July 29, 1938, Friday

Lviv. At the German consulate in ul. Ossolińskich 4, Bruno Schulz receives a transit visa allowing him to travel through Germany. Probably on the same day, starting his journey to Paris, he goes by afternoon train to Warsaw.

Schulz’s initial plan, about which Romana Halpern* wrote in May, to travel to Paris via Italy (with a stop in Venice) was not fulfilled. Although he did not want to (“it would have depressed me”1), the writer had to cross the territory of the Third Reich on his way to France2. To this end, he applied for a transit visa, which was issued to him by the German consulate in Lviv, transformed after Anschluss from an Austrian post. It was temporarily managed by counsellor Hans Forner, “still employed at the Austrian honorary consulate”3. Schulz obtained the visa without any problem4. It had the number 3527 and allowed for two trips through Germany until August 28, 1938. The cost of it was 5 zlotys and 40 groszy. In the “purpose of departure” column, “transit” was written5.

Later that day, at 3:22 pm, Schulz got on a train that was supposed to take him to Warsaw. He got there at 10:23 pm6. (sr) (transl. mw)

  • 1
    Letter from Bruno Schulz to Romana Halpern dated May 28, 1938, [in:] Bruno Schulz, Dzieła zebrane, volume 5: Księga listów, zebrał i przygotował do druku Jerzy Ficowski, uzupełnił Stanisław Danecki, Gdańsk 2016, p. 175.
  • 2
    Jerzy Ficowski thought differently: “He chooses a longer and more expensive journey through Italy to bypass the Nazi Third Reich” (Regiony wielkiej herezji i okolice. Bruno Schulz i jego mitologia, Sejny 2002, p. 501). Yet, according to Wiesław Budzyński: “He was not in Venice – he had to choose a different path. Then maybe he travelled through Vienna, Geneva and reached the Gare de Lyon?” (Schulz pod kluczem, Warszawa 2013, p. 180).
  • 3
    Grzegorz Hryciek, “Stosunki polsko-ukraińskie w ocenie konsulatu niemieckiego we Lwowie w 1939 roku”, Toruńskie Studia Międzynarodowe 2009, no. 1 (2), pp. 21–22.
  • 4
    This could soon turn out to be more difficult. Oberinspektor Sprink, sent from the German embassy to make order, eagerly set to work, and “one of his first steps was the dismissal of Jewish workers” (Grzegorz Hryciuk, op. cit., p. 20).
  • 5
    The documents were found and published by Łesia Chomycz (“Wyjazd Brunona Schulza do Francji”, Schulz/Forum 11, 2018, pp. 179–188). There are several inaccuracies in her commentary regarding Schulz’s first idea of going to Paris, the date he crossed the Polish-German border, and the nature of the Casanova dinner theatre in Paris, where Georges Rosenberg led him.
  • 6
    If he had chosen the morning train, which departed at 7:40 am, he would have arrived in Warsaw at 3:33 pm, and before his evening departure to Paris, he would have had little time for the scheduled meetings.