A stranger getting off the train at the Łódź Fabryczna Railway Station at the beginning of the 20th century felt that he was crossing a symbolic border between the East and the West. That happened to Gabriel Dan, a character of the novel ‘Hotel Savoy’. The visitor taking his first steps on Łódź soil  landed in a melting pot, which was a dynamically developing city.

A short novel by Joseph Roth (1894-1939) was published 85 years ago and it introduced Łódź into the history of the world literature. ‘Hotel Savoy’ describes Łódź, which most readers know only from Reymont’s novel ‘The Promised Land’. This unusual hotel has worked since 1912 in 6 Krótka street (Traugutta street nowadays) close to the main road of the city- Piotrkowska. Only eleven years after it had been opened, the hotel became the place of the plot of the novel of an Austrian writer.

A seven-storey building was the highest building in Łódź till the 50s of the 20th century. Salamon Ringer a Vienna tycoon ordered to build the hotel which quickly became the symbol of a local luxury. No wonder that in the article ‘Europe in Łódź’ published in the magazine ‘The World” a Warsaw journalist Edward Krajewski wrote: we can boldly admit that any of the most excellent cities in Europe may feel proud of this kind of building (…). The visitor from distant countries, who got used to comfort of European hotels, is hit with the refinement of the hotel’

Multicultural city impressed the author who was fascinated by the idea of a big European family.

I have been here at the Europe gate for the first time for five years. Hotel Savoy with its seven storeys, a gold coat of arms and a liveried doorman seems to me more European than all other inns in the East. It promises water, a soap, a sewage system, a lift; maids in their white caps, nicely glittering chamber pots-splendid surprises in dark brown cupboards, electric lamps […], shrill bells, obeying the pressure of a thumb and beds covered with feather beds, plump and ready to accept our body with a joy - a character of the Roth’s novel enjoys the place after returning from Russia. The hotel seems to be a small world where the richest people occupying lower floors and the poor inhabiting cubbyholes of the attic do what powers the whole city: earn money.

The view of Łódź was not covered with neighbouring buildings which were usually three-storeyed houses. The hotel became the home for bohemian artists who met here: a cabaret Bi-Ba-Bo performing in 1914-1915 and Julian Tuwim who cooperated with it. After World War II a club called Pickwick was founded and such people as Konstanty Ildefons Gałczyński, Jan Brzechwa, Adolf Dymsza and Leon Schiller came here.

Such a city I could even choose to stay for longer holidays- it was a funny city, inhabited by many strange people. You can’t find it in the world anywhere - says Gabriel Dan in the novel.

Who was Roth so impressed by old Łódź? A writer who was born in a Jewish family in Galician Brody studied in Vienna. In 1916 he joined the army as a volunteer. He served at the front in Galicia. After the war he began writing- prose and reportages in newspapers. At first he was a leftist, later his outlook on life changed towards a nostalgic conservatism and monarchism.

 ‘Hotel Savoy’ appeared in instalments in ‘Frankfurt Zeitung’ in February and March 1924. For years it was regarded as his first book.  Only in 1967 his previous book ‘Spider’s web’ was published. – in the Austrian and whole German-speaking literature Roth plays a considerable role – says Joanna Jabłkowska, a professor of German studies at University of Lodz about the author of ‘Radetzky’s March’ and ‘Hiob’. – we remember him as a follower of a ‘Habsburg myth’, his later prose described the longing for the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. ‘Hotel Savoy’ is one of the most important books in the Austrian literature after the World War I.

Habsburg myth did not refer only to the emperor but also concerned the whole multiethnic aura of Austria-Hungary. We can notice some elements of that complex country in the idea of European integration. In Europe the borders are not important and many nations form one community. Brought up in Galicia and in a Jewish family, Roth who had lived in that melting pot since his childhood became a witness of the  collapse of everything he believed in and what stopped existing after the decline of the multicultural empire. National socialism was growing in strength in Europe and Roth sheltered in Paris where he lived till his death.

