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Der Holocaust als Kultur
In kühner Lapidarschrift benennt der Titel, den Imre Kertesz dieser Sammlung seiner Essays gab, die Paradoxien seines Lebens und Schreibens. 1929 in Budapest geboren, 1944 nach Auschwitz deportiert, 1945 in Buchenwald befreit und nach der Rückkehr über vier Jahrzehnte den Schrecken eines anderen Totalitarismus ausgesetzt, hat dieser Autor in fast völliger Zurückgezogenheit nicht allein ein literarisches Werk von Weltgeltung vollbracht, er ist darüber hinaus zu einem der bedeutendsten Interpreten des Holocaust geworden. In Texten von beispielloser, schwer erträglicher Radikalität macht er einem Jahrhundert den Prozess, das ihm "als ununterbrochen diensttuendes Erschießungskommando" entgegentrat.
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
11 people are currently reading
239 people want to read
About the author
Imre Kertész
83 books392 followersBorn in Budapest in 1929, during World War II Imre Kertész was imprisoned at Auschwitz in 1944 and later at Buchenwald. After the war and repatriation, Kertész soon ended his brief career as a journalist and turned to translation, specializing in German language works. He later emigrated to Berlin. Kertész was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 2002 for "writing that upholds the fragile experience of the individual against the barbaric arbitrariness of history".
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
July 3, 2016
Let me tell you at the outset that it is my first Imre Kertesz. And that is a disadvantage. For it is a book in which one gets an idea as to why Kertesz chose a particular style in his quasi-autobiographical novels/novellas. Having read no book by Kertesz till now, I was clearly handicapped. I am planning to read one soon and I believe this will give the necessary foundation.
About this book: I will not bother with many of my impressions for I feel I am not yet qualified to make them. But just an observation: Imre Kertesz was a Holocaust survivor. He survived Auschwitz. And what is his take on Auschwitz? He states that Auschwitz is not necessarily a 'historical' event. It is in fact a culture.
He writes: "Our age is not the age of anti-Semitism but of Auschwitz. And the anti-Semite of our age no longer spurns Jews; rather he longs for Auschwitz.....In order to murder millions of Jews, the totalitarian state needs not anti-Semites but good organizers. We must be clear: no totalitarian party or state can exist without discrimination, and the totalitarian form of discrimination is necessarily mass murder."
Kertesz says, and I think rightly so, that Auschwitz is anytime and anywhere possible. Because it was a human endeavour for which both the masters as well as the victims (willing to adapt to the prisons and today to totalitarian regimes) contributed. Now, it seems to be not visible. But that is the culture we have given birth to.
He writes: "We speak of collective guilt, the collective guilt of the German nation. But Auschwitz is the collective crime of the entire world, not just of the German nation. If we think of the Holocaust as a war between Germans and Jews then we will never understand it."
Last Note: Recently there was the referendum in Britain to decide whether to remain in EU or to leave. The result: 'LEAVE' campaign won. After the announcement of the result there were many incendiary remarks against the people of other nationalities. Before this there was a pogrom in Gujarat (a state in India) in which Muslim people were systematically annihilated. Then there was a civil war in Sri Lanka where Tamil ethnic group was at the mercy of the Sinhala majority. Kertesz seems to be making a very valid point. This culture longs for Auschwitz. I am shaking with fear as I write this.
About this book: I will not bother with many of my impressions for I feel I am not yet qualified to make them. But just an observation: Imre Kertesz was a Holocaust survivor. He survived Auschwitz. And what is his take on Auschwitz? He states that Auschwitz is not necessarily a 'historical' event. It is in fact a culture.
He writes: "Our age is not the age of anti-Semitism but of Auschwitz. And the anti-Semite of our age no longer spurns Jews; rather he longs for Auschwitz.....In order to murder millions of Jews, the totalitarian state needs not anti-Semites but good organizers. We must be clear: no totalitarian party or state can exist without discrimination, and the totalitarian form of discrimination is necessarily mass murder."
