Krakowskie Podgórze in the novels of Czornyj and Krajewski. These are not obvious visions

I will start with the second book, because it describes the older Podgórze. Does it give rise to a new series of novels by the author of the crime series about Eberhard Mock and Edward Popielski? Krajewski does not explicitly prejudge this, although with the ending he leaves not even a wicket, but a gate, wide open for continuations. He also mentions in the acknowledgments that he will certainly use the knowledge gained while working on the book.

You want to come back to one Podgórze, and not necessarily to the other

The main character of “Demonomachia”, Stefan Zborski, is a Catholic high school student. He lives in a boarding house in Podgórze. He misses his deceased father and one day, not very well matched, because it is Good Friday, organizes a séance with two friends. Instead of the father’s spirit, however, they evoke another, more powerful one, which …

Well, our hero is not sure about that. It seems, however, that the spirit gave him the power to cast a spell / spell / spell on the Jewish boy Szlomek, who is now writhing like a snake, making strange screams, and generally acting very disturbing (a euphemism of course). Full of guilt, Stefan decides to become an exorcist and enters the seminary …

This is just the beginning of our hero’s journey through the world of Jewish beliefs and his own emotions. In the background, the Jewish community of Podgórze, promiscuous young Polish artists drinking absinthe, and liberated and no less promiscuous women who have extremely important roles to play in the plot.

I will not reveal more, so as not to deprive you of the pleasure of reading. I would like to add that “Demonomachia” is a great read, and Krajewski (the editor wanted to change to Krakowski, it is significant in this context!) Vividly portrays the background of the action. So we are happy to follow Zborski’s struggles with demons / dybbukes and himself. I would love to come back to such Podgórze!

However, I would definitely not want to return to Podgórze from a book known primarily from the popular crime stories, Czornyj, which turned into a saying “Kat z Płaszów” – the biography of the war criminal Amon Goth, liquidator of the Jewish ghettos in Kraków and Tarnów, famous for the brutality of the commandant of the KL Plaszow concentration camp.

We learn about Goth’s life and death from his own perspective. It is he who talks about his childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, also about his crimes. He does it in a distant, emotionless tone, as if – as the author emphasizes in the afterword – he is completely alien to the feeling of empathy.

Goth murdered on impulse, outburst of anger, but also calmly, for example by shooting at the prisoners from the balcony of the villa adjacent to the camp in which he lived. He was methodically planning and implementing the extermination activities. The catalog of his crimes was so large that Chornyy deliberately does not even try to describe them all, although he could write a book two or three times as long in this way. “But it would only be creating a catalog of deviations” – explains the writer.

I admit that I was afraid of the form of narration adopted by the author. But you can see he realized how risky it is to vote “Kat from Płaszów”. Where necessary, he skillfully balances the words “falling from the mouth” of Amon Goth with short, factual inserts and comments. He does it skillfully, with sensitivity.

I am reading his book in a very specific context of the dispute over the form of commemoration of the victims of the former KL Plaszow that has been going on in Krakow for several years. Today, almost nothing is left of the camp, built on the site of two Jewish cemeteries. One building, some foundations, fragments of cemeteries. And only the villa where the Goth lived stands as it stood.

The KL Plaszow Memorial Site in Krakow, established by the Krakow City Council, has been operating for over a year. German Nazi labor and concentration camp (1942 – 1945) in Krakow. The name is a bit long, but it leaves no room for doubts and room for overinterpretation. When I wrote about the book on my Instagram profile, Czornyj wrote back that the book: “It was supposed to be dedicated to commemoration, but life wrote a different script. May it, however, carry the story into the world.” May it carry.

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