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The Change of the Religious Voices through the Trauma of
Exile in the Works of Else Lasker-Schüler, Nelly Sachs,
and Barbara Honigmann
A dissertation submitted
to the Division of Research and Advanced Studies
at the University of Cincinnati
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
of the Doctorate of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
in the Department of German Studies
of the College of Arts and Sciences
2010
by
Renate Kaiser Sturdevant
M.A., University of Cincinnati 2003
B.A., University of Cincinnati 2001
Committee:
Dr. Todd Herzog (Chair)
Dr. Sara Friedrichsmeyer (Member)
Dr. Richard Schade (Member)
ABSTRACT
This dissertation explores the religious voices of three German-Jewish women.
The trauma of exile caused by the Holocaust for Else Lasker-Schüler and Nelly Sachs, as
well as the trauma of migration for Barbara Honigmann during the Cold War, changed
their religious voices to become stronger. Their works bear testimony to the struggle of
reconciling their assimilated German-Christian and German-Jewish heritages. Each of
the authors’ works have been researched in regards to their religious voices, however, in
spite of many commonalities between the three female exiles, no attempt at contrasting
the change of their religious voices with each other had been made so far.
I approached each of my three chapters by first researching the authors’ familial,
religious, and ethnic backgrounds. Since this dissertation covers 106 years of GermanJewish publications, there are some main differences in the historical, personal, and
professional development of each writer. After having established an understanding of
their lives and religious backgrounds, I investigated selected works, starting with the first
published work of each author and ending with the last.
My research reveals that living in exile changed the religious voices of all three
German-Jewish authors. With the loss of their geographical Heimat, the losses of family
members and friends, they indeed lost part of their German cultural identity.
Nonetheless, the predicament goes deeper. The exiled authors rejected their German
identities or they were rejected because of their assimilated German cultural heritage.
They were not able to replace this part of their life, unless they concentrated on their
ii
Jewish identity and built their lives around it. All three authors set out on journeys to
discover Judaism right before or soon after their moves into exile.
This dissertation concludes that Lasker-Schüler’s and Nelly Sachs’s religious
voices became quieter in their last works. Their religious voices changed back to the
assimilated German-Christian content. However, there is a chain of development from
Lasker-Schüler, to Sachs, and then Honigmann. The “Torah Connection” already existed
during Lasker-Schüler’s and Sachs’ lifetimes. The writings of Martin Buber and all three
authors’ personal acquaintances with Gershom Sholem, for example, demonstrate
continuity. It proves that Jewish roots grow strong in spite of centuries of assimilation.
In addition, there is a possibility of reconciling Germanness and Jewishness today, which
was not possible for Lasker-Schüler and Sachs during and soon after WWII. GermanJewishness lies in the hands of the individual as does Heimat. Honigmann’s texts suggest
that Jewishness today is increasingly becoming more global and diverse. All three
authors found their Heimat in their work and their families. Lasker-Schüler and Nelly
Sachs hoped to find it in heaven to be reunited with their families, while Honigmann
found it with her family and Judaism in Strasbourg.
iii
Copyright
2010
Sturdevant, Renate
iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This dissertation would not have been possible without the kind support of
professors,
colleagues, friends and family. I would first like to thank my advisor, Todd Herzog, for
encouraging my interdisciplinary interests through the European Studies Seminars. I am
grateful to committee members Sara Friedrichsmeyer, who sparked my interest in exile
literature and Richard Schade who taught me how literature bridges hundreds of years,
connecting the past with the present and, therefore, building a future. I would like to
thank Susanne Koch and Erick Urbaniak for their encouragement and advice. I am
indebted to the Taft Fund at the University of Cincinnati, whose financial support helped
fund my research. I would also like to thank Gabriele Stief for being my best friend and
for always believing in me. To my family in Germany, my parents Ingrid Kaiser and
August Kaiser, as well as my siblings, Beate, August, Barbara, Dorothee, Eva, Ingrid,
and Marianne: Ich hab’ euch lieb. Thanks to my American brothers Tom and Tyler
Sturdevant. I am grateful to be part of the family. Pam and Larry Sturdevant, I am lucky
to have found parents so far away from home, whom I love and trust. My children
Christine, Alexander, and Franziska: You are the pride and joy of my life. I would not be
writing this if it were not for your steadfast presence, love, and support. Last but not
least, I would like to thank my husband Tim. Thank you – you and our children are the
Heimat I have been searching for. I love you.
v
Table of Contents
Introduction
1
Chapter I – Else Lasker-Schüler
15
Historical Background
17
Heimat
19
Jewishness
22
Dichotomy
29
Lasker-Schüler – German-Jewish Identity
33
Works
39
Styx – The Sturm-und-Drang Years
40
Konzert – Homage to a lost world
46
Hebräerland – Exile in Switzerland
51
Mein blaues Klavier – Exile in Palestine
59
Closing Remarks
59
Chapter II – Nelly Sachs
66
The Daughter Poetess
68
Taking Control
70
Suffering
72
Longing
78
Jewishness
84
vi
Heimat
88
Works
90
Legende und Erzählungen – works and poems until 1933
90
“Rehe” – and other poems until 1940
99
“Grabschriften in die Luft geschrieben” – Exile works in the 1940s
105
“Flucht und Verwandlung” – The 1950s and the Kabbala
112
“Die Suchende” – Last poem published
115
Closing Remarks
122
Chapter III – Barbara Honigmann
124
Heimat
126
Jewishness
130
Works
134
Autobiographic Writing
135
Works in GDR:
139
Das singende springende Löwenäckerchen – The Beginning
140
Roman von einem Kinde – Work in Transition
143
Works in the 1990s
149
Eine Liebe aus Nichts – German-Jewish Tragic Triangle
150
Soharas Reise – Emancipation
153
Works in the 21st Century:
159
Alles, alles Liebe – Reminiscing life in the GDR
160
Das überirdische Licht – Globalization
171
vii
Closing Remarks
181
Conclusion
185
Bibliography
190
viii
INTRODUCTION
106 Years of German-Jewish Women’s Exile Writing
The purpose of my research is to examine the works of three German-Jewish
women writers who all share the experience of exile. At first glance, one may wonder
what these three women, Else Lasker-Schüler, Nelly Sachs and Barbara Honigmann,
have in common – beyond the obvious connections that they were born and raised in
Germany, write in German, and live or lived on foreign soil. In addition, Else LaskerSchüler was one of the rare Doppeltalente, as was Nelly Sachs. Barbara Honigmann is
quite famous for her artwork, also. Lasker-Schüler published many anthologies of
poetry, some of which she illustrated herself.
Lasker-Schüler was born in Wuppertal in 1869 into an assimilated middle-class
family with a long Jewish heritage. The Schüler family celebrated Christmas, as did their
non-Jewish friends. The father, though, went occasionally to the synagogue, as well as to
the Catholic Church. In 1933, when the Nazis came to power, Lasker-Schüler was forced
into exile. She died in Jerusalem in 1945. Leonie Sachs, better known as Nelly Sachs,
was born in 1891 in Berlin, Germany. Like Else Lasker-Schüler, this author was raised
in an assimilated upper middle-class family. In contrast to Lasker-Schüler’s family, the
Sachs family lived a very secluded lifestyle. Nelly Sachs and her mother barely escaped
the Holocaust. Her non-Jewish friend, Gudrun Harlan, traveled to Sweden on behalf of
Sachs and her mother to obtain visas with the help of Prince Eugen, the brother of the
King of Sweden. The day they left for Sweden was also they day they received their
order of deportation. In 1970, Nelly Sachs died in Stockholm, Sweden, four years after
1
she received the Nobel Prize for literature together with Samuel Josef Agnon. The
youngest of the three women exile writers is Barbara Honigmann, born in 1949.
Honigmann’s parents returned from exile in England to East Germany after World War
II. Her mother was of Jewish Viennese/Hungarian heritage and her father of Jewish
German descent. She grew up in Soviet occupied Berlin, studied Theories of Drama and
worked as a script-editor and theater producer until she turned freelance writer in 1976.
She migrated to Strasbourg, France, in 1984, where she still lives with her husband and
two children, actively involved in Jewish culture and religion.
These women, whose works span 106 years of German literary history and whose
lives bridge three centuries have many intriguing – so far unexamined – similarities. In
recent years, scholars have increasingly shown interest in the study of exile literature with
an emphasis on ethnicity. However, my research reveals that very few scholars have
given thought to the role of religion. Jerry Glenn made a related observation in Paul
Celan: Die Zweite Biografie. He noted that “Many critics tend to ignore the fact that
Jews have their own religious and literary traditions” (Glenn and Todd 241). I agree with
the assessment that scholars in exile studies concentrate rather on culture and ethnicity
than on religion. Guy Stern, a leading expert and founder of German-Jewish Exile
Studies, argues convincingly in his second anthology Literature and Culture in Exile that
the “Hebrew Bible – together with the Classics – has supplied scores of writers with the
material for their poetry, dramas, and narratives” (G. Stern 787-973). Again, this
observation has not formed the basis for a close historical and literary examination in
exile literature. Therefore, I will add the element of religion that is generally only
discussed in passing. Although the works of the three authors I examine here span more
2
than a century of time and have experienced radically different moments in history, there
is a striking similarity among them. Their reliance on the Bible and their religious
identity strengthened considerably after exile/migration out of Germany. This project lies
at the intersection of biography and literature. The lives and experiences of these three
women as well as their literary works are intricately interwoven.
First, I would like to point out the differences between exile and migration of the
three authors. Else Lasker-Schüler, Nelly Sachs, and Barbara Honigmann are considered
exile writers. Nonetheless, unlike the other two authors, Barbara Honigmann was not
forced to leave East Germany, nor was she persecuted and fearing for her life at the time
of her departure. However, living in Eastern Germany, a Soviet occupied country,
without much opportunity to practice Judaism, Honigmann chose to leave voluntarily in
1984. Five years before the regime crumbled and the Wall came down. She migrated
with husband Peter and sons Johannes and Ruben to Strasbourg, France to live in selfimposed exile.
Lasker-Schüler, Sachs, and Honigmann suffered from leaving their country of
birth and upbringing behind. Leon and Rebecca Grinberg explain in great detail the
traumas and stresses of migration and exile in their work Psychoanalytic Perspectives on
Migration and Exile. The Grinbergs provide a psychoanalytic study of migration and
devote a whole chapter to the special case of exile. They discuss the relationship between
migration, language and age of the travelers and explain the impact on the migrant's sense
of identity. The Grinsbergs emphasize the special problems of exile, where departure is
involuntary and return impossible. They assert in their comparison between migration
and exile:
3
One may assume that exile makes the same experiences all the more intense and
heartrending. Uprooted from home and surroundings, the pain of defeat still
fresh, and his heart sinking for all he has lost, the exile often must leave without
so much as a goodbye to friends and family (156).
Lasker-Schüler and Nelly Sachs left in a terrible rush. They left all their belongings
behind – a suitcase each to start a new life. In addition, aggravating their loss and
increasing their trauma was the news from their home country in the following years.
The terrible news includes information about WWII, the Holocaust, and the death and
disappearance of loved ones.
Migration was the main catalyst for Barbara Honigmann’s success as a writer, as
was exile for Nelly Sachs’. However, without their prior writing experience and
connections before leaving their home country, they may not have become this
successful. Else Lasker-Schüler was a renowned writer well before her exile; however,
in spite of the difficulties during her exile years, she kept on writing and publishing
successfully. Each author’s exile experience was different, so was their journey in
adjusting to their newly adopted countries. The loss of Heimat and different types
thereof forced these authors on a journey of self-discovery and on the road to find a new
Heimat. 1 Lasker-Schüler, Sachs, and Honigmann discover new parts of their identities
and find a new venue in their religion. However, in order to discuss the change of the
religious voice through exile and migration, I will first investigate the three individual
1
Henryk M. Broder defines Heimat in his essay “Heimat? – No Thanks!”: “Heimat: a territorial unit
experienced subjectively by individuals or collective groups. Tribes, populations, or nations who identify
themselves as sharing a certain feeling of connectedness.” Henryk M. Broder, Sander L. Gilman and Lilian
M. Friedberg, A Jew in the New Germany, The Humanities Laboratory. (Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 2004) 37.
