European Reading Challenge #14

I read this for the 2024 European Reading Challenge. 

Ashes and Diamonds - Jerzy Andrzejewski

This novel takes place in a Polish factory town over four days, just before and after the end of WWII.

On 8 May 1945 WWII officially ended, but Polish people didn't feel much like celebrating. They were suffering stress from the violence and brutality of six years of Nazi occupation. They were facing the task of re-building not only in terms of construction but also ruined systems of education, social services, and its armed forces. Various political factions fought inter- and intra-party feuds and individuals settled grudges. People felt their beliefs and relationships in chaos.

Andrzejewski later landed in political hot water because of the lack of clear ideological line in this novel. Besides presenting a panorama of that particular place in that particular time, Andrzejewski also deals with moral conflicts and existential dilemmas post-WWII writers all over Europe were treating.

Andrzejewski was Alpha in The Captive Mind. Far be it from me to get between two Polish intellectuals about anything to do with their country, but I don’t get the feeling that the author was working for any party hacks with ideological purposes here. The reader can find unanswered questions and characters are not presented in the black and white terms of socialist realism.

In fact, the road signs they come up to never offer clearly marked forks. Inevitably, we readers are invited to join that exercise “What would you have done?” Ashes or diamonds? We can never be certain of the role we will play nor can we predict what sacrifices we accept or deeds we shirk that may cause us to be remembered.

After the war, how does one get along with neighbors who you’re sure were the ones that denounced you? After the changes induced by the ordeal of war and imprisonment and torture, is it even possible to like and love people you liked and loved before the war? How do you deal with the disgust and frustration of the worst people in the world running your country as if it were a criminal enterprise run by bosses and their henchmen?

A fine choice for those readers that like historical novels or want a view as to what Poland felt like after WWII.