Hansel and Gretel, Eugene Smith and Me
Earlier this year, (think September) while reading Landscape and Memory, by Simon Schama, I read a single sentence about “der holzweg”, the forest way, that led me down a strange dark path of My Family Forest*…
Image: The walk to paradise garden (c) W Eugene Smith
The sentence was in the chapter of Schama’s chunky hard cover book that reflects on landscape and memory in Germany. It mentioned the danger in “der holzweg”, the forest way, being epitomized by the narrative Hansel and Gretel.
And off I went walking with those two children, who were suddenly transformed into children in WW2 being sent away / purposefully lost in the forest…all themes were there for me. What type of parents would sent their children to such a fate if they did not believe it to be better than the starvation / death they all apparently faced? The too many mouths to feed. The bread crusts, all that their father could give them…all that could be spared. The search for food: nuts, berries, anything, in the forest. The darkness…the fear. The excitement in finding a small house…and here the twist…forget gingerbread…but instead smell food. The scents and tastes of baking, the warmth seen through the chimney’s smoke…The pie on the window sill that they just couldn’t resist…
A woman, alone, opens the door…And beckons them to come in, ‘komm rein’.
Is she a witch? No, but she may well represent that part of us that takes what the forest brings, what the times bring, and takes it for her, to do with as she sees fit..’dem Muterland’.
She turns them into her slaves…they do her bidding…The starvation for the little Gretel. The thin bone held by Hansel. The caging of Hansel. All facets of the story….Even the burning ovens are present, complete with a girl whose job it will be to ultimately feed her own brother to the ovens…
(c) natalie shell, 2008
It is, I appreciate, extraordinarily dark and twisted. It felt like it the moment that it came to me and I have refrained from writing more on it. Certainly I didn’t publicize it. But the story didn’t leave. The themes became more present to me. The story more twisted. And I wondered the impact of such “Grimm” tales in the Nazi-tisation…how many themes were already present to twist. To turn upside down. (No doubt this is not a novel idea but it came to me without reading any literature on Hansel-Gretel-Holocaust relationship I’m trying not to corrupt it).
And so I left it alone…
Until yesterday. When the story came back with full force. When I saw that image (above), framed at a friend Leehee’s house. And I knew I had to ‘have it’.
As I make the what feels like an extraordinarily slow wander through this forest, I am trying to listen to which stories come to me… and document them so that ultimately when I am ready to put this all together, I have kept all the bits!
This image also gave me a vision of some type of exhibition thing with different images and stories along a wall, like in a living room, and places to sit – arm chairs – and listen / watch various stories I’ve made. I also imagined the potato, a real one, as a centerpiece. Slowly slowly, I guess.
(Anyone out there with suggestions on how to move forward with this project?!)
PS Thanks Leehee
Notes:
*The Family Forest is the book-audio-visual-story-project I’m doing hap-hazardly on my family’s stories, specifically my grandparents, and whatever else comes up. Somehow it grows…
Other versions of the photo I found: Here, here
The image on my friend’s wall is less dark. But I have selected this one because it conveys more of the dark themes rather than the innocent ones…
Hansel and Gretel version: here
W. Eugene Smith: here, also noted that Eugene Smith was a famous warn photographer so the images matches the times I’m looking into…
Tags: family stories, natalie shell, storytelling, the family forest
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