4
authors’ sense of Heimat. Each author had her own sense of Heimat before exile, which
then changes through her experience of exile and migration.
Heimat is a concept that has been important to human beings from early on. The
loss of one’s Heimat is a traumatic experience. However, discussing Heimat in the
perspective of exile from Germany is difficult within the context of the Holocaust.
Sabine König-Casimir explains that it
brings to mind something which the more recent advocates of “Heimat” tend not
to address – its suspicious proximity to ideology: The political occupation of the
concept of “Heimat” by the National Socialists that led to the radical and
disastrous doctrine of blood and soil. After the war the word was loaded” (KönigCasimir).
The doctrine of Blut und Boden focuses on a concept of ethnicity based on descent and
homeland. German racial identity was tied literally and metaphorically to the land. 2
German-Jews were very much aware of their Jewish ethnicity, which may have excluded
them from feeling and belonging to Germany during the rise of Nationalism. Jacqueline
Vansant quotes Améry in her work Reclaiming Heimat: Trauma and Mourning in
Memoirs by Jewish Austrian Reémigrées: “We, however, had not lost our country, but
had to realize that it had never been ours” (39). 3 Nonetheless, they and their ancestors
2
Celia Applegate writes extensively about Heimat in A Nation of Provincials: The German Idea of Heimat.
She writes that “For the term of carries a burden of reference and implication that is not adequately
conveyed by the translation homeland or hometown. For almost two centuries, Heimat has been at the
center of a German moral – and by extension political – discourse about place belonging and identity
(Applegate 4).
3
Jacqueline Vansant approaches, analyzes and interpretes published memoirs of seven Austrian-Jewish
refugees who returned to Austria within 5 – 7 years of their exile. Her first chapter “How much Heimat
5
were rooted in German culture and customs for centuries. For example, all three authors
repeatedly refer to Goethe just as their parents did. All three authors have in common
that they found some type of Heimat in German literature and language.
Jewish exiles often refer to Heine’s dictum of the tragbare Vaterland, but I do not
find this to be completely true in the case of Lasker-Schüler, Sachs, and Honigmann.
Instead, I find a combination of Boris Chasanov’s as well as Heine’s arguments to be
applicable to these three writers. 4 Chasanow claims:
Die Sprache, nicht von ungefähr Wohnstatt des Seins genannt, sie, die in jedem
von uns aufersteht und uns alle überlebt, die Lebenden und die Toten, und uns
über den Kopf der Zeitgenossen und Regenten hinweg mit der Tradition
verbindet. Heine nannte die Bibel das tragbare Vaterland des ewig wandernden
Volkes. Die Sprache: Sie ist das einzige, ewige und unausrottbare Vaterland, das
der Verbannte mitgenommen hat (Chasanow).
In the case of the three female Jewish exile writers, the Bible plays a great part in their
search for Heimat - mostly after exile, though. Heinrich Heine (1797 – 1856) had not
been as assimilated as Lasker-Schüler, Sachs, and Honigmann were. However, he
struggled after moving into exile just as they did. He committed a great part of his work
to reconciling the incompatible elements of his German and Jewish identity. Though
Lasker-Schüler, Sachs, and Honigmann were fully aware of their German-Jewish
does a person need?” explains the alienation of Améry from his identity through exile, especially through
the loss of language.
4
Boris Chasanov (Pseudonym of Dr. Gennadij Faibussowitsch) was born 1928 in Leningrad (St.-
Petersburg). He grew up in Moscow and was jailed for anti-soviet propaganda from 1949 – 1955. He
studied medicine and became a doctor. After another incident with the Soviet regime Chasanov migrated
to Munich. Today, he is a writer and translator and in 1998 he received the Hilde-Domin-Prize.
6
background, a great part of their identity has been the German language and culture for
generations. Thus, the three authors’ sense of Heimat included their German language
and their family ties after the loss of their geographical Heimat. Vansant explains that
Améry feels that
full possession of Heimat is contingent upon a series of interrelated connections
between an individual and a collective, such connections are realized
linguistically, spatially, and temporally” (Vansant 37).
Lasker-Schüler, Sachs, and Honigmann have lost their connection between themselves
and their collective, their homeland and people. Therefore, by losing that part of their
German identity, they needed to fill this void and started embracing more of their Jewish,
especially Judaic heritage. In essence, the combination of Heine’s theory of the tragbare
Vaterland, Chasanov’s theory of language and Améry’s definition of Heimat explains
these authors’ attempt at replacing their geographical loss with the use of their only other
German heritage, the German language, which is the only part of their identity still left in
exile.
My research reveals that living in exile changed the religious voice of all three
German-Jewish authors. With the loss of their geographical Heimat, the losses of family
members and friends, they lost part of their German cultural identity. Nonetheless, the
predicament goes deeper. The exiled authors rejected their German identity, in part
because they were ashamed to be Germans after the Germans took their identity away
from them. They were not able to replace this part of their life, unless they concentrated
on their Jewish identity and built their life around it. All three authors set out on a
journey to discover Judaism after their move into exile – Else Lasker-Schüler less so than
7
Nelly Sachs. Lasker-Schüler was a non-conformist and saw flaws in any rigorous
religious applications - even in Jerusalem. She tried to re-unite the world’s religions and
people in her work. She believed in God and returned to her early Christian belief with
her last work, Mein blaues Klavier, telling her readers that Heimat is beyond, in God and
family. Nelly Sachs’ work, on the other hand, does not show a strong religious voice
before exile, but she was very much involved in Jewish clubs and literary circles during
the persecution years in Berlin from 1933 until the time she left. After the death of her
mother, Sachs found reprieve and strength in Jewish mysticism, especially the Sohar.
Sachs’ last work, Die Suchende, though, gives a clear indication of her search to
reconcile Christianity and Judaism. However, the oscillation between the two worlds of
Judaism and Christianity, Jewishness and Germanness could not be resolved.
Honigmann, on the other hand, has been searching for her Jewish identity while she was
still living in East Germany. She started on her journey to learn Judaism before she
migrated to France. One of the reasons to migrate was the lack of opportunities in East
Berlin to realize her Jewish faith. She published her first work two years after her move
and has been quite prolific voicing Judaism in a global world. Barbara Honigmann’s
work emphasizes that Jewishness in the 21st century has many facets. Jewishness is alive
and individual, but with the “Torah Connection” 5 the Jewish people are not void of
Heimat anymore. Their Heimat lies in their belief and Jewish identity, religious as well
as secular. The changes from the religious voices of Lasker-Schüler and Sachs to
Honigmann are vast. Over the course of 106 years, the Jewish voices of the three authors
5
This is a term used by Barbara Honigmann for the global connections between all Jewish people.
8
went from an occasional mentioning of a biblical name from the Old Testament to works
entirely dedicated to Judaic development, emancipation, and belonging.
With this dissertation, I attempt to compare the lives and works of three GermanJewish “Dichter[innen] ohne Vaterland” (Kesting 8). In the first chapter of this project, I
examine Else Lasker-Schüler and the development and change of her religious voice.
Else Lasker-Schüler has been well researched by scholars; however, a comparison
regarding the change of the religious voice during her entire writing career has not been
made. Christine Radde writes in great detail about Lasker-Schüler’s religious voice. Yet,
her analysis is restricted to Lasker-Schüler’s Hebräische Balladen, which was published
in 1913, many years before Lasker-Schüler was forced into exile. In addition, HenneckeWeischer describes in Poetisches Judentum: Die Bibel im Werk Else Lasker-Schülers the
influence of the Bible in Lasker-Schüler’s work, but, again, no comparison between the
works before and after exile are made. Lasker-Schüler changes her religious voice
through exile. In Konzert and subsequently in Hebräerland, her voice becomes stronger,
more religious and prophetic. She tried to find her Heimat in exile in Switzerland by
discovering her Jewish religious voice. In her last work, though, during exile in
Palestine, Lasker-Schüler lost her prophetic stance and returned to her writing of her
earlier years – spiritual, with her eyes on Heaven, which indicates a return to Christianity.
In my next chapter, I examine the work of Nelly Sachs. Sachs lost or destroyed
most of her work written before exile. Her early work includes Christian as well as
mythological themes. During the persecution years of the 1930s, Sachs started to
incorporate mysticism in her work. Sachs came to fame after she went into exile at the
age of 49. Most scholars concentrate on her work after she went into exile. In contrast to
9
Lasker-Schüler, Sachs has been researched only sporadically in recent years - in spite of
receiving the Nobel Prize. A tremendous amount of research has been undertaken by
Ruth Dinesen, who wrote two excellent biographies, which show remarkable details and
analyses about Nelly Sachs’ life and work. Like Dinesen, most scholarship usually
concentrates on Sachs’ biographies. Other recent scholars, like Keller-Stocker and SowaBettecken, have investigated Sachs’ religious content; however, they restricted their
research to certain artistic periods, usually the middle and late work, excluding her work
before exile. A linear chronological view of Sachs’ religious voice has not been
attempted thus far.
My third chapter investigates Barbara Honigmann’s work before and after exile.
She wrote children’s plays before she migrated to France and she started on the first
chapter of her first well received work, Roman von einem Kinde. While living in East
Germany, though, she could not have published anything critical or remotely religious
due to censorship. There is no doubt about the Judaic content of Honigmann’s work after
migration. Scholarship so far agrees that Honigmann’s work is a combination of
autobiography and fiction. Thomas Nolden categorizes Honigmann’s work as part of the
“Junge jüdische Literatur” (Nolden 7). The most recent and detailed publication about
Honigmann’s work was published by Petra S. Fiero in 2008. Zwischen Enthüllen und
Verstecken, though, does not include Honigmann’s latest work Das überirdische Licht.
In addition, no comparison has been made between her work before and after her
migration regarding the change of her religious voice. I will analyze Honigmann’s work
beginning with her publications in East Germany and ending with her last published
work, Das überirdische Licht. With each work, Honigmann’s Jewish voice increased and
10
changed. It gained in strength and identity. In spite of the many things these three
female exile writers have in common, no attempt at contrasting the change of their
religious voices with each other have been made so far.
I approached each of my three chapters by first researching the author’s familial,
religious, and ethnic backgrounds. Since this dissertation covers 106 years of GermanJewish publications, there are some main differences in the historical, personal, and
professional development of each writer. After having established an understanding of
their life and religious background, I will chronologically investigate their works, starting
with the first published work of each author and ending with the last.
Else Lasker-Schüler struggled with being a daughter and a woman in a man’s
world, a single mother, an exile, a Bohemian, a Jewess and a writer. Her life was
accompanied by losses, those of her parents, brother and son. These losses mirror
themselves in Lasker-Schüler’s search for Heimat. She writes “Ich bin keine Zionistin,
keine Jüdin, keine Christin; ich glaube aber ein Mensch, ein sehr tieftrauriger Mensch“
(Kupper 128). Lasker-Schüler tried to merge many aspects of her life to fulfill her selfimposed responsibility as a poet of God. Her messages to her readers include the
reconciliation and acceptance of Judaism and Christianity, including, as is evident in
Hebräerland, the world’s peoples, no matter their religion. Lasker-Schüler’s religious
voice started out very faint in her first published work, Styx. It increased with the rise of
National Socialism and exile. During her exile years in Switzerland, Lasker-Schüler’s
religious voice changed to include the Kabala, as well as writings by Martin Buber.
