#ostend

Ostend Gray - Michel Buylen

Belgian, b. 1953 -

zeeheldenplein // oostende

film: kodak ultramax 400

every january we visit ostend. and the carousel always sleeps, while we discover new things around it, even though the city is not huge.

Stefan Zweig (55) and Joseph Roth (42) in Ostend, Belgium, in 1936. Two of the greatest (and in Zweig's case, most prolific and celebrated) writers of their era. Two Austro-Hungarian Jews, having a good time, apparently. The world is still at peace, but on the horizon, on sky's close periphery dark clouds are already gathering. For these two, Vienna may no longer be an entirely safe place to be.

Joseph Roth, the younger one, will die in Paris three years later, ravaged by depression, of alcoholism-related pneumonia.

Stefan Zweig and his wife, Lotte Altmann, will commit suicide, by taking a lethal dose of barbiturates, in 1942, in Petropolis, Brazil, having despaired of the future of Europe and the world. Their bodies will be found holding hands.

Picture: Z943

Place: Frankfurt, Germany