Zagreb 28 March 2023

2023

28 March, Tuesday 

AM 

The eight o’clock flight didn’t take off until half past nine so flying faster and shaving half an hour in the air didn’t achieve a whole lot. The taxi man was older and bigger than me and when I stuck out my hand, he squeezed it like a Balkan bear. A man of few words, he drove up to the hotel door, ignoring the pedestrian zone at the late hour. He only smiled when I gave him a tenner. Having given the docket to the night porter, he did it again when saying good night. I wonder how many inhuman fares give these guys nothing, given the damage goes on the hotel bill. In the airport car park, I’d asked him could I sit in front, and he said, no, no, but it was only on the empty road that I copped that the front passenger seat was where he stored all his sh*t. Between the seats I could see a cable and what not. I’m glad I chose a bit of comfort here at the Hotel Dubrovnik. The room has two doubles and a minibar. I’m not sure which of the beds I’ll sleep in.

4 PM 

Got lunch (goulash) at Mali Medo after walking the parks horseshoe; then had a nap. The waiter smiled at the nationality (iz Irske) of the tipper. I was gladly paying extra for any practice. I’d made it to the hotel breakfast before ten but then briefly gone back to bed. A waitress had told me at the coffee machine that I was a good boy to have learnt some Croatian, unlike most visitors. I think I’ll go up the hill to Grič now for a while, though I’m not thirsty. There is pleasant sunshine, though the morning was a little cold. The Croats are not loud. They look human as they pass. They don’t have alien expressions on their faces. 

11 PM 

The lad behind the counter in Pod Starim Krovovima had a beard and a shaved head. He said he thought my accent or way of speaking was Slovenian. Did he give me the one on the house just because I was the first in? I didn’t quite catch that bit. The bog-of happened when I ordered a second drink. He put up two pints for the price of one. I left before dark and down the hill ducked into Krolo, which was dark and busy, though I got a counter stool and soaked up the scene. I left there before nine, thinking I’d get some grub at the Submarine, but by then Croatia was playing on TV and I was reduced to crisps from a kiosk and the minibar. Now I’ve been here twice, I’m a veteran, so to speak. I’ll be back again, with better flight times. 

Wallraff

Günter Wallraff (1942- ) is a German undercover journalist most famous for exposing the harsh reality of work in heavy industry, the treatment of Turkish Gastarbeiter, and the malevolent carry-on of German tabloids. He was tortured and imprisoned by the Greek military dictatorship in 1974 but, when he tried to go to Chechnya in 2003, the Russians just wouldn’t let him in. His style of work has led to the coining of a verb in Swedish (“wallraffa”). Having read one of his books in 2012, I’ve just come across it again on a shelf.

2012

25 February

I’m still plodding on, on and off, with Wallraff. The language of the industrial shop floor isn’t the easiest. He meets a strange guy* on the roof of another plant – an ex-miner and Stalingrad survivor. The man says those were the days [in Russia], always on the move, and rhetorically asks what chance did he get to go abroad after that. When asked by the amazed W. if the other stuff (death, cold, filth) wasn’t terrible, he maintains it wasn’t as bad as the pit. 

* This man’s damaged lungs would have normally have failed him in a health examination, only the doctor, a former Wehrmacht lieutenant, was also a survivor. He falsified the disability test result, passing the chap as fit, and then they spent a long time talking about their Stalingrad adventures.

2012

18 April

In bed I finally finished the Wallraff book. Reading a couple of pages late at night most nights took me months but I wouldn’t be at my freshest then and often had to look up the same word several times. The material was of uneven interest but I did unearth some gems.*

*Some of these date from his national service in the Bundeswehr, when he refused to carry any weapon but still had to run around taking part in all the other army nonsense. 

p. 123

Workers who got caught stealing from the company store at the steel firm August-Thiele-Werke went unpunished if they promised to shop at that store only, in the future. The company also had divided its four shop-floor toilets (for three hundred staff) into three grades. Eight foremen shared the first, fifteen assistant foremen the second, and the other 277 men shared three and four, in long queues. The toilets were beside each other and the first two were lockable from the outside, for which the foremen and their assistants had special keys.

pp. 26-28

The ‘Gas Chamber’ is a military training site that from the outside looks like a chapel but inside is full of teargas. The men must move in a circle, marching, running, jumping. God help anyone with a leaky gas mask but anyway, all taste the gas when ordered to change the mask filters. When marching back to the barracks, the men must put their masks on again. They are ordered to sing. Their voices sound like death rattles. They pass some civilians out walking and nod politely with their heads looking like insects. The civilians gape at them. When finally allowed to take the masks off again, their mouths and noses are full of coal dust from the filters.

p. 17

During password practice, someone whispers to Wallraff a message about seven enemy tanks 3 km away blah blah but Wallraff tells the next man about an atom bomb exploding 100 m to the east, so everyone must put his head in the sand and cover it with a newspaper. The last man writes down the message and hurries to give it to the sergeant, who hands it to the captain in charge, who goes pale and says no more.

pp. 98 – 102

der Feuerfesteste (‘The Most Fireproof’)

Dantean, one may easily call it, a descent by ladder into a furnace cooler in order to free a blocked chute. A satanic engineer jokingly refers to his squad as our Sonderkommando as he browbeats a couple of men, including Wallraff, into ‘volunteering’ to enter Hell for ‘at least’ ten minutes. It would cost the company too much to shut down for a few hours, and refusing a task assigned by a superior means the sack for any man not on the job more than three months. The first man cannot stick it and forces his way up and out again. Inside, Wallraff cannot whack the blocking material as hard as he wants, due to the ominous wobble of the ladder. The engineer’s torch is a small point of light above, in the thick dust. Despite the protective gear, the hairs in his nose smoulder. His glowing crowbar burns a finger through his asbestos gloves. The damp cloths he wrapped around the gloves have burnt off completely. He cannot breathe deeply because it makes him feel like he is on fire inside. Then, as if his brain is cooking, he goes into a kind of trance to finish the job.