

28. Paziński “No, no, why do you say that, where did you get that idea from? He’s gone mad, simply gone mad! What nonsense he’s talking!” “It’s our forest and we don’t need anyone here!” “It’s Bronka’s grandson. Where will he go now?” “And where was he back then? Or maybe he was not there at all? The last of the generational links, attached to the very end. It was deep night, when I got to the station. (P 134-135)

29. I considered my options: count up to ten thousand, say, or do some more praying, or pretend that fairies really existed and I could make any wish I pleased. What if it worked? What if all the stuff that fell off the table were to band together? A strip of suede. A tuft of fur. What if all the snippets of serge joined forces with a couple of buttons? They could enlist the tangle of basting threads on the floor, and bribe a dozen thimbles while they were at it. Mortier

30. They could invade the table drawer and conspire with the lame zippers. Murder in reverse. A new perspective. A more bearable tomb. So he [Marcel] would stop roaming the house in his stockinged feet, all the way from attic to basement, pausing at my door, deathly quiet (...). (M 77-78) Mortier

31. I stuffed the bundle into the tin and pressed down the lid. (…) I had no time to lose. I set the biscuit tin at the foot of the rowan tree and seized the trowel. (...) I started digging furiously. Rooms aplenty in the earth. (P 118-119) Mortier

32. „About that letter. You keep it to yourself, mind. It’s not for anyone else’s eyes. Do you hear?” (M 115) „ Mortier

33. Paziński Is there nothing more to see? (...) I knew this would happen. (...) It has been lying here for such a long time! And that’s the whole story of the family! And your grandmother’s too. And your uncle’s. Adam, my nephew, was supposed to make copies, but he never has time to do it. It is worth bringing it to the archive, but there it will certainly get lost, it is better that here... (P 23)

34. Paziński Familiar figures looked up from the photographs scattered on the table. (...) I put them back into piles. The grandmothers, the uncle Simons, granddaddy, relatives and in-laws, friends of the family. Maybe it was time to leave them here? The best place they will ever have. When I will be gone too, the figures on these paper prints will become nothing but a distant, unknown crowd, a collection of strange, indistinct faces, like those portraits sold for a penny on an antique fair.

35. Paziński Or I’d better bury them in the ground, at the bottom of the ravine where Mr. Leon and I went to look for dinosaurs, which were supposed to bring us fame. There certainly no one will find them, the fluffy sand will cover them and put them to sleep. That is where I will take them. (P 126)

36. Bereishis... “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth”. (Genesis 1: 1) “In the beginning were train tracks. In the greenery, between heaven and earth.” (P 5)

37. „In the beginning was the war.” (3) “In the beginning were train tracks.” (P 5)

39. McGlothlin 2006 The metaphor of sewing is particularly apt for the project of second-generation writing, not only because (…) it defers the drive toward totality with its inherent incompleteness, its gaps between the stitches, but because the act of sewing is itself also a form of marking, a repair that, with the stitch, leaves visible traces. (11-12)

40. Transnational Aspects of Postmemory in Third-Generation Fiction on WWII and the Holocaust The (Contrapuntal) Cases of Piotr Paziński and Erwin Mortier A FTER M EMORY. C ONFLICTING C LAIMS TO WWII IN C ONTEMPORARY E ASTERN E UROPEAN L ITERATURES Berlin, ZFL, 6-8 Nov 2015 kris@vanheuckelom.be