on mamma courage and the brecht house, 1. lövstigen, lidingö

Brecht House 1 Lövstigen, Lidingö, Stockholm 1939-40 Ph GMA

In a wintery Stockholm [exquisitely lit but otherwise painful] a week ago, I managed finally to take self and camera to what turns out to be the site of the house that Brecht stayed in during 1939-40 -and where he wrote Mother Courage and Her Children- until Sweden lost its nerve before an apparently irresistible Hitler, and Brecht -the persecuted and fugitive leftist- had to move on…

I know the site, which has a little apparently public park on a rocky hillock that I happen to have passed often in the last decade without knowing that this quiet suburb outside of Stockholm [in fact on the first island of the archipelago to its east, connected by road and tram bridges] has this small but properly intimate link to Brecht and, what’s more, the Brecht who was so close to a still living and just about working Benjamin [at least until summer ’39. A year latter BB wrote that he’d nothing from WB in a year. WB was dead by Sept. ’40] … See an earlier post which contains my review in The Independent of Wizisla’s brilliant account of that friendship here.

So, here are some images for anyone interested who can’t so easily pass by and any of their friends who can read Swedish. Consider them a full-on advertisement for Erdmut Wizisla’s warm and brilliant [and beautiful actually] book and support your local library or independent bookstore! Of course gross profits from any sales go directly into my pocket… [click on images to enlarge]