Kertesz says, and I think rightly so, that Auschwitz is anytime and anywhere possible. Because it was a human endeavour for which both the masters as well as the victims (willing to adapt to the prisons and today to totalitarian regimes) contributed. Now, it seems to be not visible. But that is the culture we have given birth to.
He writes: "We speak of collective guilt, the collective guilt of the German nation. But Auschwitz is the collective crime of the entire world, not just of the German nation. If we think of the Holocaust as a war between Germans and Jews then we will never understand it."
Last Note: Recently there was the referendum in Britain to decide whether to remain in EU or to leave. The result: 'LEAVE' campaign won. After the announcement of the result there were many incendiary remarks against the people of other nationalities. Before this there was a pogrom in Gujarat (a state in India) in which Muslim people were systematically annihilated. Then there was a civil war in Sri Lanka where Tamil ethnic group was at the mercy of the Sinhala majority. Kertesz seems to be making a very valid point. This culture longs for Auschwitz. I am shaking with fear as I write this.
December 31, 2024
In this short discourse and accompanying interview one gets a reasonable critique of the majority of Holocaust creative literature. The author’s manifesto does seem to have helped him to create a few highly effective novels on the subject. His main contention is that authors often present the Holocaust as if its victims knew its historical import and meaning even as they were experiencing it. His novel, Fatelessness, is a highly original attack on the teleological approach to Jewish suffering at the hands of fascists and their allies.
December 15, 2013
This is an essay-length book, not a book-length essay, as it's described elsewhere. It's actually two essays and an interview. Skip the first essay, by Cooper. It's publish-or-perish resume-padding stuffed with empty jargon, mainly the word "narrative" which the author apparently hates with a passion and wants to overwork into an early grave. More power to him.
The interview and second essay, on the other hand, are so dense with insight that you have to read them slowly to digest them. The book is short (50 pages, if you skip the first essay), so I won't summarize except to say this: Kertesz explains why post-WWII antisemitism is so desperate to deny the Holocaust, and the answer is so obvious that you'll kick yourself when you read it.
The interview and second essay, on the other hand, are so dense with insight that you have to read them slowly to digest them. The book is short (50 pages, if you skip the first essay), so I won't summarize except to say this: Kertesz explains why post-WWII antisemitism is so desperate to deny the Holocaust, and the answer is so obvious that you'll kick yourself when you read it.
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September 12, 2021Segundo agradecimiento al guía to' salao' de Budapest.
April 24, 2018
Algunos ensayos son magníficos, pero otros están más enfocados hacia la cultura húngara y me han resultado más densos. No está mal, pero me quedaría sobre todo con «El Holocausto como cultura» y «¿A quién pertenece Auschwitz?».
January 25, 2022
“Cooper: You commented once that the word Holocaust refers to those who perished, in other words those who were burnt, and forgets those who survived.
“Kertész: Yes, survival was the exception, a flaw in the Nazi machinery, as Améry wrote. The survivor is the accident, or the mistake, that which needs explanation. Survival seems unimaginable but actually it is the camps that should seem unimaginable. You know, this was one of the strange things about my memories of Buchenwald. In the middle of the camp was a hospital where they tended to the ailing. How was this possible? And then you realize the question is: How was the camp possible?”
‘The Holocaust as Culture’ (Seagull Books) is a typically thoughtful and clear-eyed reflection from Imre Kertész, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2002 and whose classic novel, Fatelessness, appeared in 1975, followed in 1990 by Kaddish for a Child Not Born.
Take for example his thoughts on Holocaust stories: “I mean, there are holocaust stories with happy endings. You think of Steven Spielberg in the United States, for instance. But people talk about the holocaust and inhumanity … well … it was of course humans who were responsible, so I’m not sure it makes much sense to talk about inhumanity.”