However, nearing the end of her life, Lasker-Schüler went “Meinwärts” again, returning
11
to the writing style and content of her younger years before exile. 6 Her religious voice
moved beyond earthly religious prayers. She hoped for a Heimat in heaven where she
would be reunited with her mother and son – as it is understood in Christianity.
In contrast to Lasker-Schüler’s life, Nelly Sachs’ was very reclusive, and in spite
of her late success, not very eventful. She never married, never had children, and kept
her private life as much to herself as possible. With increasing fame, Sachs tried to
control the information that went into print to the point of alienating her best and longtime supporter, Berendsohn. She felt that private information would take away from the
autonomy of her work. She wanted her work to speak for itself. She published Legenden
und Erzählungen in 1921, which has no Jewish content. Starting in 1933, Sachs
published various poems in magazines and newspapers, slowly including names and
metaphors of the Hebrew Bible in order to describe the suffering of the Jewish people. In
the first few years in exile, Sachs described the horrors of the Holocaust. Not until 1950,
did Sachs find a strong Jewish voice. Last but not least, her final published work, Die
Suchende, tells of Sachs’ struggle to reunite her German-Christian cultural upbringing
and her Jewish religious voice.
Barbara Honigmann is a Nachgeborene because she was born after WWII and is a
second-generation exile. She not only experienced her own migration as an adult, but
also her parents’ experience of exile. During the Holocaust, her parents lived in England,
France, and the United States of America. While Lasker-Schüler and Sachs shared a
great amount of German-Jewish history until the day Lasker-Schüler died, Honigmann
experienced that part of history through the lives and experience of her parents. Sachs’
6
“Meinwärts” is the last word of Lasker-Schüler’s peom “Weltflucht”.
12
and Honigmann’s work stand in stark contrast to each other. Sachs tried separating her
biography from her work, while Honigmann’s life and work are closely intertwined.
Scholars agree that much of Honigmann’s work is autobiographical. Honigmann writes
the legend about her mother as “kurz hinter der Wahrheit und dicht neben der Lüge, so
wie es ihr Credo war” (Ein Kapitel Aus Meinem Leben 138). In addition, Honigmann
claims that “auch das autobiographische Schreiben ist ja Fiktion…Das autobiographische
Schreiben liegt irgendwo in der Mitte zwischen Tagebuch und Roman“ (Das Gesicht
Wiederfinden 39). With her writing, Honigmann wanted to regain what her forefathers
so easily gave up while assimilating in Germany for generations – her Jewishness. She
experienced Jewishness through anti-Semitism in East Germany, but was interested in
delving deeper into Judaism after the birth of her first son, Johannes. Honigmann’s work
tells of the journey of a woman who leaves her home country in order to live a Jewish
lifestyle without discrimination. It tells of the lives of German-Jews who were forced to
face their Jewish identity through the Holocaust, and it tells of many more people who
have been trying to define their own Jewishness in the 20th and 21st century through exile
and migration. Honigmann’s work takes the reader from East-Germany, an atheistic
state, to France, to Europe and then the world – united by the “Torah Connection”
(Honigmann Soharas Reise 96). Her Jewish voice increases and becomes stronger with
every work, meandering between present and past, local and global, national and
transnational, Strasbourg, New York City, and Israel.
My interest in the exile experiences of Else Lasker-Schüler, Nelly Sachs, and
Barbara Honigmann stems from my own migration to the United States in the mid 1980s.
In contrast to Lasker-Schüler and Sachs, I was not persecuted; I left because I could not
13
envision my future in Germany. Their work, though, became so much more significant
to me after leaving my own Heimat. During the scope of this project, I did not only read
about these womens’ work and exile experience, I learned about the complexity of Jewish
identity of German-Jews in the 20th century. I gained some historical perspective on
German-Jewish assimilation and realized that thus far the question of how to define
Jewishness in the works of German-Jewish writers continues and evolves. On the one
hand, each of the authors deals with their own Jewishness in their own unique ways. On
the other hand they still reveal their common heritage and their desire to belong. Out of
their works, a Jewish voice emerges and changes with exile and migration. A need to
fulfill the void of losing their geographical Heimat results in each author’s journey to
change and define their religious voice in their works. The works of these three women,
whose publications span 106 years of German literary history, are evidence of the
struggle of reconciling their German and Jewish heritage in exile and after migration.
14
CHAPTER I
Else Lasker-Schüler
Else Lasker-Schüler’s work is closely related to her identity as a German-Jewish
woman. Due to her background and the Zeitgeist, the themes in her work were mainly
on personal experience, family, religion, and Heimat, increasingly so with the approach
of the Nazi regime and World War II, which culminated in her living and dying in exile.
Of the three authors I am investigating, Lasker-Schüler has been thus far the most prolific
writer, as well as the most researched. Jewish ethnicity in her works has been discussed
to quite some extent by well-known critics such Sigrid Bauschinger, Mark Gelber and
Sonja Hedgepeth. They touched on the religious content in her works. However, they
did not analyze in detail the influence of exile in regards to her religious writings within
her works. Christine Radde gives an in-depth analysis in her work, Hebräische Balladen,
of the influences of Else Lasker-Schüler’s life and on her work. However, as her title
reveals, she restricts her detailed analysis to Hebräische Balladen, which was published in
1913, many years before Lasker-Schüler was forced into exile. In this anthology, which
includes twenty of Lasker-Schüler’s religious poems published during the past two
decades, Radde analyses the content, style, and religious development of the author.
Hennecke-Weischer, on the other hand, writes extensively in Poetisches
Judentum: Die Bibel im Werk Else Lasker-Schülers about the influence of the Bible in
Else Lasker-Schüler’s life and work before and during her exile. Her investigation is
precise and in-depth and illuminates the usage of the Bible, Judaism, and Christianity in
Lasker-Schüler’s work. She sees in the author’s work an attempt “sich in eine tragfähige
15
Tradition zu stellen und gleichzeitig die Säulen dieser Tradition für sich zu okkupieren in
einer Sprache, die sich selbst nicht sicher ist und sich ihrer Legitimitation erst versichern
muss“ (453). Hence, Hennecke-Weischer interprets Lasker-Schüler’s writings as a
“wirkendes Wort,” in the sense of the word of God (453).
Hennecke-Weischer’s description of Judaism in Lasker-Schüler’s works is very
detailed and informative. However, she does not compare Else Lasker-Schüler’s work
before and after exile, which I will do in this dissertation. My analysis regarding the
change of religious voice of Else Lasker-Schüler will cover selected works, beginning
with her first published work Styx and her last published work Mein Blaues Klavier. In
order to establish what type of exile Lasker-Schüler experiences, the concept of Heimat,
in relationship to exile is an important factor to investigate. By Heimat, I mean not only
the physical but also the emotional place of home. Besides her obvious search for
Heimat in her work, it is important to find out what kind of Heimat Else Lasker-Schüler
tried to create in her life and work. In addition, I will need to explore Lasker-Schüler’s
identity as a German-Jewish woman. Her Jewish background is clear. However, her
personal religious development in life and work needs further investigation. Moreover,
the change of her religious voice has not been examined in depth, especially not in
connection with exile and her own concept of Heimat.
I will investigate the religious themes in Lasker-Schüler’s life and work during a
43 period of her life in connection with, Jewishness, German-Jewish assimiliation, exile
and her own sense of Heimat. The works that will be discussed in detail in this
dissertation start with her early work, Styx, published in 1902, then Konzert, 1932, which
is the last published work by the author before Hitler came to power, as well as her last
16
work before moving into exile in Switzerland. The Swiss years were years of longing for
a Heimat, as well as years of hope to find it in Palestine. Her work Hebräerland gives
homage, as well as criticism, to the land of her lifelong dreams, Palestine, and explores
different ideas of Heimat. In addition, it is a testimony of Lasker-Schüler’s struggles
with her identity as a German-Jewish woman. The last work to be discussed is Mein
blaues Klavier. It was published in 1943, two years before her death and picks up on
lifelong themes of personal experience, family, religion, and Heimat. In addition, I will
cite several of her other works during the exploration of the concepts of Jewishness,
Germanness, Heimat, and exile in order to underline the arguments.
Historical Background
Lasker-Schüler was born in 1869 as Elisabeth Schüler into a middle-class
German-Jewish assimilated family, two years before Germany was founded. With the
founding of Germany, the General Equality Treatment Act of 1871 came into effect,
which, at least in theory, gave all Jewish citizens the same rights and duties as their
fellow German Christian citizens. Reality was quite different. Else Lasker-Schüler grew
up in a climate in which Jews were increasingly excluded from society.7 In the 1880s
and 1890s everything changed again and a new type of anti-Semitism developed along
with new thoughts and theories. Fichte, who is thought of as one of the precursors of
7
The emancipation process started around 1780 and developed until 1870, in part due to the social and
political engagement and effort of Moses Mendelssohn, a Jewish philosopher, writer, and friend of
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. The self-image of the intellectual Jew during the emancipation period
developed from simply being a member of the collective Jewish consciousness to being an individual who
begun to question the established power structures and outdated privileges, in order to start speaking up for
a new democratic order, from which he or she hoped to end the social and legal disadvantages. Grossman
gives a brief but detailed summary abou this subject.
17
nationalism and patriotism of Germany, said that a person can only “love him/herself if
part of his beliefs lie in the roots of his German being.” 8 According to Fichte, this
automatically excludes all people of Jewish ethnicity. Nonetheless, it was perfectly
natural for many men of the German-Jewish population to reach for weapons in WWI to
defend their Vaterland. As Herzig points out, their willingness to fight for their country
enticed a grateful Kaiser Wilhelm to say that “he does not know parties anymore, just
Germans” (qtd. from Grossman 27). This was one of the last attempts of the Jewish
population to overcome anti-Semitism by proving how much they considered themselves
to be German. They were ready to pay the ultimate price, as many of Lasker-Schüler’s
Jewish and non-Jewish friends did during World War II. Just to name a few, for
example, Franz Marc, Georg Trakl, Hans Ehrenbaum-Degele, and Peter Baum did not
return from the war. 9 With the depression and the break-down of the Weimarer Republik
nationalism and anti-Semitism were rising fast. Reichspräsident Hindenburg appointed
Hitler as Reichskanzler on January 30, 1933. Else Lasker-Schüler fled Germany for
Switzerland on April 19, 1933, fearing for her life. Together with Lasker-Schüler,
approximately 2500 writers left Germany and Austria during the 1930s and, therefore,
“almost a whole literature of a language left its country.” 10 Else Lasker-Schüler was
born into a volatile time of German history. Her German-Jewish background and
personal identity, as well as the rise of National Socialism ultimately called Lasker8
Mosse describes Fichte’s important role of growing nationalism and the development of anti-Semitism.
9
With many of her friends deceased, Lasker-Schüler lost her way of life as she had known it then as is
explained by Erika Klüsener in Lasker-Schüler (89).
10
Hans-Albert Walter, Deutsche Exilliteratur 1933-1950 (Darmstadt: Luchterhand, 1972). Zitiert nach
Andrea Henneke-Weischer, Poetisches Judentum : Die Bibel Im Werk Else Lasker-Schülers, Theologie
Und Literatur (Mainz: Matthias-Grünewald-Verlag, 2003) 283. Theologie und Literatur; Bad. 14. (Mainz:
Mathias-Grünewald-Verlag, 2003) 283.
18
Schüler’s sense of Heimat in questions, not only after her move into exile but already
long before she left.
Heimat
Lasker-Schüler attempted to create a Heimat for herself in various different ways.
