Günter Grass dies at 87

As Agnieszka Bielawska reports, the German Nobel Prize winning writer was born in the city of Free City of Danzig in 1927.

Although he spent most of his life in Germany, much of his work references the places he spent his childhood in the Gdańsk district of Wrzeszcz including his family’s home and his schools which survived the war despite the huge damage the city suffered. For Poles Grass will always be a great a narrator of the city and a campaigner for Polish German reconciliation.

“He built the ties very consequently over the years. Reconciliation with Poland and with Polish writers ... His merits in this field are enormous: I think much greater than efforts of a whole platoon of ambassadors and politicians,” said Pawel Heulle, a Polish writer from Gdańsk.