Oddlet: Bruno Schulz · 1 min read
Jun 26, 2026
The Necessary Jew
A terrified little man taught crafts to bored teenagers in Drohobycz and wrote two of the strangest books of the twentieth century, until the SS officer next door decided he wanted a Jew of his own.
Bruno Schulz was a small, terrified man who taught crafts and drawing to bored Polish teenagers at a gymnasium in Drohobycz from 1924 to 1941. He supported a widowed mother, an ill sister, and a depressive nephew on a teacher's salary. A friend described him as "a tiny gnome with an enormous head, appearing too scared to dare exist."
In the evenings he wrote two of the strangest books of the twentieth century. In them, his father slowly turns into a crab, then a condor, then a cockroach, then a moth-eaten taxidermy specimen. The family maid keeps order by threatening to tickle him. In 1938 the Polish Academy of Literature awarded him its Golden Laurel.
Then the Germans arrived.
SS-Hauptscharführer Felix Landau saw Schulz draw, wanted Schulz, and claimed Schulz. He called him his "necessary Jew" and set him to painting the walls of his small son's bedroom: Snow White, a princess in a blue ball gown, a soldier driving a team of horses. Into the Brothers Grimm, Schulz hid faces. The princess wore Landau's mistress. The charioteer was Schulz himself, holding the reins.
On 19 November 1942 Schulz was walking home with a loaf of bread. He had Aryan papers from friends in Warsaw in his pocket. A second SS officer, Karl Günther, whose own personal Jew Landau had recently shot, found him in the street and put two bullets in his head.
Günther is reported to have explained himself later, in one sentence.
You killed my Jew. I killed yours.
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- Wikipedia — Bruno Schulz — Aggregated biography: birth/death, parents, school employment 1924-1941, architecture studies, publication dates of both books, engagement to Józefina Szelińska, Kafka translation, Golden Laurel, Landau/Günther/Löw account, lost 'Messiah' manuscript, 2001 mural rediscovery.
- Wikipedia — Felix Landau — Confirms Landau's SS-Hauptscharführer rank, Einsatzkommando service in Lwów and Drohobycz, his July 1941 diary, the Grimm fairy-tale murals for his son's bedroom, the 'You killed my Jew — I killed yours' exchange, Landau's postwar life sentence (1962), release (1973), death in Vienna (1983).
- Yad Vashem — 'The Republic of Dreams' (article on Schulz's murals) — Yad Vashem's account of Schulz's 'necessary Jew' designation, the Grimm fairy-tale murals in Landau's villa, and the murder by Karl Günther — twice in the head — as reprisal for Landau killing Günther's dentist.
- Yad Vashem Press Release — Israel-Ukraine Agreement on Bruno Schulz Works (28 Feb 2008) — Official record of the 2008 settlement: murals recognized as cultural property of Ukraine, with long-term loan to Yad Vashem.
- Jewish Telegraphic Agency — 'Uproar that Yad Vashem took Schulz murals' (21 June 2001)
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