Hennecke-Weischer evaluates Lasker-Schüler’s work as an attempt
die verlorene Heimat poetisch zu konstruieren. Die komplexe symbolische
Topographie Palästinas, das als Bibelland, Land der Juden, Land der Hoffnung
und Heimatland wahrgenommen wird, provoziert eine literarische Repräsentation
im Hebräerland, die nicht ein Reiseporträt zeichnet, sondern Knotenpunkte wie
Heimat, Identität oder Erinnerung mit Bezug auf die Bibel poetisch gestaltet.
Heines Diktum vom „portativen Vaterland“ wird darin auf kreative Weise
bestätigt (330).
In contrast, I maintain that the subject of exile and Heimat cannot be separated. In exile
one loses one’s Heimat. Moreover, I only partially agree with Hennecke-Weischer’s
explanation that Lasker-Schüler recreated her Heimat in exile through her poetic
application of the Bible; because long before she lost her ability to physically go back to
her German homeland she wrote the poem “Heimweh” (1919). It is very difficult to
define Else Lasker-Schüler’s sense of Heimat in the traditional, physical sense because
Hebräerland was written and published between her first and second trip to Palestine
(Else Lasker-Schüler: Prosa Und Schauspiele GW II 785-973). At this point she was still
hoping to come back to her physical Heimat in Germany while setting the stage for an
ideological Heimat in Hebräerland.
19
Her last work, Das Blaue Klavier, clearly indicates that she never really found the
Heimat in the physical and ideological sense in Israel – then Palestine. Nor had she had
this type of Heimat before she was forced into exile. According to Hennecke-Weischer,
she continually tried to build a Heimat of her own beliefs through her work but,
according to Gesa Dane’s interpretation of Heimat and Heimweh, she could not find it.
Gesa Dane compares the poems “Heimweh” and “Die Verscheuchte” in her essay
“Else Lasker-Schülers eigenwilliger Exotismus” (Künzel 54 - 56). „Die Verscheuchte” is
a poem in her last anthology, Das Blaue Klavier, written in exile in the early 1940s, while
“Heimweh” was first published 1909 (Else Lasker-Schüler: Prosa Und Schauspiele).
These two poems were written over 30 years apart. The comparison is quite interesting
because both of the poems touch on the writer and her sense of loneliness and
homelessness. “Heimweh” was written while Else Lasker-Schüler was living in Berlin,
Germany, while “Heimat” was written while she was living in exile in Palestine in the
early 1940s. Dane illustrates a change of Heimat in Lasker-Schüler’s lyric. Heimat is
moving from a graphic place to a more metaphorical state. In order to experience
Heimweh there needs to be a place for which to yearn. Dane writes: “Anders als in dem
Gedicht “Heimweh”, lässt sich in diesem späten Gedicht [“DieVerscheuchte”] kein Ort
mehr ausmachen, nicht einmal mehr in der Phantasie, der als ‘Heimat‘ gelten könnte ...
Es gibt kein Heimweh – Heimweh setzte noch die die Vorstellung von Heimat voraus,
wäre es auch nur eine solche der Phantasie” (55).
In other words, Lasker-Schüler’s work gives the impression that she had lost her
Heimat in her Heimat before she physically went into exile. This is due to the fact that
anti-Semitism accompanied her all her life. Being a very sensitive child and being
20
Jewish made the actions of some of the children, even her friends, so very difficult to
endure that she had the need to put it down in words 50 years after the fact. She writes in
“St. Laurentius”, one of her essays in Konzert, how her friends followed her chanting:
Hepp, hepp’, riefen die lutherischen Kinder, bis die katholischen kleinen
Mädchen es ihnen nachahmten... ‚Hepp, hepp‘, erklärte mir der gute mitleidige
Herr Kaplan, heiße nur ‚Jerusalem ist verloren‘ (GW II Else Lasker-Schüler:
Prosa Und Schauspiele 715). 11
Lasker-Schüler writes further that Jesus came to her while she was sleeping and told her
that Jerusalem is not lost but resides in her heart. She must have been nine or ten years
old at the time of this event because it occurred during the time of a First Communion
celebration of some of her friends. 12 With the rise of anti-Semitism and Nationalism she
increasingly became more uncomfortable as a member of the Jewish minority, especially
in the early 1930s. Bauschinger describes some of the injuries Lasker-Schüler obtained
by National Socialists in Berlin when leaving her hotel. She quotes Lasker-Schüler: “Eck
wollt, eck wäre in mein Hotel” and „Da werd eck vorher immer geschlagen.” The latter
sentence she said to guests at a function (Bauschinger 351). Further, in a letter to Emil
Raas, she mentions injuries that had to be stitched and needed more attention at a later
point in time (Bauschinger 352). Lasker-Schüler’s favorite pastime, i.e., living in public,
11
Schrader writes that “Als feststehender Terminus Technicus ist der Hetz- und Spottruf [...] in die jüdische
Geschichtsschreibung eingegangen. Er stammt aus den antisemitischen Unruhen des Jahres 1819 Ulrike
Schrader, "Niemand Hat Mich Wiedererkannt--" : Else Lasker-Schüler in Wuppertal (Wuppertal:
Begegnungsstätte Alte Synagoge, 2003) 59. Some say, including the Kaplan in Lasker-Schüler‘s essay that
‘Hep’ means Hierosolyma est perdita, which means in Latin Jerusalem is lost. It cannot be confirmed,
though.
12
In Germany First Communion takes place in the 3rd and 4th grade and not in 2nd as it does usually in the
USA.
21
in Cafés, watching and talking to people, became increasingly dangerous and
uncomfortable. She fled to Ascona, the hub for many refugees in Switzerland, on April
19, 1933. She never returned to Berlin, a city in which she felt more at home than she
had in Wuppertal, where she was born.
Thus far, I have established that Heimat, in relationship to exile is an important
factor to consider in Else Lasker-Schüler’s works. Lasker-Schüler’s concept of Heimat is
not only the physical but also the emotional place of home. Besides her obvious search
for Heimat, it is important to find out what kind of Heimat Else Lasker-Schüler tried to
create in her life and work. Moreover, the change of her religious voice has to be
examined in depth, especially in connection with exile and her losses of Heimat.
Jewishness
In order to establish Else Lasker-Schüler’s different types of Heimat, I also need
to illuminate her Jewish heritage. Else Lasker-Schüler’s family was fully assimilated
and well-respected. Her father, Aaron Schüler, was a banker. Her mother, Jeanette
Schüler was an artist. 13 Her siblings were too old to be her playmates because she was
the youngest of three girls and three boys by seven years. Therefore, encouraged and
nourished by her well-educated and creative mother, Lasker-Schüler developed her talent
of sketching and writing poems at a very young age. She spent most of her childhood
with her mother, playfully reciting poetry, reading, and rhyming. She was closest to her
13
Bauschinger, as well as other scholars, uses two different spellings in her two biographies about Else
Lasker-Schüler Sigrid Bauschinger, Else Lasker-Schüler : Ihr Werk Und Ihre Zeit, Poesie Und
Wissenschaft Vii. (Heidelberg: Lothar Stiehm Verlag, 1980), Sigrid Bauschinger, Else Lasker-Schüler :
Biographie (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2004).
22
brother Paul who tutored her in math and science after she left public school at the age of
thirteen due to illness. Paul was in part responsible for her very active imagination
because he spent much of his time reading to her – more often than not – mythology, as
well as the Bible, since he was studying to become ordained and join a monastery.
Bernhard Brilling writes in the “Allgemeinen Wochenzeitschrift der Juden in
Deutschland” that the Schüler family was highly educated and well connected on both
sides (5-6). One of Lasker-Schüler’s uncles, for example, was the founder of the
Frankfurter Allgemeine. Brilling describes that the family heritage reaches back to the
15th century, and states that the family was related to the Rappaports and the famous
Rabbi of Prague. Their ancestors had to leave Germany in the 15th century during the
persecution of the Jews, but returned in 1710. Lasker-Schüler was proud of her Jewish
heritage. This pride found its outlet in her play Arthur Aronymus und seine Väter, written
and published in 1932 (GW II 557 - 595). The drama takes place in Gaeseke and
Paderborn, Germany, and explores the various influences on the Jewish Schüler family
within a society of German and German-Jewish citizens. The play, dedicated to LaskerSchüler’s father, is a premonition of things to come and an attempt to sort out the issues
between the Catholic and the Jewish religions, which Else Lasker-Schüler has
increasingly been battling within her life and work. It is not known, for example, to what
extent Lasker-Schüler’s father was involved in collecting money for the Synagogue and
building it in Elberfeld. However, it has been established through advertising in
newspapers that he closed his business on Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah (Schrader
127). Andrea Hennecke-Weischer writes: “Else Lasker-Schülers Verhältnis zum
Judentum beschränkt sich nicht auf den religiösen Bereich. Typisch für ihre Zeit, ist es
23
vielschichtiges Kulturphänomen, Politikum, Grund für Stigmatisierung” (111). Neither
were any members of the Schüler family associated with one of the three Jewish
organizations that existed during the Weimar Republic, nor did they go to the Synagogue
on a regular basis, if at all. 14 Her father even enjoyed going to the Catholic Church in
Wuppertal. The Schüler’s had a Christmas tree every year. All of the Schüler children
bore names that were common in Christian and Jewish religions. Daughter Anna was
even allowed to marry a non-Jewish man, but not before the family elder and most
influential member of the family, Onkel Leopold, the founder of the “Frankfurter
Allgemeine,” had been consulted (Bauschinger 44). In any case, Lasker-Schüler herself
was not much involved in Jewish rituals.
The Schüler family had a relaxed stance towards religion. Lasker-Schüler writes
in Hebräerland that she was told as a little girl that “Zuviel beten“ and “mit Gebeten Gott
belästigen sei eine Rücksichtslosigkeit ohne Grenzen” (Kemp Els Bd. Ii 960). In other
words, to bother God with too many prayers shows boundless inconsideration. There are
more indications of a nonchalant attitude towards Judaism and towards German-Jewish
or German-Jewish-Christian assimilation, such as the marriage of Else Lasker-Schüler’s
sister Anne to a non-Jewish man and her favorite brother Paul’s wish to become a
Catholic priest. The Schüler family enjoyed German art and literature. For example, her
mother’s favorite author was Goethe. Lasker-Schüler wrote in Konzert, in an essay
entitled „Rosenholzkästchen:
14
Three important Jewish associations existed at that time: “Verein zur Abwehr des Antisemitismus,”
“Zionistische Vereinigung Deutschlands,“ and “Central-Verein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen
Glaubens.“
24
Meine Mama besaß ... eine schwärmerische Verehrung für Goethe. Er und sie aus
ein und derselben Stadt, in Frankfurt zur Welt gekommen. Aber sicher wußte ich
schon als Kind, daß Goethe der Dichter ihres reinen Herzens gewesen ist. Das
bezeugten schon die vielen Gedichte in dem großen Poesiealbum in feiernder
Handschrift niedergeschrieben (GW II 645-55).
It seemed very important to Else Lasker-Schüler and her mother that both, Goethe
and Jeannette Schüler, were born in the same city, Frankfurt. To share the same
hometown with one of Germany’s most admirable poets was an honor to the family and
indicates their deep-rootedness in the German culture. Jakob Hessing’s biography, Else
Lasker-Schüler : Biographie Einer Deutsch-Jüdischen Dichterin, gives a detailed account
of her family’s Jewish heritage. The researcher examines her life and work from the
standpoint of the suffering Jewish woman. Hessing interprets Else Lasker-Schüler’s work
as an outcry to gain recognition as a Jewish writer. In his introduction he makes an
interesting observation, which I find somewhat harsh but not farfetched:
Die Interpreten mythisierten Else Lasker-Schüler’s Judentum oder unterschlugen
es als Teil einer unbewältigten Vergangenheit. Werner Kraft scheute sich, ihr
Judentum aus der historischen Wirklichkeit ihrer deutsch-jüdischen Existenz
abzuleiten und zog es vor, ihm in Martin Bubers Philosophie eine romantische
Grundlage zu geben. Ernst Ginsberg stellte die Jüdin in eine Nähe zum
Christentum, die zwar den kulturpolitischen Tendenzen der Nachkriegszeit
entgegenkam sich aber kaum mit den geschichtlichen Tatsachen deckt (9).
