Ashes and Diamonds by Jerzy Andrzejewski

First published:Popiół i diament, 1948 (English translation, 1962)

Type of work: Political novel

Time of work: May 5 through May 8, 1945

Locale: Ostrowiec, Poland

Principal Characters:

• Stefan Szczuka, the secretary of the Communist Party Area Committee for the district of Ostrowiec
• Maciek Chelmicki, a twenty-four-year-old member of the Home Army, the anti-German and anti-Soviet underground organization
• Krystyna Rozbicka, an impoverished member of the gentry who is currently employed as a barmaid at the Hotel Metropol
• Antoni Kossecki, a former jurist, now in his early fifties, who has recently been released from a concentration camp
• Andrzej Kossecki, a twenty-one-year-old member of the Home Army and Mr. Kossecki’s eldest son
• Alek Kossecki, Andrzej’s younger brother
• Juliusz Szretter, the charismatic leader of the conspiratorial gang of which Alek is a member
• Katja Staniewicz, Szczuka’s politically conservative sister-in-law
• Franciszek Podgorski, Szczuka’s loyal deputy

The Novel

The events which make up the plot of Jerzy Andrzejewski’s Ashes and Diamonds occur over a period of four days in an industrial city of modest size called Ostrowiec. Situated approximately ninety miles due south of Warsaw, the city of Ostrowiec had already been liberated by Soviet forces in January, 1945. The novel itself formally begins on Saturday, May 5. It is on this day that Stefan Szczuka, a Polish Communist in charge of administering the entire district, narrowly escapes assassination at the hands of some members of the outlawed underground organization known as the Home Army. An unfortunate consequence of the miscarried ambush is the inadvertent killing of two innocent workmen from a local cement factory. Maciek Chelmicki, one of the participants in the ambush, is ordered by his superiors to make a new attempt to eliminate the Communist functionary. Chelmicki therefore checks into the Hotel Metropol, where he succeeds in obtaining a room immediately adjacent to the one occupied by Szczuka. In the reception hall at this hotel an official banquet is to be held later on that same day in anticipation of the imminent surrender of Nazi Germany. There is also a less formal assembly of townspeople in the bar situated next to the reception hall of the hotel. By reporting on both of these gatherings in great detail, the author is able to acquaint his readers with a host of characters drawn from a wide spectrum of Polish society without unduly complicating the structure of the plot.

One of the problems confronting Szczuka pertains to the ultimate disposition of a case involving a former jurist named Antoni Kossecki, a man recently released from the German concentration camp of Grossrosen. Szczuka, for his part, has firsthand knowledge of Mr. Kossecki’s collaboration with the enemy, for he had also spent a few months at Grossrosen after his own arrest by the Gestapo before being transferred to other camps in Germany. Most distressed over the affair is Szczuka’s deputy, Franciszek Podgorski. He had known Mr. Kossecki before the war and had always found him to be a man of unblemished probity. Podgorski visits the Kossecki household, and, after a lengthy discussion with him, instructs the former jurist to report to Szczuka at six o’clock on Tuesday evening. Podgorski then departs to attend the victory banquet at the Hotel Metropol. The festivities at the hotel begin at nine o’clock in the evening and terminate at dawn on Sunday morning as the last guests march out onto the street performing a polonaise to the discordant beat of the music provided by the hired orchestra.

Szczuka and Podgorski spend Sunday and Monday in the country on Party business and are not scheduled to return to Ostrowiec until Tuesday, when they will attend the funeral of the two men from the cement factory. During this interval, the novel focuses on the moral dilemma now confronting Chelmicki. Shortly after having checked into the Metropol, Chelmicki met and fell in love with a young woman named Krystyna Rozbicka, who is employed as a barmaid at the hotel restaurant. Because of her, he now desires to make a clean break with his violent life in the Home Army and lays plans to enroll at a polytechnic institute. Most important among the Home Army members who finally persuade Chelmicki to carry out his commission is Andrzej, the eldest son of Mr. Kossecki.

On Tuesday morning, Chelmicki goes to the cemetery where Szczuka is scheduled to attend the burial service. Even though it proves to be a painful ordeal for Chelmicki to witness the burial, he remains firm in his resolve to kill Szczuka at the most opportune moment. Subsequently, he trails Szczuka to a house where the Party secretary hopes to obtain information about the manner in which his wife perished in the concentration camp at Ravensbruck from another former female inmate. Chelmicki bursts into the house and dispatches Szczuka with his revolver.

