May 3, 1938, Tuesday

[Drohobych]. Bruno Schulz selects one of the illustrations for Spring, published in the Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass, and gives it with dedication to Dziunia Schmerowa (née Backenroth), his former student.

The addressee of the dedication was a student from the Leon Sternbach Private Coeducational Middle School in Drohobych. In 1938, she married Dr. Izrael Schmer*, an internist from Drohobych. Schulz was a frequent visitor to the Schmers’ house. In February that year, he drew a portrait of Dziunia*1. In August, during his stay in Paris, at the request of both spouses, he tried to meet Elio Ganzerlo to give him, as he wrote in a cable, “a small gift from our mutual friends”2. The dedication said: “To Dziunia Schmerowa, with warm wishes on 3.V.1938”. Further circumstances are unclear. (sr) (transl. mw)

  • 1
    Artur Klinghoffer, in a letter to Ficowski dated February 8, 1956 (in the Ossolineum collection in Wrocław), wrote: “Schulz was friends with Dziunia and made a portrait of her with a pen with a dedication dated February 3, 1938” – quoted after: Schulz w oczach świadków. Listy, wspomnienia i relacje, edited by Jerzy Kandziora, Gdańsk [in preparation], p. 163.
  • 2
    Bruno Schulz, a cable to Elio Ganzerlo dated August 3, 1938, [in:] idem, Dzieła zebrane, volume 5: Księga listów, zebrał i przygotował do druku Jerzy Ficowski, uzupełnił Stanisław Danecki, Gdańsk 2016, p. 189.