This book was published in 2011 and remains timely, especially as we see renewed attention on Israel employing the sort of actions and policies to terrorise Palestine that were once part and parcel of the terrorising of Jews in Europe: apartheid, bigotry; turning people away. I think also of Kertész’s remark toward the end of the book, in the titular essay:
“A person tortured, who bears the weight and consequences of the fate he has shouldered, is not willing to negotiate with a general principle. What would become of his freedom? His fate? His personality? Furthermore, with whom should he settle accounts, towards whom should he feel and assert his ‘resentment’, if everything is as intelligible, simple, and impersonal as the abstract notion of totalitarianism? Améry found himself confronted with people, ‘anti-people’ (Gegenmenschen); it was not totalitarianism that beat him with a horsewhip and hung him by his shackled wrists but Lieutenant Praust, who happened to speak a Berlin dialect.”
“Kertész: Yes, survival was the exception, a flaw in the Nazi machinery, as Améry wrote. The survivor is the accident, or the mistake, that which needs explanation. Survival seems unimaginable but actually it is the camps that should seem unimaginable. You know, this was one of the strange things about my memories of Buchenwald. In the middle of the camp was a hospital where they tended to the ailing. How was this possible? And then you realize the question is: How was the camp possible?”
‘The Holocaust as Culture’ (Seagull Books) is a typically thoughtful and clear-eyed reflection from Imre Kertész, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2002 and whose classic novel, Fatelessness, appeared in 1975, followed in 1990 by Kaddish for a Child Not Born.
Take for example his thoughts on Holocaust stories: “I mean, there are holocaust stories with happy endings. You think of Steven Spielberg in the United States, for instance. But people talk about the holocaust and inhumanity … well … it was of course humans who were responsible, so I’m not sure it makes much sense to talk about inhumanity.”
This book was published in 2011 and remains timely, especially as we see renewed attention on Israel employing the sort of actions and policies to terrorise Palestine that were once part and parcel of the terrorising of Jews in Europe: apartheid, bigotry; turning people away. I think also of Kertész’s remark toward the end of the book, in the titular essay:
“A person tortured, who bears the weight and consequences of the fate he has shouldered, is not willing to negotiate with a general principle. What would become of his freedom? His fate? His personality? Furthermore, with whom should he settle accounts, towards whom should he feel and assert his ‘resentment’, if everything is as intelligible, simple, and impersonal as the abstract notion of totalitarianism? Améry found himself confronted with people, ‘anti-people’ (Gegenmenschen); it was not totalitarianism that beat him with a horsewhip and hung him by his shackled wrists but Lieutenant Praust, who happened to speak a Berlin dialect.”
August 21, 2019
Más que enmarcarlo en un conjunto de ensayos, diríamos que hay salpicados varios de estos acompañado por varias cartas, donde en si nos da una aproximación de la Europa del XX, la cual vivió como protagonista de uno de los monstruoso hecho que embarro la mitad de este siglo.
Al analizar el Holocausto, la atroz maquinaria del antisemitismo nazi, bien enraizado en el prejuicio: la judeofobia surgida durante la Antigüedad clásica, dieron al traste que este antisemitismo hitleriano dieran rechazara que la conversión y el bautismo pudieran limpiar el pecado de ser judío.
Bajo estas premisas es que esta obra, el autor no solo habla de una voz que ha vivido esta experiencia, sino también una voz europea enmarcada en un ámbito geográfico que comparte un patrimonio cultural y espiritual. Kertesz habla también de su país, Hungría, y sobre algunas figuras importantes de la literatura húngara tales como Marai, Radnoti o Krudy.
Interesante el escrito de este Premio Nobel de Literatura del 2002, siendo el primer escritor húngaro en obtener este reconocimiento "por una obra que conserva la frágil experiencia del individuo frente a la bárbara arbitrariedad de la historia".
Os dejo en sus manos
Al analizar el Holocausto, la atroz maquinaria del antisemitismo nazi, bien enraizado en el prejuicio: la judeofobia surgida durante la Antigüedad clásica, dieron al traste que este antisemitismo hitleriano dieran rechazara que la conversión y el bautismo pudieran limpiar el pecado de ser judío.
Bajo estas premisas es que esta obra, el autor no solo habla de una voz que ha vivido esta experiencia, sino también una voz europea enmarcada en un ámbito geográfico que comparte un patrimonio cultural y espiritual. Kertesz habla también de su país, Hungría, y sobre algunas figuras importantes de la literatura húngara tales como Marai, Radnoti o Krudy.
