A few months before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Hamburg-based journalist Jonathan gets the offer of an assignment to write a travel piece about the Polish region of Masuria for a promotion being planned by a car company. He's interested, because he doesn't know anything about the area, although his parents — whom he never knew — came from the former East Prussia, and he himself was born on the back of a handcart during the westward trek of German refugees in 1945. And it only gets more interesting when he talks to the people around him and realises how many people in 1980s Hamburg have their roots in East Prussia, and stories to tell about it.

So Jonathan finds himself in Gdansk with a German PR lady, a rally driver, and two high-powered cars. Roots are discovered, more or less accidentally, tourist sites are visited (the cathedral in Gdansk, the castle of the Teutonic Knights, Hitler's bunker, etc.), and there are repeated encounters with a bus-load of elderly German exiles.

Jonathan has to keep revising his preconceptions as local people are friendly and welcoming, signally failing to be obsessed with what the Germans did to them fifty years ago. And hard-boiled Anita turns out to have her human side, the macho rally driver is revealed as the person in the group with the interpersonal skills needed to get local people and the Polish authorities on their side, and the members of the coach party disappointingly fail to act as though they owned the place, instead behaving with respect and consideration for their Polish hosts. The only crass and arrogant Germans he meets are a group of students from a progressive West German high school, determined to hear only things that confirm their prejudice about the evilness of all Germans before their own generation and the perfection of the socialist paradise the Poles are living in.

This feels a bit like a liberal reply to Grass's hardline satire of western opportunism and the fall of communism in Unkenrufe (I don't know which was first, they both came out in 1992), and it's obviously also closely tied in with Kempowski's other work, picking up the image of the echo-sounder and the phrase "Alles umsonst" (all for nothing). But interesting as a snapshot of the times, anyway. ( )

Called Marrow and Bone in some regions, Homeland is a funny and very moving novel as we follow a Hamburg journalist who returns to the Poland of his early years. Unfortunately they were also the years of WW2. ( )

It's 1988, and the freelance journalist Jonathan Fabrizius gets a job that involves traveling through East Prussia (now Poland) for a luxury car manufacturer and then writing a piece promoting the upcoming car rally and things to do along the route ("state of the art V8 engines against a backdrop of dilapidated towns). He goes. Jonathan was born in East Prussia--he was born as the Germans fled west in advance of the Russian army. His father was killed in the war, his mother died at his birth and was left at a church by his uncle, who raised Jonathan and bankrolls his freelance existence.

There is a lot of sardonic humor here, as the trio (driver, journalist, organizer) drive their fancy car--it, as well as their West German-ness, makes them targets for both police looking for bribes and small-time cons. They try to find certain German sausages and can't. In looking for "interesting things to do", they go to the usual places, and are following a busload of elderly Germans on a heritage tour (a tour Jonathan's parents might have been on, had they survived). The restaurant critic cancels. Scandinavian tourists are in Gdansk "to get tanked on the cheap". Of the three, only Jonathan manages to meet regular Poles, largely accidentally, but he goes with it each time.

Each bit of this humor is part of Kempowki's addressing serious topics. The haves (from the West) vs the have-nots in communist Poland. Memory, history, and family. The question of whether Germans of the 1980s should be punished or forgiven for the sins of their fathers (or, in the case of the heritage tour, themselves). The behavior of those on the heritage tour. What is considered "interesting" and "worthwhile" for tourists.

At under 200 pages, this small book packs a punch. ( )

Set in the late 1980's this book can feel a bit dated now, things have moved on so much that the political situation, as portrayed in this book, seems barely credible now. But that's to take nothing away from the story itself.
Jonathan is a journalist who lives with his girlfriend in a small attic flat. He gets the chance to write an article for a rally through East Prussia (was part of Germany, now part of Poland) as part of a promotion of a car company. He is invited to visit the area and gather information for the article in the company of a 2 other staff. He is intrigued enough to take the job on, as he was born in east Prussia in 1945, as the Germans fled in advance of the Russian army advancing from the east. Both parents died in this period of time and he was brought up by his Uncle. he sees this as an opportunity to continue to gather information on the great churches of the north, so serving his own journalistic ends as well as a more human desire.
It is a very interesting book, with lots of big themes that continue to trouble us. There's culture clash between the haves and have nots. The difficulty of taking on the sins of the fathers - should the Germans be apologising for events that took place before they were born? The fact that we all need to come from somewhere, but is that somewhere a place, or is it made by people? He visits where he was born and achieves some self satisfaction, but that doesn't change who he is, and the emotional attachment to his uncle.
It was a fascinating book to read, and well worth the effort of getting the different names for the same place straight in your head. Jonathan felt very human and the ending leaves you feeling that he will move forward in life in a positive frame of mind. ( )