In a novel translated into many languages Łódź is described as a city of rich manufacturers who were served in a hotel restaurant in a very elegant manner and poor workers of Polish, Jewish and German origin and Russian policemen. Although  Łódź was much more developed than other cities of the East, a writer emphasized its gloomy atmosphere. His feature ‘Russian remains. Łódź – the city of a textile industry’ reflects his feelings. The feature was written while Roth was travelling throughout Poland in the 20s. PhD Irena Bartoszewska writes: ‘Roth – a correspondent describes in a documentary way the picture and the atmosphere of the city and he devotes a lot of attention to the class divisions which then existed in «Polish Manchester». On one hand he describes splendidly illuminated Piotrkowska street where «incredibly dressed women are walking along and after the afternoon tea in Paris they came to Łódź by plane». On the other hand he shows back streets with stinking gutters where also beautiful girls and women are walking along in their nice shoes but without stockings. (…). Progress and backwardness, prosperity and poverty according to Roth is a real picture of an industrial city –Łódź.’

We should add that after World War I Łódź faced an economic slowdown and it influenced the situation of the city. In the novel ‘Hotel Savoy” we observe the reality, its revolutionary atmosphere, strikes and groups of repatriates coming to the city.  The hotel accepts many guests including all kinds of flotsams. It is the whole city: the rich and the poor live here side by side. Everything is reverse in this place: the higher floor the poorer dwellers. Writers such as Claudio Magris and Wolfgang Jehmueller described a hotel reality as a social metaphor. A lift attendant Ignacy, grey hotel eminence  –as a mythical Charon – supervises everyone and everything in the hotel.  Everyone is waiting for an American wealthy man Henry Bloomfield. They count that he will support the hopelessness financially after the war. Because for Roth:

God punished this city with the industry. The industry is the strictest God’s punishment.

A little grotesque vision of the reality does not lessen the pleasure to find in the novel places which really exist: the hotel described with an elaborate care, the station –the city gate where visitors take their first steps on the Łódź soil, and where you ‘can earn your  money’. We recognize the square called Freedom Square and Bałuty where the Jews ‘are walking along the middle of the street holding umbrellas with funny twisted handles’

But the city looked nicer at night than during the day. Before noon it was grey, a smoke from nearby huge factory chimneys hung over the city, on corners you could see huddled and dirty beggars and rubbish and dung on narrow streets. However, darkness hid everything as a mother, it forgave good-naturedly and covered dirt, misdeeds, plague and poverty.

Nowadays in the hotel we may see some elements from the old hotel – the floor, a wooden attic, Art Nouveau stained–glass windows in the restaurant room. There are no crystal mirrors, chandeliers, impressive billiards room. – It seems very probable that precious elements were stolen after the war – says Janusz Gorący the hotel manager. – We are trying to save everything that left.

The hotel staff know the novel. – perhaps there should appear a commemorative plague of Joseph Roth… - thinks the hotel manager Janusz Gorący. Polish and foreign tourists stay here, in 6 Traugutta street, mainly from Germany, France and  Spain. Some Polish artists stayed in the hotel -  Zbigniew Zamachowski and Bogusław Linda, also Jan Machulski used to live in the apartment. In the Savoy Hotel there stayed Zbigniew Brzeziński, the advisor of the president Jimmy Carter, the president (then a candidate) Aleksander Kwaśniewski and a violinist Wanda Wilkomirska.

In the lift – situated in the middle of the staircase we can meet- as in the novel- a liftboy. It is a tradition in the hotel and Ignacy is its incarnation. But the seventh floor, which plays an important role in the novel, is not for the common use, it is only exploited on special occasions.

Fiction stimulates imagination. Jacek Kuciński who is fascinated by the book got the idea of arranged photographs. – Together with Piotr Szczegłowy I wanted to prepare a series of photos showing scenes from the novel in the city and the hotel. With German quotations from the novel they would form an interesting album –convinces Kuciński. – The receptionist manager told me that many times a German –speaking tourists came to the hotel. They were equipped with a German version of the book ‘Hotel Savoy’ and they asked a porter for the autograph. For foreign tourists Łódź is a city from the novel.

Nearly 100 years after the hotel was open, a lot of historical facts make us think about the first Łódź sky-scraper as a magical place. Only magic of the place and the city could make Roth say:

Being in Łódź I was not able to resist the temptation and write a book ‘Hotel Savoy’, my best book.

The quotations come from the book ‘Hotel Savoy’ by Joseph Roth
translated by Izydor Berman

KOSTEK LICHTEINSTEIN