The Tin Drum - post V

Things start to get historically set in a context that most people would be familiar with as the city of Danzig is declared a free city by the League of Nations to try and ward off Nazi attempts to swallow it up. But it does not take long for fighting to break out between the German’s backing Hitler and the Polish contingent dividing families and parts of the City.

Bullet points between pages 190 – 262

* There is a brief chapter about the trumpet player who lives in the attic of Oskar’s apartment block who tries to kill his cats and fails and then is reported by a neighbour and as a result stripped of his position in the SA organisation

* Then Oskar with a broken drum decides to go and visit his Uncle Jan at the Polish post office to get the janitor there to mend it for him but instead he drags his Uncle, who had tried to escape, back into a confrontation with anti-Polish forces

* The Post Office is attacked and under fire his uncle turns out to be a coward who prefers to hide with the injured in the safe room waiting for the outcome of the battle that is raging all around them as they play cards

* In the end though the opposition is too strong and Jan and the rest of the defenders are arrested and taken off and shot and buried in a shallow grave that Oskar is told about later from the serial mounrner who turns up at every funeral

* Oskar is introduced to the delights of female company after his father employs Maria to run the store and because of a moment when the present day breaks the memories of the past you realise that Oskar has a son that presumably is borne by this woman

More tomorrow...