In addition, Hessing criticizes Bänsch and Bauchinger because of their “erstaunlich[es]
Maß und Unkenntnis [das sie] ihrem Judentum entgegenbringen“ (9). Hessing describes
25
Else Lasker-Schüler‘s life and work to be full of tragedy brought on by Jewish suffering.
However, he does not come full circle. Else Lasker-Schüler’s life did not end with her
play IchundIch and her many letters to friends and acquaintances. She wrote and
published one last book of poems, Mein blaues Klavier¸ in 1943. Hessing mentions this
very important work only briefly, although it is one of her most famous and most quoted
works. Hessing brings up this last published work, which Else Lasker-Schüler
painstakingly had put together and printed, only very briefly on the second last page in
his book, Else Lasker-Schüler: Eine Bibliographie: “Zwei Jahre später, als Mein blaues
Klavier erschien, war sie eine alte, ausgebrannte Frau” (212). This omission does not
give Lasker-Schüler’s life and work justice. Leon I. Yudkin’s critical study is especially
noteworthy. He admonishes in Else Lasker-Schüler: A Study in German Jewish
Literature that
[i]t is unprofitable to nag away at questions which may be indefinable anyway
and certainly unanswerable. Is a given work more German than Jewish? What
proportions obtain in it or in the progenitor? But we can surely point to the
pronounced phenomenon of a remarkable Jewish presence in this German
literature, which is very often aware of its Janus-like countenance (63).
Critics do tend to point out the Jewishness in Lasker-Schüler’s work. I argue that
denying Lasker-Schüler her German heritage, as well as her Christian assimilation, is
denying her something she embraced in her life and work and something that has already
been taken away from her through exile once before. I do agree with Yudkin that there is
a remarkable Jewish presence in her German literature. Nonetheless, I maintain that
there is also a remarkable German presence in Lasker-Schüler’s work, primarily her
26
language. In any case, Lasker-Schüler herself was not much involved in Jewish
ceremonies.
According to Grossman, Lasker-Schüler’s interest in Jewish ethnicity, religion,
and culture was not so much triggered by a need for religious identity but rather by the
wish to join a minority (43). I fully agree with Grossman’s interpretation. LaskerSchüler felt the urge to support the needy, hungry, and weak. Some of her most recurring
themes are the religiously oppressed, the hungry, women, and children, as well as
outsiders. She was proud of her Jewish heritage. She was also driven by a desire for
harmony and acceptance in both her Jewish religious heritage and her assimilated
German-Christian heritage, as the following quote by Bauschinger reveals: “In ihren
Kindheitserinnerungen beschreibt Else Lasker-Schüler versöhnliche Episoden zwischen
den verschiedenen religiösen Gruppen, auch wenn sie durchaus Intoleranz und
Zwietracht erwähnt, die sie aber herunterspielen kann“ (Else Lasker-Schüler : Biographie
36). A very good example proving her aspiration to achieve harmony in these religions is
her essay “St. Laurentius” in Konzert (GW II 713 – 717). 15 Lasker-Schüler describes the
difficulties of being a minority among competing Catholic and Protestant children:
...denn immer gab es Streitigkeiten zwischen den Lutherischen und Katholischen,
zumal im Wuppertal die lutherische Sekte der Mucker lebte. Doch immer mußten
es die Juden am Ende ausfressen, da sie, die kleinste Gemeinde zwischen den
Christen sehr inzüchtig lebten (GW II 715).
The conflict between the young children and the three religions will be somewhat but
only superficially solved, nonetheless, not before one of the girls feels sorry and goes to
15
GW II stands for Friedhelm Kemp, ed., Else Lasker-Schüler: Prosa Und Schauspiele, 2. Auflage ed., vol.
2. Band, 3 vols. (München,: Kiesel-Verlag, 1962). I will use this abbreviation throughout the dissertation.
27
the Kaplan to confess her sins. The Kaplan talks the girl into going to Else Schüler and
asking her for forgiveness. Lasker-Schüler, though, describes the little girl as pauvre,
and says that “Adele war eigentlich die, die sich am spöttischen Rufen am intensivsten
beteiligte…. Allerdings, sie kannte mein weißes Kleidchen mit dem
Blätterstickereivolant“ (GW II 716). She accepts Adele‘s apology and then gives her the
beautiful white dress necessary so she can be an “Engel,” as all other children, wearing
white for First Communion and supporting Adele’s faith in the Catholic religion on “St.
Laurentius.” There is doubt of true reconciliation, though. The story purposefully gives
a false image of two very best friends, which was, in retrospect, wishful thinking. Little
Lasker-Schüler seemed to have been so pleased to have her young friend back, even after
all the heartache, that she not only gave her the beautiful white dress to wear but “Ich
schenkte ihr noch meine Bernsteinkette und meinen Vergißmeinnichtring und meinen
Schokoladenschornsteinfeger und mein Fixierrotweinglas” (GW II 717). There is already
an undertone of losing the battle of true reconciliation between two young children and
their inherited religions and prejudices. Nonetheless, Else Schüler followed her heart of
giving to the needy, the children, the hungry, at a very young age whenever she could and
found it necessary. The conflict between the Catholic and Lutherans is not mentioned
anymore in this essay, but the underlying tone of disappointment and resignation lingers
in her memories in Konzert.
Lasker-Schüler’s Jewishness was rooted in her childhood and family traditions.
However, it was accompanied by disappointment and resulted in resignation because her
Jewishness and German-Jewish assimilated culture were closely intertwined with
Christianity. She neither could find a Heimat that was acceptable to her in her homeland
28
Germany, nor her Jewish religiony, nor as I will establish below, in the different
countries of her last years, Switzerland and Palestine. She did find consolation in her
hope to find Heimat as is evident in her early and last work in her Christian believe to
reunite with her family in heaven.
Dichotomy – a struggle from childhood to death in life and literature
Else Lasker-Schüler struggled with many things in life that could not be changed.
She was a German-Jewish woman, a single mother, an exile and a non-conformist who
tried to reconcile many of these issues from early on, especially in her works.
Throughout her whole life, Else Lasker-Schüler tried to reconcile Judaism and
Christianity. Her work, Der Wunderrabiner von Barcelona, is an additional example of
her attempt at doing so. Still, in 1936, at the première of her play Arthur Aronymus, the
Jews and Christians are on the stage together singing a chorale “Großer Gott wir loben
dich,” which is “Eine Versöhnungsbotschaft, betrieben von einem toleranten Elternhaus
und trotz erlebter Demütigungen nicht verlorengegangen, der Zeit weit voraus” (Ueckert
99).
Her childhood memories are often romanticized and cloaked in happy endings, as
we can deduce from her memory in “St. Laurentius” of Konzert. She herself says, after a
very bad experience at a poetry reading in her hometown Wuppertal in 1912:
Ich habe in den Hauptstädten der Welt solch einen Beifall geerntet, daß ich diese
Katastrophe wie eine Groteske betrachten würde, hätte sie sich nicht in meiner
Heimat begeben, die ich in meiner Erinnerung verherrlichte. Ich machte meiner
Heimat mein Schauspiel Wupper zum Geschenk (quotd. from Schrader 88).
29
As this quote demonstrates, the poetry reading was devastating. Lasker-Schüler
broke off the evening and slunk off to her room, where she wrote a scathing letter to the
local newspapers. She was not satisfied with the reaction of the audience, who did not
pay her the respect she expected. Up until today, Wuppertal is still embarrassed of
having rejected “one of their very own” this disrespectfully.16
However, she is much more direct, prophetic and clairvoyant in Der
Wunderrabiner von Barcelona, eerily so. She is still trying to reconcile the different
religions, but she ends this work in a pogrom and the death of the Wunderrabiner. Marx
once said that “History repeats itself”. However, Lasker-Schüler wrote in great foresight
about a history that was to happen soon, which emphasizes her prophetic stance as a poet.
Else Lasker-Schüler was not only torn apart by two antagonistic world religions,
but her life was also polarized in other aspects from the cradle onward. She was a nonconformist in many ways. Born as a Jewish German-Jewish woman living in Germany –
exiled from Germany and writing in German, she was Jewish but did not speak Hebrew
or Yiddish. She was a woman and dressed like a man. She was older but pretended to be
seven years younger. Only many years after her death, her true birth date was revealed.
Lasker-Schüler wanted to participate in Jewish ceremonies in Palestine but sat on the
male side in the Synagogue and ate chocolate during Yom Kippur, thus offending the
parish. Ziegler writes that Lasker-Schüler said, when gently reminded about the fasting
by another member of the synagogue: “Bitte stören Sie meine Andacht nicht!” (SchmidOspach et al. 196). Lasker-Schüler was a female writer but did not like to be categorized
as such. Instead, she preferred to be a Kumpel to her male friends as Ueckert writes in
16
Qutd. from Henry Schneider, archivist of the Else Lasker-Schüler archive in Wuppertal.
30
Margarete Susmann und Else Lasker-Schüler (79). She had more male friends than
female: “Zu Frauen hatte sie, von wenigen Ausnahmen abgesehen, kein Zutrauen,
Männer waren ihr lieber. Vielleicht wußte sie auch, daß Frauen ihr gegenüber
unbarmherziger urteilen würden als Männer“ (79). She tried to undermine the cliché of
the ”»schöne Jüdin«, indem sie zwischen Männlichkeit und Weiblichkeit oszilliert”
writes Dane. Not only that, she gave herself male names like Jussuf. This behavior is
partially rooted in her childhood, where she was very much loved by her parents but still
regarded as “just” a girl. For example, Lasker-Schüler writes in Hebräerland that her
father, when visiting families, who just had new babies, gave more to the family when it
was a boy instead of a girl:
War’s ein Junge, legte mein Papa in die Sparbüchse auf der Kommode einen
blanken Taler, war’s ein Mädchen, höchstens nur einige Groschen; so viele
gerade in seiner Westentasche steckten. Er schätzte Mädchen nicht allzusehr, und
ich mußte in seiner Begleitung stets keck und burschikos gekleidet gehen (qtd.
from Schrader 20).
It must have been hard on Else Schüler to know that girls are not as “worthy” as boys.
Naturally, she loved her parents, obviously her mother more, because they spent so much
more time together and were both artists. Thus, the issues about clothing and behavior
may root in her childhood experiences. She wanted to be more than just a girl. She
wanted to be everything her father did not see in her. She wanted him to be proud of her.
While she was trying to be a tomboy for him, she was hurting inside. The dichotomy was
even within her as a grown woman wanting to be equal to men. On the other hand,
though, she tried to compete with select women and wives for the admiration of their
31
male partners. For instance, she wrote poems and love letters to Ivan Goll, knowing that
his wife would find out about it. She did the same with Ernst Simon in Jerusalem, her
last passionate love, cemented in the most beautiful poetry in Mein blaues Klavier, “An
Ihn” gewidmet. Often she stalked him during day and night, in warm or cold weather by
standing outside his house to get a glimpse of him. She bombarded him with letters and
gave beautiful artwork to his children, which he framed and displayed in their bedrooms.
Simon was a married man with children; however, he was also an admirer of her work.
