In the book "Rabalders" final chapter, "Korvsjön", he lets his narrator liken Jewish life in Poland before the war to an enormous water system. Grynberg never writes it out, but back then, before the war, 3.5 million Jews living in the country – today there are approximately 15,000 who splash around in the remains of what was once a broad river - in "korvsjögyttja".
We need humor, it was my real education, Jewish humor. It's not just about laughter but mostly about education. You get information, new perspectives through short, dense stories without too many words – it was my academy for how to tell stories.
All Adults
Mikolaj Grynberg's parents were both survivors of concentration camps, and it wasn't until he was 50 that he understood that it was in the Holocaust that he saw his Jewish roots, not in Jewish tradition or culture. As a child, he believed that all adults had numbers on their arms; later, he realized that they weren't phone numbers.
With the Jewish aspect of my life came death, not joy, it took a long time for me to separate the Jewish from death.
It also took a long time – and a heart attack – before he realized that not only death is the main theme in his writing. "Rabalder" he wrote during the darkest period of his life. He worked on three documentary books simultaneously – one about survivors, one about their children, and one about the Polish pogrom in 1968 – when he broke free and started writing fiction.
Grynberg lets 31 fictional characters tell their stories in a heartfelt manner. Often, it's about people who have erased their Jewish identity.
"Cleansed"
Two successful entrepreneurs think they're being accused of being Jews, so they go to the synagogue to get "cleansed".
Some stories became true after I had written them. I met people who had that kind of history in their biographies, without me knowing it beforehand.
The war in Ukraine and the one in Gaza, he describes as tragedies, but he doesn't want to call Israel's war "genocide".
– But I have no doubts that some of Israel's government are fascists. And whatever the right word is for what's happening, it's a tragedy for all of us, not just for Palestinians – it's happening to people! It's people who are paying! And what has been made possible once will be even more possible next time when people are killed.
Erika Josefsson/TT
Facts: Mikolaj Grynberg
TT
Born: 1966.
Lives: In Warsaw.
Occupation: Photographer, psychologist, and author.
Books in selection (not in Swedish): "Survivors from the 1900s", "I Accuse Auschwitz", "Exodus" (about the Polish communists' anti-Semitic campaign in 1968"). "Jesus died in Poland" – an interview book with Polish activists who try to help Belarusian refugees who are not allowed to cross the border to Poland – hundreds have died in a refugee tragedy that is still ongoing, Grynberg says. His new book is called "The Year I Didn't Die in a Heart Attack" and is about just that.
Sweden current: With "Rabalder", a literary debut from 2017 and the first of his books to be translated into Swedish.
