around 8–10 September 1939, Friday – Sunday

Drogobych. Bruno Schulz offers accommodation to Artur Sandauer, who is fleeing Sambor.

In the first days of September 1939, Artur Sandauer, following the recommendations of the military authorities calling on all men of conscription age to go east, travels from Sambor to Drogobych1. He finds accommodation at Bruno Schulz’s. Remembering this episode of his acquaintance with Schulz, he recalls in particular a situation that occurred when they were listening to radio communications about news from the front. Schulz was very impressed by the information that young women could pilot German bombers. “We listened to Polish messages, and when they fell silent – to German ones. ‘You know what? Their planes are supposedly piloted by young girls’, Bruno told me with a flash of excitement in his eyes”2.

Although in Artur Sandauer’s article “Wprowadzenie Schulza (II)” appears the date of 8 September, it is impossible to determine when exactly the event took place. The information given is confusing. Sandauer writes: “On 8 September 1939, I was at Schulz’s, like every Sunday”3, but the whole wording is imprecise. It follows that on 8 September Sandauer was already in Drogobych with Schulz, as it was customary every Sunday. However, it does not show that he arrived on 8 September. To be clear, it should be emphasized that in 1939 the 8th of September fell on Friday. Further, Sandauer writes that “the city, constantly bombarded, was overwhelmed by panic”4. Meanwhile Drogobych was bombed only on Sunday 10 September. As Wiesław Budzyński writes: “The first bombs fell on “Polmin”, the largest of the Drohobych refineries, on September 10, and this was the cause of a fire larger than any other than the oldest residents could remember…”5. This is confirmed by Marius Emmeling in a monograph documenting the actions of German aviation during the September campaign: “From 12.15 to 14.25 [10 September – ed. M.R.] 9 Do 17Z z 7. Staffel attacked targets in the Stryj-Drogobych area. Simultaneously the Kampfaufklärer with the crew of Olt. Strasser did a reconnaissance of the area of Przemyśl–Lviv–Stryj (time of combat flight: 12.18-13.40 hrs). By accident, the dropped bomb damaged6 a kerosene warehouse in Drogobych”7.

This means that either in Sandauer’s memory the September events merge, or that he confuses the date (and the event he describes occurred on Sunday 10 September after the bombing of “Polmin”). (mr) (transl. mw)

  • 1
    See Artur Sandauer, Byłem…, Warszawa 1991, p. 39.
  • 2
    Ibid.
  • 3
    Artur Sandauer, “Wprowadzenie Schulza (II)”, [in:]: idem, Zebrane pisma krytyczne, [tom 3]: Pomniejsze pisma krytyczne i publicystyka literacka, Warszawa 1981, p. 735.
  • 4
    Ibid.
  • 5
    Wiesław Budzyński, Miasto Schulza, Warszawa 2005, p. 119.
  • 6
    Recalling Emmerling’s findings, one should be aware of the specific cognitive assumptions of the work of this German aviation enthusiast. Emmerling aims to revise the false – in his opinion – theses put forward by Polish historians about the criminal nature of the Luftwaffe’s actions during the September campaign. According to Emmerling, it is a propaganda slander that has nothing to do with the historical truth and serves, among other things, to hide the unworthy acts of Polish aviators (such as firing paratroopers, which is referred to in the accounts of German veterans cited in the monograph). Emmerling seems to be completely influenced by the idea of the chivalry of the German Wehrmacht (as opposed to the Nazi crimes of the Gestapo and Waffen-SS), which was overthrown in the German collective memory for many years after the war by Hannes Heer’s exhibition Total War. The Crimes of the Wehrmacht 1941–1944, created under the aegis of the Hamburg Institute for Social Research and presented in many German cities between 1995 and 1999, and then in 2001 in a revised form called The Wehrmacht Crimes. Aspects of the Devastating War 1941–1944 (see: Aleida Assmann, “O (nie)możności pogodzenia cierpienia i winy w historii pamięci niemieckiej”, przeł. Justyna Górny, w: eadem, Między historią a pamięcią. Antologia, redakcja naukowa i posłowie Magdalena Saryusz-Wolska, Warszawa 2013, p. 234). Emmerling is completely uncritical of German aviation reports, does not question the ways they were composed nor ask what remains unsaid in them.
  • 7
    Marius Emmeling, Luftwaffe nad Polską 1939, część II: Kampfflieger, Gdynia 2005, p. 202.