Bauschinger writes that
Simon nannte ihre Beziehung, die nicht für die Welt gemeint sei, seinen
“heimlichen Stolz“, Als er schließlich das Buch erhielt, war er „tief erschüttert“
und “hoch begeistert“’, beglückt und beschämt und dankte, daß sie auf eine
namentlich Widmung verzichtet hatte. “Es wird immer mein großer Ruhm sein“,
schrieb er am 30. August 1943, “als Anlaß zu den herrlichsten Gedichten gedient
zu haben”, und er wünscht, “der Leidenspreis“, den die Dichterin dafür zahlen
mußte möge geringer sein (qtd. from Bauschinger 436). “
Another character trait in her personality and lifestyle was her lack of interest in
money. She worked hard to be able to support her child, her art and her writing, while
she herself did not mind living in very humble, almost poor circumstances. After her
marriage to Berthold Lasker ended, she never lived in a place she owned again. She also
liked to help the unfortunate – in the sense of wanting to prove the world wrong about the
geldgierige Jude. Many scholars assumed for the longest time that her life ended in
poverty. However, she simply did not want and need much. Bauchinger writes “In den
letzten Jahren ihres Lebens war Else Lasker-Schüler weder verarmt noch – äußerlich –
32
vereinsamt. Von der Jewish Agency erhielt sie monatlich einen Ehrensold von 15
Pfund,“ which Bauschinger describes as a middle class income (437). Additionally,
Lasker-Schüler received support from Salman Schocken and Jakob Goldmann in New
York (Bauschinger 437). The dichotomies of Else Lasker-Schüler’s life are such a part
of her personality. They cannot be separated from her writings. The same is true with the
religious dichotomy, since she was born in Germany to a German-Jewish assimilated
family to be forced to live and die in exile. It shaped her character as well as her writing.
Lasker-Schüler’s German-Jewish German Identity
Else Lasker-Schüler left Germany because of the persecution of her Jewish
heritage and her work in April of 1933. She left even before her books were collected
and burnt on May 10th as “Schund und Schmutz.” She lived in Switzerland until 1937
when she lost her visa - again because of her Jewish heritage – during her third and last
trip to Palestine, where she was forced to remain until her death in January 1945 because
she was Jewish. Else Lasker-Schüler is by ethnicity Jewish and by culture assimilated
German-Jewish. Her religious affinity, however, changed over the years due to her life
experiences, especially exile, becoming even more uncertain. The outside world, the
non-Jewish majority, views Lasker-Schüler as Jewish and as a Jewish writer, which is a
problematic assessment. She never defined her own religious orientation. In 1942 she
writes in a letter to her longtime friend and philosopher Martin Buber:17
17
The German word “Judentum” is hard to translate into English. In encompasses the Jewish people
culturally and by ethnicity, as well as their religion Judaism. However, these discussions are about as old
as 200 BCE, Shay J.D Cohen writes in Shaye J. D. Cohen, The Beginnings of Jewishness : Boundaries,
Varieties, Uncertainties, Hellenistic Culture and Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999).
33
Ich bin keine Zionistin, keine Jüdin, keine Christin; ich glaube aber ein Mensch,
ein sehr tieftrauriger Mensch. Ich war ein einfacher Soldat Gottes; ich kann mich
aber nicht mehr uniformieren. Ich ströme mit einem Tag nach dem anderen hin.
Vielleicht glaubt Gott der Ewige an mich, ich weiß nicht in meiner
Menschlichkeit wie ich an den Ewigen denken kann glauben.? Und liege doch
vielleicht in Seiner Unsichtbaren Hand (Kupper 128).
As stated in the quote, Lasker-Schüler perceives herself neither as a Zionist, nor a Jew,
nor a Christian, but a sad human being. She has lost faith in herself but hopes that maybe
God believes in her. The last three words of the aforementioned quote express her inner
religious doubt: “denken kann glauben.?” She has lost the strength and ability to be a
“Soldier of God” and to think of and believe in Him. The italicized words kann glauben
point out that she is not sure anymore that she can believe in Him. She regarded herself
as a simple human being, implying that she has all the human doubts and shortcomings.
Not only does she have a hard time thinking of God, she has even lost the ability to
believe in God, maybe? The period before the question mark indicates that final
sentiment of having lost her faith; however, the question mark indicates an afterthought
and, with it, a tiny glimpse of hope that maybe she can doubt her doubts and, thus, hang
on to her lifelong battle to unify humankind in the belief of a God separate from the
Christian or Jewish belief.
Until her assimilated German-Christian-Jewish life was taken from her during the
Nazi era, her religious affiliation and ethnicities were, by and large, not pointed out,
especially not by non-Jewish scholars. Maybe it did not really matter at that time,
because Else Lasker-Schüler was very well received in literary circles? Kurt Pinthus’
34
anthology of expressionistic artists and their work, Menscheitsdämmerung: Symphonie
Jüngster Dichtung, does not mention her Jewish heritage at all in the biographical part.
Even in the subsequent edition from 1962, Menschheitsdämmerung: Ein Dokument des
Expressionismus, it is not mentioned. Additionally, its biographical summary omits why
she left Germany and why her work was labeled as degenerate art one year after she had
received the highest literary prize in Germany, the Kleist prize. Nonetheless, the
mentioning of her dying in Jerusalem in 1945 implies it. And still, my own copy from
the year 2000, does not mention her to be Jewish at all. Again it is implied by the remark
that she is “Enkelin eines Rabbiners, Tochter eines Architekten” (Pinthus 351). The
editor of the aforementioned edition describes her last years as follows:
Sie flüchtete zunächst in die Schweiz, reiste 1934 über Ägypten nach Palästina,
kehrte aber bald nach Zürich zurück .... Im Juni 1937 erschien sie wieder im
„Hebräerland“, wo sie in Armut und Verlassenheit bis zu ihrem Tode in
Jerusalem lebte und litt. Sie starb am 18. Januar 1945 und ist auf dem Ölberg
begraben (Pinthus 352).
In essence, in the edition from the year 2000, the word Jewish, German-Jewish, or Jewish
heritage is not mentioned. Her own words describing her flight from Berlin in a letter to
Buber are: “Followed by swastikas” (Klüsener et al. 241). In addition, to the contrary of
Pinthus’ description that Lasker-Schüler died in poverty, scholarship has come to the
conclusion that Lasker-Schüler was not poor. However, she spent her money on the
poor.
Scholarship came a long way, starting with Gottfried Benn’s controversial address
in Berlin, which I will explain below. In recent decades more and more scholars have
35
shown interest in her work from many different aspects of her personality and history.
An important question at this point is what defines a German-Jewish writer and GermanJewish literature because this is where research disagrees and evaluates the works of the
authors differently. Dieter Lamping explains that there are three aspects of GermanJewish literature and all of these have their own literary traditions. He expands on the
changes of German-Jewish literature in the past 100 years and its different movements.
Else Lasker-Schüler, though, he mentions only in passing. However, his work covers
German-Jewish literature from the turn of the 20th century, through the dark times of the
Holocaust, literature that originated because of Auschwitz, post-war German-Jewish
literature, as well as “Jüdischer Diskurs in der deutschen Gegenwartsliteratur” (152). He
states that they are an expression of a “Kultursynthese” and a “Verschmelzung von
deutschem und jüdischem Geist“ and that “je nachdem, wie das Adjektiv verstanden
wird”, it is either to be understood “als Literatur der deutsch-jüdischen Symbiose, als
deutsche Literatur jüdischer Autoren oder schließlich als jüdische Literatur in deutscher
Sprache” (10-11). Both words, Kultursynthese and Verschmelzung, were coined by
Margarete Susmann (138). In regard to the aforementioned three categories, LaskerSchüler’s work fits best in the category of “Literatur der deutsch-jüdischen Symbiose.”
However, I believe that Else Lasker-Schüler would disagree. As I have established above
under the discussion “Dichotomy,” Else Lasker-Schüler simply does not like to fit into
categories. However, it is the attempt of survivors trying to include the German-Jewish
artists into the post World War II era, which was almost impossible, as explained below.
Else Lasker-Schüler’s lover, friend, and colleague during the 1920s, Gottfried
Benn, said in his “Rede auf Else Lasker-Schüler” on February 23, 1952 the following,
36
supporting the notion that she fits in the category of literature of German-Jewish
symbiosis:
Dies war die größte Lyrikerin, die Deutschland je hatte [...] Ihre Themen waren
vielfach jüdisch, ihre Phantasie orientalisch, aber ihre Sprache war deutsch, ein
üppiges, prunkvolles, zartes Deutsch, eine reif und süß, in jeder Wendung dem
Kern des Schöpferischen entsprossen. Immer unbeirrbar sie selbst, fanatisch sich
selbst verschworen, feindlich allem Satten, Sicheren, Netten, vermochte sie in
dieser Sprache ihre leidenschaftlichen Gefühle auszudrücken, ohne das
Geheimnisvolle zu entschleiern und zu vergeben, das ihr Wesen war (SchmidOspach et al. 134).
Benn mentions the German language as one of the most important facets of Else LaskerSchüler’s work. Her ripe and sweet language sprung out of the heart of her creative
mind. According to Benn, her work is an amalgamation of German language and of
Jewish religious themes. However, Germany, due to its national socialistic past, was not
yet ready to accept a German-Jewish author, as Hessing describes in 1994:
Zu den Verdrängungsmechanismen der Nachkriegsgermanistik gehörte die
Werkimmanenz, mit der sich die Literatur aus jedem unerwünschtem historischen
Kontext lösen konnte. ... Doch die historische Interpretation, die nun an die
Literatur herangetragen wurde, war materialistisch. Das Judentum als geistiges
Prinzip blieb ihr fremd, und es gehört zu den Ironien dieser Entwicklung, daß die
erneute Verdrängung gerade von den jüdischen Erfindern der Kritischen Theorie
legitimiert wurde (Hessing "Dichterin Im Vakuum: Die Heimkehr Einer
Emigrantin Als Kulturpolitisches Phänomen" 9).
37
I agree with Hessing on this issue. For instance, Benn is a perfect example of a National
Socialist turning politically correct. In 1933, one year after he wrote Else Lasker-Schüler
a telegram lauding her for receiving the Kleist Preis, Benn became a supporter of the
Hitler regime. In the same year, he publicly dispossessed Klaus Mann, for example, of
his German status. He turned his back on his former friends.
Contrary to Lamping and Benn, Jakob Hessing established a thesis that LaskerSchüler was foremost Jewish and dismissed the possibility of a German-Jewish symbiosis
as I described above. Hessing took away from Lasker-Schüler’s Germanness and argues
that her life and work represent the suffering of anti-Semitism in Germany and Europe
and that she considered herself as a “Repräsentantin ihres Volkes” not only in the sense
of ethnicity but also in the sense of Judaism. He calls the poem “Sulamith” the Hohelied
and interpreted it as an expression of “messianischer Hoffnung” … mit denen sie zum
erstenmal als jüdische Dichterin an die Öffentlichkeit trat“ as Hessing describes in (Else
Lasker-Schüler : Biographie Einer Deutsch-Jüdischen Dichterin 90).
Likewise, Peter Hille, a very dear friend and mentor of Else Lasker-Schüler who
died too young, describes her as „the Jewish poet. The black swan of Israel, a Sappho
whose world has been torn asunder…” (qtd. from Falkenberg 51). Mythology describes
Sappho as a small and dark woman, writing songs of love, yearning and reflection. Her
poetry was sensual and melodic, quite like some of Else Lasker-Schüler’s work
(Hornblower and Spawforth 1355). Hille, a poet and Catholic, and Lasker-Schüler spent
much of their time together, even at the cost of Lasker-Schüler’s son: “Damit ist der
zwei- bis dreijähige Paul gemeint, der oft bei Anna Lindner abgestellt wurde, wenn seine
Mutter mit dem Hille-Kreis auf Exkursionen ging” (Bauschinger 114). Having spent a
38
lot of time with Peter Hille from 1889/1899 until his death in 1904, Lasker-Schüler and
Hille were bound to talk about religions, Lasker-Schüler’s Jewish religious background,
her assimilated German-Christian background, as well as Hille’s Catholic background.
Again, she is living the dichotomy that has accompanied her through life and work, to be
read in the Peter-Hille-Buch, an elegy to a friend she lost too early. There is no question
about her being and writing as a Jewish woman. However, calling her work a result of
the suffering of anti-Semitism in Germany and Europe, as Hessing argues, does not do
her German heritage justice and ignores some major aspects of her identity and her work,
especially her early work, Styx.
The outside forces of being of Jewish ethnicity, German-Jewish culture and
assimilation, as well as a non-conforming woman, established themselves in LaskerSchüler’s work. The thread of her many attempts at finding her Heimat are represented
in her work.
Works
Lasker-Schüler’s early works are defined by an exceptional emotional depth, in
part because of the tremendous losses of loved ones she experienced. In spite of being
Jewish and despite the rising of National Socialism, Lasker-Schüler had a wellestablished reputation in Germany as a poet, dramatist, and prose writer, as well as for
her drawings. She received the much coveted Kleist Preis for her complete works in
1932. 18 She left behind several volumes of poetry and three plays, as well as numerous
18
The Kleist Prize was the most significant prize for literature during the Weimarer Republik, established
on the 101st birthday anniversary of Heinrich Kleist.
39
short stories, essays and very many letters. Her poems have been published in various
magazines and newspapers since the late 1890s.
As a point of departure, and to establish some type of change or continuity of the
change of her religious voice and plight for Heimat, I will discuss her first published
book of poems, Styx. Styx represents the work of the younger years of her life, precisely,
the first 32 very important years. These years were spent building her life, launching her
career, having relationships and starting a family, and searching for the meaning of life.
Thereafter, I focus on the following three works by Else Lasker-Schüler: Konzert (1932),
Das Hebräerland (1936), und Mein Blaues Klavier (1943). I selected these works for the
following reasons: Konzert was written and published while she was still living in Berlin,
Germany, during a time of heightened success and after a time of the most significant
loss any person can endure, the loss of her son, Paul. Das Hebräerland was published
while she was living in Switzerland, a country that was not all that foreign to her, neither
by language nor by the landscape. She was in exile in a location where she used to spend
many summers voluntarily with friends before she was forced to move there. She loved
Switzerland and this is where her son spent the last two years in various sanatoriums
because of his tuberculosis. The last and, in my opinion, very important work is Mein
Blaues Klavier. This is her last published work during her lifetime. It is very significant
in my discussion in spite of the lack of attention it received from various scholars.
Styx – The Sturm-und-Drang Years
Her very first volume of poetry, Styx, was published in 1902. Else LaskerSchüler was 33 years old and lived in Berlin. This book does not reveal poems with
40
Jewish themes except for the one, “Sulamith,” which is clearly part of the Jewish
tradition only by name. Out of 62 poems, of which 42 were published for the first time,
only two were of religious nature: the above mentioned “Sulamith,” as well as “Das Lied
des Gesalbten,” which can be either of Jewish or Christian origin. Lasker-Schüler speaks
in this poem of Zeboath, which is one of the names for God the Almighty as well as the
Redeemer in the Old Testament, where it is mentioned 230 times, as a name for Jesus.
Because of the absence of poems with religious content, I disagree with Hessing’s
argument that Else Lasker-Schüler’s work Styx represents the suffering of German and
European anti-Semitism as described above. It does not warrant the statement, not during
this phase of her life, that Else Lasker-Schüler was trying to establish herself as a Jewish
lyricist above everything else, including the Christian faith and her German-Jewish
heritage. Most of the poems in Styx are about love and passion, written about the
experiences of a young woman with an abundance of emotions and a very high level of
sensitivity. Several of the poems are dedicated to her dead mother and brother. Some
address her family and two are addressed to her 2-year-old son, “Vorahnung” und
“Meinlingchen.” Else Lasker-Schüler was a mother with overflowing emotions and love.
“Meinlingchen” is a poem that transcends cultures and religions. Whether GermanChristian or German-Jew, a mother’s love is universal and the following poem speaks to
all mothers alike, of the birth of and the love toward her child:
Nie war so lenzenssüss mein Blut,
Als Dich mein Odem tränkte,
Die Quellen Erdens müssen so geduftet haben
Bis Dich der Muttersturm
Aus süssem Dunkel
Von meinem Herzwege pflückte
Und Dich in meine Arme legte,
In ein Bad von Küssen (GW II 56)
41
Hessing assesses Else Lasker-Schüler solely from a Jewish standpoint including
ethnicity and religion. The poem “Meinlingchen” cannot be interpreted from that
perspective. Nonetheless, he does mention her own conflicting position within Judaism
as he discusses her difficulties with Martin Buber’s philosophy, as well as her issues with
other Jewish movements, in which she did not fit; neither in Germany nor later in
Jerusalem. 19 Hessing agrees with Werner Hegglin, who writes in his dissertation that
Else Lasker-Schüler can only be interpreted and understood if the reader knows what a
Jewish person is. This means, without understanding the Diaspora, the permanent Jewish
exile since the burning of the Second Temple, no correct interpretations can be made.
However, I disagree, as I point out above with the poem “Meinlingchen.” In addition, I
will explain the difference between her works while being in psychological exile as an
ethnic Jew and while living as a German-Jewish writer in Germany and as a GermanJewish exile writer living outside of Germany. 20
Hegglin’s arguments are based on Buber’s philosophy, which is already faulted in
itself due to the fact that Else Lasker-Schüler rejected Buber’s philosophy during her
lifetime in Germany and also while living in exile in Palestine. After an argument about
Stephan George, whom she admired and thought of as Jewish, she wrote Buber a letter.
Lasker-Schüler addressed him as “Verehrter Herr von Zion” and writes:
Sie lasen Gedichte und ich mag das nicht. Sie schämen Sich, daß George Jude ist
– und sind der Herr von Zion? Ich hasse die Juden, da ich David war oder Joseph
19
Martin Buber schloss sich zuerst der zionistischen Bewegung, geleitet von Herzl, an, aber wendete sich
dann gegen die politische Seite des Zionismus, um sich der geistigen Seite dieser zu widmen. Er gab alle
Parteiarbeit auf, um 1902 den Chassidismus zu studieren.
20
Explained and discussed in the introduction pages
42
– ich hasse die Juden, weil sie meine Sprache missachten, weil ihre Ohren
verwachsen sind und sie nach Zwergerei horchen und Gemauschel. Sie fressen zu
viel, sollten hungern …(GW Briefe I, 117).
As this quote demonstrates, Lasker-Schüler was quite a cantankerous person and,
obviously, had a way with words. Being Jewish, she allowed herself to offend Buber and
other Jewish people by using this stereotypical insult used to describe Jews. Buber
continuously forgave Lasker-Schüler for her transgressions because she was “eine
wirkliche Dichterin, der alles zu verzeihen ist” (Bauschinger 168). Lasker-Schüler
admired George’s work while he rejected hers quite adamantly. She called him a “Jude”
because of his poetry, not necessarily in the religious sense. She felt connected to George
through his poetry and, therefore, called him Jewish. Buber must have understood her
temperament and personality very well. In addition, this sheds some light on our
understanding of Lasker-Schüler’s own Jewishness. Jewishness is a life-style, a type of
behavior, an insult, or a compliment, depending of what type of generalization she
applies. Jewishness is like everything else in life. It has its good sides and its not so
good sides. Not much later Lasker-Schüler had a change of heart and rejected George for
using poetry as a tool to preach. She wrote to George’s friend: “Ramsenith, dein George
ist ein altmodischer Schulmeister, der nun eine alte Jungfer wird” (Bauschinger 127). 21
If somebody did not share her opinion or she did not share theirs, she was not bashful to
speak her mind.
Else Lasker-Schüler enjoyed Buber as a constant in her life that revitalized her
and gave her the audience that she remembered from her glorious days before exile.
21
This is Lasker-Schüler’s name for Karl Wolfskehl.
43
Having lost so many family members and friends, she was happy to have him. The quote
in which she states to Buber that she is neither a Zionist nor a Jew nor a Christian but a
simple human being, attests to a certain trust to each other up until her death. 22 They met
frequently in Jerusalem, where both resided. However, she remained true to her
convictions and never wavered in her beliefs that Buber was a “gothischer Judenerzähler”
and that her uncle Dr. Sonnenschein would be very proud of him (GW I 127).23 Else
Lasker-Schüler’s uncle rejected his niece because of her Bohemian lifestyle in Berlin. He
did not consider her to be of good Jewish faith and worthy of being part of his family
(qtd. from Klüsener 57). Lasker-Schüler, however, rejected Buber’s fundamentalism and
wished that people were more like
Jesus von Nazareth . . . pflanzlicher. Er drang die Menschen nicht und wenn wir
nur von seiner einfachen Lehre wüssten, gäbe es heute noch Judenchristen und
das wäre eine Brücke zwischen Juden und Christen“ (Briefe I 127).24
By calling Buber a “gothischer Judenerzähler” means that he and his Judaism had not
changed with the times. She implies that the needs she has and maybe other members of
the Jewish faith, ethnicity, and various assimilated cultures from all over the world had
have not been considered by his philosophy.
The poems in Styx are loosely grouped in two parts, divided by the two religious
poems, “Das Lied des Gesalbten” and “Sulamith” (GW I 36-37). The first group consists
of poems written to and about her family, and Lasker-Schüler’s relationship to her
22
Else Lasker-Schüler Briefe I (127).
23
GW I stands for Friedhelm Kemp, ed., Else Lasker-Schüler: Gedichte, vol. I, 3 vols. (München: Kösel-
Verlag 1961). I will use this abbreviation from here on.
24
Briefe I stands for Margarete Kupper, ed., Else Lasker-Schüler: Briefe I, vol. I, 2 vols. (München: Kösel-
Verlag München, 1969). I will use this abbreviation from here on.
44
favorite brother, Paul, when she was 13 and her mother when she was 21. Family is a
recurring theme in her work, as is love and loss. The latter part, the larger part of Styx,
includes poems of sensuous love and hatred, rounded up by poems of lust and the
feelings of corporal sin and temptation as shown in an excerpt of the last poem of Styx,
“Im Anfang,” with the subtitle in parenthesis and italics:
(Weltscherzo):
Hing an einer goldenen Lenzwolke,
Als die Welt noch Kind war,
Und Gott noch junger Vater war.
...
In den Himmel sperrte ich Satan ein
Und Gott in die rauchende Hölle ein.
...
Würde 10 000 Erdglück geben,
Noch einmal so gottgeboren zu leben, so gottgeborgen, so offenbar.
Ja! Ja!
Als ich noch Gottes Schlingel war! (GW I 76).25
This poem reminds readers of the follies of youth. God is a loving father who forgives
his child his or her transgressions and laughs them off, fully understanding the young
who have the tendency to turn everybody’s world upside down. The lyrical “I” muses
over the innocence as well as the warmth and security s/he had when living his/her life
with a forgiving God, who was in communication with Satan, having a hearty laugh at
the “I” for committing a deadly sin. The regret is evident but not about committing a
deadly sin, but about the loss of innocence and the knowledge of what a deadly sin is and
the restraints that come along with that knowledge.
Styx is, in essence, a work by a woman writing during the Sturm-und-DrangJahre of her life. The book of poems is full of emotional experiences. It speaks of the
25
I interpret the word Schlingel as young rascal in this context as a child that gets into mischief.
45
loss of her beloved mother and brother and the birth of her child; it speaks of
experiencing very passionate love, as well as of regrets and atonement. Lasker-Schüler
was 33 years old at the time of publishing this work – well into her adult life. However,
at that point of time, her religious Jewish voice barely exists except for the two religious
poems, “Sulamith” and “Das Lied des Gesalbten,” which are neither entirely Jewish nor
German.
