Hindenburgstraße 8

What German family must have once lived here? Built in ’32, the building’s façade was freshly made, the face of every god and angel brand new. Nowadays they sneer, looking out sooty niches, ears and noses riddled by history and acid rain. Wort and stinkweed prosper where once roses brushed against each crystal window pane. The name is ul. Konarskiego now, although the unkempt building still speaks German. Inside the tenants’ children do not ask how as late at night the floorboards creak, and vermin crawl the crevices and climb the walls. The progeny of Slavs are not the same. The ouster lasts, another system falls, the vanquished having vanished with their name.