Interesante el escrito de este Premio Nobel de Literatura del 2002, siendo el primer escritor húngaro en obtener este reconocimiento "por una obra que conserva la frágil experiencia del individuo frente a la bárbara arbitrariedad de la historia".
Os dejo en sus manos
January 3, 2022
Nacido en Budapest en 1929 y deportado a Auschwitz en 1944, Imre Kertész, nos comparte el análisis de su experiencia como superviviente del campo de concentración y los conflictos existenciales producto de ello, la perspectiva del holocausto como cultura, así como sus reflexiones acerca de vivir situaciones límite.
A continuación, me permito compartirte dos de las que más llamaron mi atención:
▪ El hombre actual vive su destino sintiéndose despojado de su personalidad autónoma por la historia; en cambio, después de liberarse de la totalidad histórica, despersonaliza la historia a modo de compensación.
▪ ¿Qué hacer consigo mismo? Quien alguna vez haya jugado con el poder o quien sólo se haya comprometido como simple juguete del poder, nunca más será capaz de pensar, meditar, hablar ni discutir sobre otra cosa que no sea el poder.
A continuación, me permito compartirte dos de las que más llamaron mi atención:
▪ El hombre actual vive su destino sintiéndose despojado de su personalidad autónoma por la historia; en cambio, después de liberarse de la totalidad histórica, despersonaliza la historia a modo de compensación.
▪ ¿Qué hacer consigo mismo? Quien alguna vez haya jugado con el poder o quien sólo se haya comprometido como simple juguete del poder, nunca más será capaz de pensar, meditar, hablar ni discutir sobre otra cosa que no sea el poder.
September 28, 2017
This slim 78-page book contains, in addition to the title essay (an address given in Vienna in 1992 as part of the Jean Amery Symposium), an essay by Thomas Cooper entitled "Imre Kertesz and the Post-Auschwitz Condition" (2011) and "A Conversation with Imre Kertesz" (2010) between Cooper and Kertesz. Cooper's essay deal primarily with Kertesz's novel Fatelessness (also known as Fateless), while the conversation focuses on depictions of the Holocaust as well as how Fatelessness was shaped and made possible by the author living under the Kadar communist regime in Hungary. To me the conversation is the most interesting of the three, but I would only recommend reading this if you have already read Fatelessness and have a certain familiarity with Holocaust literature.
October 21, 2024
This is a very short small nicely produced book, from an Indian imprint in fact. Again as with all translations, I am suspect for what I may have missed thru not reading in the original Hungarian. But luckily translations exist.
A very interesting collection with first thoughts from the translator, then the conversation between the translator and author, and finally the author’s specific essay.
Thought-provoking and required reading again several times to achieve a better understanding.
A very interesting collection with first thoughts from the translator, then the conversation between the translator and author, and finally the author’s specific essay.
Thought-provoking and required reading again several times to achieve a better understanding.
September 23, 2015
"Nema te besmislice koja se ne bi mogla doživjeti posve prirodnom, a na mojemu me putu, znam već i to, poput nezaobilazne stupice vreba sreća. Jer bilo je i tamo, u sjeni dimnjaka, kao i u stankama navala boli, nečega što je nalikovalo sreći.
Svi me pitaju samo o mučnim pojedinostima i o "grozotama". Premda će upravo uspomena na tamošnji doživljaj sreće ostati najdublje usađena u meni. Da, upravo bih o tome trebao pričati slijedeći put, o sreći u koncentracijskome logoru, budu li me još pitali.
Ako još išta budu pitali. I ukoliko i sam na nju ne zaboravm."
Svi me pitaju samo o mučnim pojedinostima i o "grozotama". Premda će upravo uspomena na tamošnji doživljaj sreće ostati najdublje usađena u meni. Da, upravo bih o tome trebao pričati slijedeći put, o sreći u koncentracijskome logoru, budu li me još pitali.
Ako još išta budu pitali. I ukoliko i sam na nju ne zaboravm."
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews