Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky

From time to time, the saxophonist Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky reads the local paper of his native town, in which he recently he discovered an error which he corrected in a letter to the editors ( Schweriner Volkszeitung ). A house in Güstrow was marked by the weathered letters "HPG" which stand for the construction company "Heinrich Peters Güstrow", as a journalist assumed. But Petrowsky corrects that speculation: The letters originally were "FPPGG" and stood for "Friedrich Petrowsky Papiergroßhandel Güstrow", his father's paper wholesale company. His father had bought the house in the 30s and converted it into a combined residence and office building. The sculptor Ernst Barlach was among his father's customers, as "Luten" Petrowsky remembers. When the Red Army took over the city of Güstrow in the last days of the war, nearly the whole street hid in the cellar of the house; the three soldiers who discovered the cellar were quite startled when they saw the many people.

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