What has an aniseed tasting liqueur in which float, according to the manufacturers, flecks of 22 carat goldleaf to do with a remark in this corner about Dublin's current spate of building and unbuilding? Just this. A comparison with Dublin and Danzig (Gdansk today) was made.
After the last war, the Poles into whose territory it was now given (it had been there before) decided to rebuild the old part of the city, Germanic and Dutch and a mix, indeed of architectural styles, but undoubtedly up to 95 per cent German speaking. The Poles in other words, were restoring the memorials of their former occupiers. Good politics? Good sense of history and even of various Biblical dicta. A friend noted this first mention, and sent a cutting from a German newspaper which had an article telling us that the city in this year is just one thousand years old. They are celebrating with exhibitions of various kinds and with a "Goldwasser Festival". For the liqueur mentioned above originated in 1598 in the city. (The firm which claims to be the originator, moved to Germany at war's end, as did many people.) There are to be regattas and craft shows and almost any sort of activity you associate with such occasions. Speeches, of course. Up to 1945 Danzig had escaped damage to a considerable degree. At the end of March 1945 Hitler decreed that every square meter of the city had to be defended. The Russians blasted it into dust.
Yet as a debt to history, Danzig, now Gdansk and a part of Poland had its most famous city centre restored. On the outside, it follows in every detail, the architectural plans and layouts which miraculously survived, also helped by photographs, paintings. A remarkable, generous move by the Poles. An Irish diplomat used to tell the story that in the many years when Poland had been absorbed by its enemies, and did not exist as a State, the Sultan of Turkey used to ask in a very loud voice at his levees or New Year gathering of diplomats: "But where is the Ambassador of Poland? At which the representatives of Germany, Austria and Russia, you expect, would look down at their boots and shuffle. Danzig's status over centuries was almost of a City State tied, gently, to the interests of Poland. A bit like Dev's vision of External Association?