SEBALD IN MOSZKVA TÉR
SEBALD IN MOSZKVA TÉR

Summary/Abstract: I am reading W. G. Sebald’s novel Austerlitz, and it is stirring many of my own memories, and memories of remembering, too. The character Austerlitz is sent away from his parents in Prague on a Kindertransport as a young child in the 1930s, a train travelling from the central station Praha hlavní nádraží west through Pilsen, Nuremberg, and on to Liverpool Street Station in London. His memories of early childhood and of this journey become deeply submerged and forgotten until he travels, many decades later, back to his home. When Austerlitz returns, he describes the cool air of the stairwell, “the smell of damp limewash, the gently rising flight of stairs, with hazelnut-shaped iron knobs placed at intervals in the handrail of the banisters”. He is overcome by the rush of memories and must sit and rest his head against the wall before he continues to mount the stairs.

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