Short stories
This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen
Pożegnanie z Marią
Tadeusz Borowski · 1948
Synopsis
First-person stories of a young Pole, Tadek, whom we follow from occupied Warsaw, where he guards a materials depot at night and loves Maria, to the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp: the labour details of Harmenze, the ramp where he helps unload the transports of Jews destined for the gas, the hunger and the schemes that keep people alive. The narrator does not exempt himself: the camp is the place where everyone survives at the expense of others.
Context
The author had first published two camp stories in Byliśmy w Oświęcimiu, a book written with Janusz Nel-Siedlecki and Krystyn Olszewski, published in Munich in 1946; in April 1946, Twórczość published Dzień na Harmenzach and Proszę państwa do gazu, preceded by an editorial note, and the publication provoked a wave of controversy. The collection, ready in the summer of 1947, was published by Wiedza, dated 1948, the same year as Kamienny świat. Gustaw Herling-Grudziński accused it of nihilism. In English, his stories appear in the selection This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen, in 1967.
Who it is for
A few stories in a dry, neutral tone, harrowing to read. No French translation of this collection under its title.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as one of the major literary testimonies on the camps and as a classic of post-war Polish literature.
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