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Thank God for the archives (and the archivists)

Even now, almost three years after we left on our journey to Poland do I receive emails with information about my family from archives around the world.

I have no doubt that without these archives and the dedicated people working there, it wouldn’t have been possible for me to write my book. Without them I wouldn’t have found out what happened to so many of my relatives: How those who survived made their way out of Nazi-Germany, how those who became stateless refugees in other countries struggled to stay alive, and how those who couldn’t get out in time died.

Not long ago I received yet another one of those emails, this time from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) who I contacted when I was putting the book together. They had gone through their International Tracing Service collection and found my great grandfather’s transport card and documents showing him being deported from Berlin to Riga.

It is truly horrible reading. What really gets to me is the contrast between the horrendous crimes committed and the technocratic way in which these crimes were administrated and documented. Like if those deported and murdered were no different from cattle or cans on a supermarket shelf.

Below is the transport card that shows my great grandfather, Hermann Isakowitz, having been deported from Berlin to Riga in January 1942, as well as the transport list for his deportation. Hermann’s name is the sixth from the top on the list. He was on transport number 9 with 1005 other people.

Treehouse boy

Johan is ten years old and lives on his own in a tree house in the forest. His life is uncomplicated. He climbs trees, gathers food and collects whatever he needs to get by from the rubbish dump on the outskirts of town. The only thing he really misses is going to school, but doing so is out of the question when you are an orphan and want to avoid all contact with the authorities. However, one day Johan meets a very peculiar book-loving old man, and his whole life is turned around.

Written by Danny Wattin in collaboration with 22 Swedish nine-year olds, Treehouse boy is a story about the art of balancing freedom with the desire to fit in. It is a book about the unlikely friendship between a knowledge-craving young boy and a grumpy old recluse – in which child-led demonstrations, exploding love letters and arm-wrestling principals all have important roles to play.

DANNY WATTIN (b. 1973) is a Swedish writer with Australian residency. Considered one of the most unique Swedish literary voices, with a style completely his own, Wattin’s work is instantly recognisable, regardless of genre.

After spending a number of years travelling and experimenting with various forms of writing, Wattin self-published his first book Stockholm Tales (Stockholmssägner) in 2005. Consisting of a number of odd, interconnected stories about the absurdity of modern life, the book quickly became a success and was one of the most talked about Swedish debut books of the year. This was followed by See You in the Desert (Vi ses i öknen), a novel about an office worker’s journey into insanity. In 2009 Wattin changed genres and released the dystopian novel Excuse Me, But Your Soul Just Died (Ursäkta, men din själ dog nyss) inspired by the development and commercialisation of reproductive technology.

Apart from adult fiction, Danny Wattin writes screenplays and children’s books. In 2013, he published Tree House Boy (Pojken i trädkojan), the result of a six months collaborative project with twenty-two nine-year-olds.

His fifth book, Herr Isakowitz’s Treasure (Herr Isakowitz skatt) was released in 2014 and is the true account of a European road trip Wattin undertook with his father and son in search of the treasure his great grandfather buried before he was taken away to a concentration camp. So far, the book has been published in 14 countries.

Danny Wattin’s latest book The Story Generator (I am a robot) was published in Sweden in 2018.

Excuse me, but your soul just died

It is egg banking day and business as usual in the schoolyard of Paradize high. Moans are coming from Reproduction Square, young female students are getting ready for the ovary deposit ceremony, and the Angelinas are flipping through their catalogues in search for new celebrities to make babies with. There is no way Benjamin Albert Bonkenstein, half-Einstein, could possibly know that his whole life is about to dramatically change. A sequence of events that start when he initiates a relationship with a genetically superior upper-class girl and ends in a web of murder, lies and beauty ideals so extreme they risk ruining the foundation for all human life

Excuse me, but your soul just died is a story about the need for compassion in an age of extreme individualism. Using the quickly growing development and commercialization of reproductive technology as a starting point, Danny Wattin paints a picture of a world in which we have sacrificed what we need in order to get what we want. It is a society not so unlike our own; one where brokers sell IVY-league eggs to the highest bidder, Nobel-prize winning sperm is found online, and pregnancies are outsourced to poor people in foreign lands.

So welcome to a brave and beautiful new world. A place where ugliness is evil, children a human right and love only can be found by those willing to risk everything else.

Stockholm tales

Piratförlaget, Sweden, 2006
Original Swedish title: Stockholmssägner
Genre: Fiction

Disgruntled beyond belief, Death is observing Sweden’s capital city from his computer screen. It’s business as usual: God’s too busy drinking to pay attention to the ills of the world, the Surgeon-of-stretched-skins is carving out the latest Beauty Ideal and the monkeys at the local zoo are getting ready for yet another big night on the town. The Grim Reaper’s melancholy is made no better by the fact that he really ought be somewhere else, as his best friend, Desire the dog, can’t help pointing out to him.

In his debut short-story collection Stockholm Tales Danny Wattin takes the reader on a delightfully deranged roller-coaster ride through life in the modern world. Making our way from Death’s shabby two-cubicle office, we follow the fate of some twenty individuals in their desperate search for youth, wealth, virility and happiness.

See you in the desert

Piratförlaget, Sweden, 2007
Original Swedish title: Vi ses i öknen
Genre: Fiction

Adam Anderzon’s life is the definition of troublesome. His boss constantly wants him to work overtime, his girlfriend feels neglected and must be placated with expensive designer clothes, his parents demand grandchildren, and his prospective parents-in-law feel he’s simply just not good enough. Finally, the precarious balance can no longer be sustained, and Adam’s life falls to pieces. He has however one life-line left, his late uncle Anton’s peculiar last will, which Adam decides to follow to the letter. A decision that will turn the young man’s life upside down and throw him head-first into a remarkable world he did not even know existed – where the line between what is real and what is not seems to have been completely erased.

See you in the Desert is a story about the sacrifices we make in order to keep up with our rapidly changing world. It is a tale about shameful family secrets, holier-than-thou politicians, repulsive mothers-in-laws, sexually frustrated life-style-oholics and cats suffering from Tourette’s syndrome. But it is also a love story and an account of an office slave’s attempts to restore the balance in a world that is getting crazier by the minute.

Herr Isakowitz’s treasure

Piratförlaget, Sweden, 2014, 256 pages
Original Swedish title: Herr Isakowitz skatt
Genre: Narrative Non-Fiction

“My grandfather didn’t tell us much about his upbringing as a Jew in Germany in the 1920s and 30s, but one story I was told over and over again. The one about the treasure his father buried in the backyard before he disappeared. When the legend was passed on to my own son his immediate reaction was: if you have a family treasure you have to go and look for it. And that’s how my son, my father and I ended up on a treasure hunt in Poland.”

Spanning over the lives of five generations, from pre-war Germany to modern day Stockholm, this is a book like no other. Part heart-warming, hilariously funny roadtrip and part hard-hitting, true Holocaust story, Herr Isakowitz’s Treasure is a highly original journey into one of the darkest chapters of human history.