On his way back to the Hotel Metropol, the loudspeakers in the town square announce that the unconditional surrender of Germany has just been formally ratified by the German High Command in Berlin. Tomorrow will be the first day of peace in Europe. Immediately, Chelmicki checks out of the hotel and heads for the railroad station to catch the next train for Warsaw, where Krystyna has agreed to meet him. When he is challenged by a military patrol consisting of three Polish soldiers, however, Chelmicki suddenly panics and runs from them and is shot dead by one of the soldiers. Thus, the lives of both Szczuka and Chelmicki are terminated by equally senseless acts of violence. Still to be resolved is the case of Mr. Kossecki. Because of Szczuka’s death, it is Podgorski who must now pass judgment on the distinguishedjurist. Readers of Ashes and Diamonds are, accordingly, left to wrestle with this ethical dilemma for themselves.

The Characters

While it is true that both Szczuka and Chelmicki are portrayed sympathetically throughout the novel, there can be no doubt that Andrzejewski draws a vital distinction between them on the basis of the political realities of postwar Poland. Despite his age, Szczuka represents the future of his nation in its role as a political and military ally of the Soviet Union. Since neither Szczuka nor his deputy are ever depicted in the act of enforcing any of the decrees issued by the Soviet-controlled regime in Warsaw, it is relatively easy for the author to present them in an entirely positive light.

In contrast to Szczuka, Chelmicki embodies the patriotic and conspiratorial tradition developed during Poland’s tragic historical experience as an enslaved nation. The destructive aspect of this mentality is underscored by an incident that occurs with a band of youths who attempt to imitate their elders by establishing a conspiratorial organization of its own. While Mr. Kossecki’s younger son, Alek, is one of its members, the moving force behind the organization is a charismatic youth named Juliusz Szretter. To instill a rigid sense of discipline among his subordinates, Szretter actually kills one of them for failing to comply with one of his demands. This deed is even more senseless than Chelmicki’s assassination of Szczuka.

The moral problem involving Mr. Kossecki is of an entirely different order. Like many other men, he proved to be incapable of withstanding the pressures of cruelty and degradation to which the inmates of concentration camps were routinely exposed. For the sake of personal survival, he allowed the Germans to make him a block warden, and he frequently inflicted severe corporal punishment on his fellow prisoners as part of his duties. In addition, many of his former victims charge that he carried out these shameful acts with great zeal. The former judge declares to Podgorski that the traditional moral principles of everyday life do not apply to the abnormal circumstances which prevailed during the German Occupation. As Podgorski takes leave of Mr. Kossecki, the assistant administrator is pleased to recall that Szczuka is the one who is obliged to make the decision as to whether this case is to be prosecuted. Ironically, because of Szczuka’s subsequent assassination, Podgorski himself will be forced to pass judgment on Mr. Kossecki.

Critical Context

Ashes and Diamonds is by far Andrzejewski’s best-known work. Not only was it widely translated into many other languages, but it was also made into a film by the celebrated Polish director Andrzej Wajda in 1958. The screenplay, it is interesting to note, was a collaborative effort by Wajda and Andrzejewski. When subsequently released abroad, the film received much critical acclaim and won many major awards for excellence.

The finest critical assessment of the novel itself is contained in Czesaw Miosz’s collection of essays entitled Zniewolny umys (1953; The Captive Mind, 1953). Much of this book is devoted to the fate of four writers in Communist Poland, and it provides a moving account of their gradual descent into spiritual slavery under Stalinist oppression. Although Miosz designates these men only by abstract labels—Alpha, the Moralist; Beta, the Disappointed Lover; Gamma, the Slave of History; and Delta, the Troubadour—the writers’ identities are not hidden from anyone familiar with postwar Polish literature.

Those who have read Ashes and Diamonds will have no difficulty in recognizing that “Alpha” is Andrzejewski. Miosz’s essay states the fact that Andrzejewski formally became a Party member shortly after the publication of Ashes and Diamonds despite his serious reservations over the official policy that made the practice of Socialist Realism mandatory for all Polish writers. It is important to recognize, however, that Miosz’s account is necessarily incomplete, and that Andrzejewski’s adherence to Communist ideology proved to be merely a temporary phase in his literary career. By the mid-1950’s, Andrzejewski came to reject the Marxist axiom that the laws of historical materialism ensure the triumph of Communism. He went on to write several novels in which he attacked the rule of totalitarian regimes. Foremost among these works are Ciemnosci kryja ziemie (1957; The Inquisitors, 1960) and Apelacja (1968; The Appeal, 1971). These books are unlikely to achieve the popularity of Ashes and Diamonds, but they may still be of interest to those wishing to read novels that explore the moral dimensions of politics with keen understanding and intelligence.

Bibliography

Krynski, Magnus J. “The Metamorphoses of Jerzy Andrzejewski: The Road from Belief to Skepticism,” in The Polish Review. VI, no. 1 (1961), pp. 111-116.

Krzyzanowski, Jerzy R. “On the History of Ashes and Diamonds,” in Slavic and East European Journal. XVI, no. 3 (1971), pp. 324-331.

Miosz, Czesaw. “Alpha, the Moralist,” in The Captive Mind, 1953.

Miosz, Czesaw. The History of Polish Literature, 1983.