The Flytrap Factory (Fabryka Muchołapek)

The Flytrap Factory (Fabryka muchołapek)

Author: Andrzej Bart

First Published: 2008

Translations: Russian (Fabrika muchoboek, 2010); Slovenian (Tovarna muholovk, 2010); Czech (Továrna na mucholapky, 2011); German (Die Fliegenfängerfabrik, 2011); Hebrew (2011); Macedonian (Fabrika na smrtta, 2011); Serbian (Fabrika muholovki, 2014); French (La fabrique de papier tue-mouches, 2019).

Film Adaptation: The Flytrap Factory (Fabryka muchołapek), feature film, screenplay and film director Andrzej Bart, premiered 2019.

About the Author: Andrzej Bart was born in 1951. He is a novelist, film director, and screenwriter based in Lodz. He studied at Lodz Film School (Państwowa Wyższa Szko- ła Filmowa, Telewizyjna i Teatralna), and is author of the screenplay for The Reverse (Rewers, directed by Borys Lankosz, 2009).

Further Important Publication: Boulevard Voltaire (2010; play).

Content and Interpretation In The Flytrap Factory, Bart draws on his interest in Jewish Lodz, which he also made the subject of several of his documentary films, including Eva R. (1998), Hiob (2000), and Radegast (2008). The writer has spoken in interviews about the many years he spent in preparation for writing the novel, which would eventually be published dur- ing a period of growing interest in the Litzmannstadt Ghetto, alongside such titles as I Used To Be a Secretary to Rumkowski. Memoirs by Etka Daum by Elżbieta Cherezińska (2008) and The Emperor of Lies by Steve Sem-Sandberg (2009, first published in Polish in 2011). The Flytrap Factory opens with the story of its narrator, who is also a writer and screenwriter, as he arrives on the idea to make a film about Western European Jews forced into the Litzmanstadt Ghetto. See also František Kafka’s → Christmas Le- gend from the Ghetto. He describes the tensions that result from the chance meeting of Eastern and Western Jewish cultures, particularly with regard to the varying degrees of wealth and poverty, literacy and illiteracy, and more or less developed cultural backgrounds. The protagonist also tries to learn about the real or probable fate of fa- mous Jews, such as Franz Kafka (what would happen if the writer was in the Lodz Ghetto and transported from there to the death camp in Chełmno) and his sisters (this plot was also developed in Radegast, and is documented with photos of contemporary memorials of the Litzmannstadt Ghetto). All his efforts are aimed at filming a documentary with a transnational appeal, a film that might interest viewers beyond his do- mestic Polish audience. Lacking sufficient funding, he is compelled to accept money

Open Access. © 2021 Marta Tomczok, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110671056-042 The Flytrap Factory (Fabryka muchołapek) 191

from a grotesque Mephistophelian figure (with allusions to Goethe’s Faust, Kafka’s The Trial, and Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita). In exchange, he is to prepare a report on the ongoing fictional trial of Chaim Mordechaj Rumkowski, head of the Jewish Council of the Litzmannstadt Ghetto (the historical person of Rumkowski was killed in Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1944). At the same time, Bart presents fictitious parodic accounts of historical figures who knew Rumkowski and who, appearing be- fore the tribunal, are in a position to judge him: Lucille Eichengreen, Stella Czajkows- ka, Hannah Arendt, Hans Biebow, and Dawid Sierakowiak. In a gesture that reveals the absurdity of the courtroom drama, Rumkowski is placed on trial in the presence of his wife Regina and adopted son, taking the stand but choosing to remain silent throughout a series of contradictory accounts, and making no effort to defend himself. The narrator focuses on Rumkowski’s beautiful and mysterious wife, but he ultimately falls in love with an observer at the trial – a Czech woman by the name of Dora who ac- companies him on a journey in the footsteps of Lodz Jews as he abandons the task en- trusted to him by the Devil. The story ends on 31 December 2007, the day the protagonist finalises his fictional novel, The Flytrap Factory, which he appears to have written in place of the promised report. Drawing on the conventions of the frame narrative, Bart deploys various techniques to weaken the power of his literature, at times mock- ing the reader or sending up the events of the story itself, attributing everything finally to the protagonist’s problems with alcoholism. Bart’s approach to the sensitive topic of Rumkowski’s cooperation with the Nazis has been the subject of controversy and discussion among literary critics, and has led some to consider The Flytrap Factory as a critical failure.

