3 February 1935, Sunday

Warsaw. In the 5th issue of Wiadomości Literackie a short story by Bruno Schulz is published, entitled My Father Joins the Firefighters. 

The editors place the story on the first page (next to Julian Tuwim’s Poems for Children). The publication does not contain illustrations, as does the later version of the story from Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass* (1937) with a slightly changed title (My Father Joins the Fire Bridgade), although similar themes appeared in the works of Schulz as an illustrator1. A drawing of Adela and the firefighters, which Jerzy Ficowski* classified as an illustration for the story, has been preserved in a private collection. According to Ficowski, My Father Joins the Firefighters, just like Second Autumn, Edzio, Pensioner, Loneliness, Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass, were created in 1928 “and in some cases even earlier”2. This opinion is supported by Schulz’s statement in a letter to Zenon Waśniewski* from 1935 about the stories published at that time. “Have you seen”, he wrote, “my short story Dodo in the January issue of Tygodnik Ilustrowany? [...] Have you read the passage about the firefighter in Wiadomości Liter.? These are all my older things”3. (sr) (transl. mw)

  • 1
    Cf. Bruno Schulz, Księga obrazów, zebrał, oprac. i komentarzami opatrzył Jerzy Ficowski, Gdańsk 2012, p. 58; Adela i strażacy, approx. 1933, private collection.
  • 2
    Jerzy Ficowski, Prehistoria i powstanie „Sklepów cynamonowych”, [in:] idem, Regiony wielkiej herezji i okolice. Bruno Schulz i jego mitologia, Sejny 2002, p. 58.
  • 3
    Letter from Bruno Schulz to Zenon Waśniewski dated March 16, 1935, [in:] Bruno Schulz, Dzieła zebrane, volume 5: Księga listów, zebrał i przygotował do druku Jerzy Ficowski, uzupełnił Stanisław Danecki, Gdańsk 2016, p. 84.