There were three events in 1996 that were to change my life to a greater or lesser extent. Firstly, the Polish poetess Wisława Szymborska received the Nobel Prize for Literature in Stockholm. Secondly, Villa Decius (Polish Willa Decjusza) was awoken from a 102-year slumber after years in a coma of profane use (including as a Gestapo headquarters and a tuberculosis clinic) in Krakow and thirdly, I was awarded my first grant for Poland in Leipzig. Back then, I had no idea of my second grant, which was finally to take me to Kraków in 2002, and of course even less idea of the villa. Sure, I knew Wisława Szymborska, oh yes; but I hadn’t read anything by her yet.

When I then got confirmation of my Kraków grant in September 2001, I jumped around the room three times and shouted, "Hooray! I’m going to the villa." Whenever anyone at the "Deutsches Literaturinstitut" asked where I was going, I replied, "To Kraków, to Villa errrr, um, Dedecius." It was only later that I noticed my mistake, which isn’t actually a mistake. In his memoirs "Ein Europäer aus Lodz", the translator Karl Dedecius includes an anecdote that is just too good to miss here. In the seventies, Szymborska and he went out to the "country". They were heading for a ruined Renaissance palace only six kilometres northwest of Kraków’s centre, where the severely ill coughed and spluttered in the musty, half-dark rooms. Szymborska introduced her translator and companion to the hospital’s senior consultant as a descendant of Justus Decius, the villa’s first owner: "Mr Karl de Decius." Dedecius asked in his memoirs: "What could Szymborska have meant, aside from the joke? I have come to understand her allusion over time. No, this Decius was not one of my ancestors [...]; but his name has been associated with mine time and again."

Dedecius or Decius? Who do I prefer? Justus Decius gave us a wonderful place to be. Karl Dedecius gave us access to another (literary) world. We, the Polish and the Germans, owe this great translator a great deal: the German Poland Institute, the Villa Decius, (indirectly) the "Karl Dedecius Translator Prize" and of course countless wonderful adaptations from Polish. It is hard to weigh up which idea or initiative is the most important.

The greatest thing that could have happened to me was surely (de) Decius’ hard work in not only having a 16th century architectural jewel restored, but making it available as a place for relaxation and meeting likeminded people. Some one hundred authors and artists who have had the pleasure of spending three to six months in the villa since 1996 are unanimous.

During my stay at the villa, I always felt a little like I was in Italy. I have to admit I only went to Italy for the first time last year—and was rather disappointed. In Florence, I waited in vain for that dolce vita feeling I knew from the villa. I was not surprised to read later that the villa’s three Italian architects had taken it upon themselves to create an earthly paradise on the Wola Justowska. They and their later colleagues certainly succeeded, in retrospect. But not everyone can cope with so much beauty, peace and comfort. When the German writer Juli Zeh visited me in the summer of 2002, I had to take her straight to the ugly Nowa Huta district. Juli fled after three days, but returned with a grant of her own in 2002. Mind you, I don’t know how often she went to Nowa Huta during her stay, and I didn’t ask.

Paul-Richard Gromnitza