Main Topics and Problems The Flytrap Factory is not the first novel about Chaim Mordechaj Rumkowski. Earlier novels about Rumkowski, such as The Merchant of Lodz by Adolf Rudnicki (1963) and King of the Jews by Leslie Epstein (1979), were poorly reviewed by the critics (Tomczok, Wolski, 2016, p. 148) due to what they saw as excessive fictionalisation and a ten- dency to pass judgement too harshly or unilaterally on the figure of Rumkowski. The Flytrap Factory is the first postmodern novel about the Holocaust devoted to the sym- bolic significance of Rumkowski and the Litzmannstadt Ghetto. The author-narrator tries to be impartial, refraining from judgement, and to give voice to a large number of witnesses, a feat made possible by virtue of the multi-voice theatrical structure of the novel. Doubts raised by critics stem primarily from the combination of three separate yet difficult issues in one book, namely the Holocaust, the novel form and postmo- dernism. In Central European literature, it is believed that historical nonfiction, rather than the novel, best expresses the truth about genocide. In Bart’s approach, however, the opposite is true: the postmodern novel turns out to be an excellent postmemorial form, as it includes not only historical narrative, but also an assessment of history which takes into account a plurality of mutually exclusive perspectives. According to Gustaw Romanowski, the novel raises many important ethical questions while at the 192 Entries

same time devolving into moral relativism that plays out as so many evasions to the matter at hand. The postmodern idiom as deployed by Bart allows him not only to mix various historical plans and revive the dead, but also to diversify the main narrative with varying quoted material (Romanowski, 2009, pp. 269–272). According to Jacek Leociak, The Flytrap Factory is an example of narcissistic kitsch, as is the case with many contemporary stories about the Holocaust which sim- plify and reduce it to neat one-liners rather than providing the reader with a deeper understanding (Leociak, 2010, pp. 9–19). Significantly, a number of other Holocaust researchers, such as Justyna Kowalska-Leder and Monika Polit, have also taken ex- ception to The Flytrap Factory, criticising the novel for failing to bring to light any new facts about Rumkowski or changing prevailing beliefs about his story. Postmodern theorists, on the other hand, argue that it represents a contemporary approach to history, similar to the concept put forth by Frank Ankersmit, who insists on the right to speak about the past without strict academic criteria. Bart’s depictions of the Polish-Jewish relationship are characterised by disagreements, resentments, mutual accusations, rather than friendship, and above all the complicated problem of “Jewish guilt” (an ambiguous assessment of the role of the Judenrat and collaboration of Jewish councils with the Nazis). However, those ideas are lost among his philoso- phical ideas and literary allusions. In Poland, it is considered inappropriate for a Pol- ish writer writing from a Polish perspective to make any assessment of the Jewish community forced to live in the Lodz Ghetto, or of the attendant problems of overpo- pulation, language barriers, and class inequalities. German critics have received the novel quite differently. Thomas Schmidt, for example, claims that Bart’s goal with The Flytrap Factory is not to uncover new facts about Rumkowski but to combine the truth of historical nonfiction with a work of the imagination.

Cited Works Kowalska-Leder, J. (2010). Andrzej Bart, Fabryka muchołapek. Zagłada Żydów. Studia i Materiały, 6, pp. 772–775. Leociak, J. (2010). O nadużyciach w badaniach nad doś- wiadczeniem Zagłady. Zagłada Żydów. Studia i Materiały, (6), pp. 9–19. Polit, M. (2012). „Moja żydowska dusza nie obawia się dnia sądu“. Mordechaj Chaim Rumkowski. Prawda i zmyślenie. Warszawa: Stowarzyszenie Centrum Badań nad ZagładąŻydów. Romanowski, G. (2009). Proces bez wyroku. Powrót Rumkowskiego. Kronika Miasta Łodzi, (2), pp. 269–272. Schmidt, T. (2014). Emocje w polskiej literaturze o Holokauście na przykładzie „Fabryki muchołapek“ Andrzeja Barta. In: S. Gajda, I. Jokiel, eds., Po- lonistyka wobec wyzwań współczesności. Brzeg–Opole: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Opolskiego. Tomczok, M., Wolski, P. (2016). „Pisanie jest ze swej natury niemoralne“. O narracji i Zagładzie z Michałem Głowińskim rozmawiają Marta Tomczok i Paweł Wolski. Narracje o Zagładzie, (1), pp. 141–160. The Flytrap Factory (Fabryka muchołapek) 193

Further References Dąbrowski, B. (2011). Postpamięć, zależność, trauma. In: R. Nycz, ed., Kultura po przejściach, osoby z przeszłością. Polski dyskurs postzależnościowy – konteksty i per- spektywy badawcze. Kraków: Universitas. Izdebska, A., Szajnert, D. (2014). The Holo- caust – Postmemory – Postmodern Novel: “The Flytrap Factory” by Andrzej Bart, „Tworki“ by Marek Bieńczyk and „Skaza“ by Magdalena Tulli. In: R. Ibler, ed., The Ho- locaust in the Central European Literatures and Cultures since 1989. Der Holocaust in den mitteleuropäischen Literaturen und Kulturen seit 1989. Stuttgart: ibidem, pp. 139– 156. Pietrych, K. (2009). (Post)pamięć Holocaustu – (meta)tekst a etyka. „Fabryka mu- chołapek” Andrzeja Barta a „Byłam sekretarką Rumkowskiego“ Elżbiety Cherezińs- kiej. In: Z. Anders, J. Pasterski, eds., Inna literatura? Dwudziestolecie 1989–2009, t. 1. Rzeszów: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Rzeszowskiego, pp. 204–225. Tomczok M. (2018), Postmodernistyczny narcyzm i jego funkcje w „Fabryce muchołapek“. Zagad- nienia Rodzajów Literackich, (61)3, pp. 53–70.