Bruno Schulz

This post is probably only of interest for a minority of our minority.

Bruno Schulz was a writer and artist of polish-jewish origin, and unlike Otto Schatz to whom I referred a couple of weeks ago, he did not survive the Holocaust. His stories, some of which you can read here, are perhaps even better than his drawings. The universe of his drawings reminds of Sardax, but I find Schulz' crude drawings much more haunting and authentic than Sardax' slick perfection. But, actually, I can't really say I like his drawings. They are so sad. The bad qualitiy of the little what has come upon us, drafts or poor photographic reproductions of etchings, makes it even worse. But I can't forget them. They scare me. Bruno Schulz scares me. He represents all that what could have become of me if I had lived in another time and culture. This little man, even before he fell victim to the Holocaust, led a sad and very insignificant life, consistent with his personality. Very timid, in his youth he was sent to Vienna to study architecture but failed for reasons impossible to reconstruct today. Since then he never more left his provincial hometown. He remained poor and lonely all his life, worked as a drawing teacher in a secondary school what he hated, and most certainly died a virgin.