Posted on 10/05/2007 3:48:56 AM PDT by Argentine-Firecracker
Three days of celebrations began Thursday in Gdansk, Poland, to mark the 80th birthday of German novelist Guenter Grass, but all is not forgiven in Grass's hometown.
His admission earlier this year that, as a teenager, he had served in the Waffen-SS, the combat arm of Adolf Hitler's notorious paramilitary organization, has cast a pall over the celebrations.
German writer and Nobel Prize laureate Guenter Grass, shown in September 2005, sent letters of explanation to the mayor of Gdansk, his birth city, and former Polish president Lech Walesa after the revelation that he had served in the SS. (Kai-Uwe Knoth-File/Associated Press) Poland was invaded by Germany at the outset of the Second World War, during which nearly six million Poles, half of them Jews, died.
Grass, author of The Tin Drum and Dog Years, began his visit to the Baltic port with a political message urging Poles to get out and vote in elections called after their government collapsed.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbc.ca ...
Rather pompous, if you ask me.
On another note, Gdansk is a beautiful city.
Very true about Gdansk, I cannot deny. I invite all Freepers, to come here :)
Shouldn’t Grass be on trial for something?
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