Konzert – Homage to a world lost
My next focus is Konzert, Lasker-Schüler’s last work published in Germany in
1932. It was also one of the last books printed in Germany by a German-Jewish writer.
Lasker-Schüler published many works during the early 1920s, but they mostly contained
already published work in new constellations and poems and letters in different
magazines and newspapers. I emphasize the importance of Konzert because of LaskerSchüler’s age and maturity. At the time of publication she was 63 years old. Naturally,
at that point she left many stages of her life behind, especially the young and physical
part of her passionate years. She lost many of her friends who moved away due to the
rise of National Socialism. Other friends died or outgrew their relationships. Another
distinction between this work and her earlier works is the lack of her Orient motives, as
well as the allusions to the Bohemia, which used to be a vital part of her life but was no
longer so. An important aspect of Konzert, next to its subject content, is her style and the
pieces that vary greatly in theme, mood, length and complexity. Nonetheless, they are
unified by the distinct and lyrical personality of her artistic skills and carry on the legacy
she built in her earlier works. This prose work, Konzert, incorporates 16 of her old
46
poems, 12 new lyrical texts including a sonnet, as well as new rhymed poems with three
to four stanzas. It is, in part, semi-autobiographical because of the enraptured memories
of her childhood, youth, and early adulthood. However, it does not cover up the
increasing melancholy that the Nazi era evoked.
The changes in her religious voice tie in with the concept of Heimat. Two
scholars, Sonja Hedgepeth and Jean Snooks argue that this work was written by an exile
(Schürer and Hedgepeth 227). As established earlier, there are different types of exiles.
Hedgepeth and Snooks discuss the alienation of Else Lasker-Schüler as a woman, artist
and Jew in Germany. I am investigating the changes in her writings due to her physical
exile, not only her personal development. Snooks discusses exile in regards to LaskerSchüler’s losses in life, such as her son, family members, and friends. Another
significant loss was the lack of acceptance in her cherished hometown Elberfeld in North
Rhine Westphalia during her last poetry reading there. I argue that these losses are the
ones of an aging woman who has lost many things in her life. Lasker-Schüler sums up
and tries to come to terms with, as well as says “good bye” to a part of her that has
changed through aging and natural losses. However, she will even lose more.
In Konzert, Lasker-Schüler lets her life pass review. She pays homage to family
and friends that she has lost during the past 63 years of her life. She honors her
hometown and childhood in the first essay, “Elberfeld im Wuppertal”. She pays homage
to her best childhood friend, Alfred Baumann, in the essay “Unser Gärtchen.” She talks
about “Freundschaft und Liebe” in an essay with the same title, and how childhood
friends will remain friends in spite of their social statuses and other life experiences.
Lasker-Schüler compares childhood friends to love and love affairs, which are, for many
47
people, as Lasker-Schüler writes “in der Erinnerung nur ein überstandenes »Erlebnis«”,
while “Wir aber, die die Liebe als Paradies erkannten, fühlen, daß uns selbst noch seine
Finsternis, das Erlöschen der Liebe, - himmlisch verbindet“ (GW II 617). Lasker-Schüler
is convinced that people who have recognized love as paradise are connected with each
other. They stay friends because they walked on similar paths. She describes people
with a tremendous sensitivity like herself, while some others do not have the depth of
feelings within themselves, and passionate love for them is only an impassionate
memory.
Lasker-Schüler interweaves her Konzert with references to God, nature and love.
Her essays and poems are inspiring and forward-looking, not yet resigned: “Wie
bewillkommne ich darum den 1. Mai, das Goldkind der Monate, mit seinem warmen
Odem” (GW II 738). Her essay “Butterfly” tells of a little butterfly trampled to death.
Her friend Klaus says it is dead and asks her if she wants to play God: “Freilich will ich
den lieben Gott spielen” (GW II 667). She picks up the butterfly, takes it home and lays
the little trampled creature on a rose petal. Once in a while, she blows her warm breath
over him in order to awaken him. The essay about the butterfly is a testament of her
belief in her own still existing power and strength, not to mention her will. Most
powerful, as well as full of hope, is the last essay of Konzert, entitled “Gebet”. LaskerSchüler believes that a poet is closest to God; that s/he is on earth to amalgamate peoples
and religions in love and peace in order to bring them closer together and therefore to
God:
Die Dichtung bettet sich neben Gott. Wie könnten sonst die von der Dichtung
vergewaltigten Auserwählten die unmenschliche Verantwortung der Weisheit auf
48
sich nehmen? Der Prophet, des Dichters ältester Bruder, erbte die Zucht des
Gewissens direkt vom Schöpfer. Die Zucht des Gewissens aber adelt auch den
Dichter, und der geringste Fehltritt rächt sich naturgemäß in der Glaubwürdigkeit
seines Verses. Die Dichtung ergibt also, vom erwählten Dichter
niedergeschrieben: den Extrakt höherer Wahrheit (GW II 778). 26
As the quote indicates, the poet carries the great burden of teaching and telling the truth,
otherwise the verses will tell. In other words, the responsibility of a poet is to breathe
Odem into people with their lives’ work. Lasker-Schüler closes the essay “Gebet” with
the following words: “Ich möchte dem Leser eine ruhige Stunde schenken mit meinem
Gebet, in das ich wie eine Girlande ab und zu eine seltene Blume stecke. Ihr Duft soll
ihn nicht betäuben, aber erwecken” (GW II 784). Lasker-Schüler carries the burden of
being a poet with pride and joy. She is a chosen one, chosen by God.
Nonetheless, Lasker-Schüler’s memories in Konzert include specific Jewish
cultural and religious events, as well as an essay on the Dalai Lama and his monks
staying in the same hotel she has been staying in for years in Berlin, Hotel Sachsenhof.
She describes them as follows:
Es sind liebe, kindhafte Menschen, fromm und weise, die von der Höhe ihres
Landes zu uns kamen; stille Blumen ranken sich um ihre sonnigen Herzen, und
ihre milden Sammetaugen gleichen den heiligen Rinderaugen ihrer Urgottheiten
(GW II 644).
Lasker-Schüler’s description of the Dalai Lama and his monks as naïve and innocent
reminds of the poem she wrote at the end of Styx, “Im Anfang” (Briefe I 76). The
26
Lasker-Schüler does not distinguish between a Jewish or Christian God. She uses the word Gott
throughout all her works.
49
adjectives kindhaft, fromm, and weise repeat the tone of certain lines in the poem, i.e.
“Als die Welt noch Kind war” and “Noch einmal so gottgeboren zu leben” (GW I 76).
The innocence she has lost because of her experience is still intact in the behavior and
belief of the Dalai Lama and his monks. It ties in with another essay and another person
Lasker-Schüler described a lot in her work: her father. Her 45th essay in Konzert is
entitled “Der Versöhnungstag”, Yom Kippur. Lasker-Schüler portrays her father as a
“Schelm” and “so störte der den Gottesdienst, ohne diese Sünde zu beabsichtigen“ (GW
II 749). The same innocence the “Lamas” exhibit is present in the case of her father. 27
Additionally, there is even some ignorance present in her father’s behavior. In the essay,
Lasker-Schüler describes him as being preoccupied with his clothes, the number of
dumplings on his plate and how his tie is tied for dinner. The essay does not give the
impression that her father has outgrown his childhood and or that he thinks about the
meaning of Yom Kippur. Nonetheless, he loves that holiday and enjoys it to the fullest;
so does Lasker-Schüler’s lyrical “I” in the poem “Im Anfang.” Lasker-Schüler takes her
occupation as a poet very seriously. The content of her essays and poems in Konzert are
at times deeply religious. However, they are not often specifically Jewish. Her semiautobiographical essays, culminating in “Gebet,” show her religious development since
childhood.
Lasker-Schüler’s religious voice in Konzert (1932) reflects an amalgamation of
her ongoing deep trust in the Bible and God, which are, in part, religious and cultural
27
Else Lasker-Schüler calls them the Lamas.
50
assets from her life in Germany and Europe. 28 At this point of her lifelong writing career
she has mentioned the Kabala only once. It is in Konzert in her last essay “Gebet” as an
explanation to an earlier poem “Jakob”, which she published in Hebräische Balladen
(1937). She assures the reader that until after the publication of the Hebräische Balladen
she has never before read in the Kabala: “Eitelkeit kommt hier nicht in Frage, und ich
beteure, nie im Leben vor meiner hebräischen Ballade »Jakob« je in der Kabala gelesen
zu haben, noch von ihrem Inhalt gewußt durch Hörensagen” (GW II 782). Importantly,
she had been reading the Kabala in recent years, but not before she wrote Hebräische
Balladen, and definitely not before writing and publishing Konzert. Else Lasker-Schüler
claimed by her own assessment that she was not well read. 29
The texts in Konzert are a testament of her search and her belief in God, in spite
of the death of her son. There is no desperate search for an answer but a gentle prodding
for the truth and the wish that her reader will find the bigger truth in her essays, which
she feels is her duty as a poet. However, her God is nowhere confirmed to be Christian
or Jewish.
Hebräerland – Exile in Switzerland
The next steps in Lasker-Schüler’s life are the seven years that she was forced to
live in Switzerland, interrupted by her two trips to Palestine. Her first trip to Alexandria
28
Eine Beschreibung über das „kulturelle Gedächtnis” und wie die Bibel der zentrale Text des kulturellen
Gedächtnisses des Judentums ist, wird beschrieben in Jan Assmann, Das Kulturelle Gedächtnis: Schrift,
Erinnerung Und Politische Identität in Frühen Hochkulturen., 2 ed. (München: C.H. Beck, 1997).
29
However, before Else Lasker-Schüler left for her last trip to Palestine she stored some of her possessions
in the Zürcher Kunsthaus. In that suitcase were books from Baudelaire, Swedenborg, Thomas Mann, as
well as the Kabala and secondary literature about the Kabala.
51
and Palestine was a lifelong dream come true. She left on the invitation of friends in
March of 1934 to return in July. The second trip she had to take in order to regain entry
into Switzerland took place in 1937. During the year she lived in Zürich, the summers
she usually spent in Ascona. Nonetheless, her years in Switzerland were crowned with
some response to her work in spite of the prohibition to work. If she had gotten money
for her work she would have lost her visa. Her play Arthur Aronymus und seine Väter
was performed for the first time in 1936, but dropped off the program after the second
evening. The premiere of Wupper was scheduled for the first time in 1937 but was
cancelled, also. However, in 1937, she finally managed to get Hebräerland published by
a small Swiss publishing company. She wrote Hebräerland immediately after her return
from her first trip to Jerusalem in July of 1935 but spent the following two years
searching for a publisher.
After having lost her life the way she knew it and being homeless in Switzerland
Lasker-Schüler had to reorient herself and search for new ideas. Visiting Palestine and
Jerusalem, places she has always dreamed and written about, was the next logical step for
her. Hebräerland, her last and by far most voluminous prose work, explores the
possibilities of different religions living peacefully and neighborly together. The problem
is, though, that a country like Palestine where the Arabians and the Jewish people have
been vying over the same place throughout history is interspersed with many other issues,
such as language barriers and poverty. Moreover, different types of Jewry from many
different countries with their own prejudices towards each other also live in that place
and make communication between people from the same ethnic groups difficult.
52
Hebräerland is in part a travel diary, as well as an exile novel. It can be also
interpreted as an attempt at a literary recounting of an adventure in a foreign country.30
But above all, it is a creation of a place Lasker-Schüler has been imagining since she was
a small child, which she herself confirms in a letter to her long-time friend Werner Kraft
on June 22, 1944, seven months before her death and nine years after she went to
Palestine for the first time:
Manchmal sitze ich so einsam am Fenster im Café Imperial and denke: Es ist
nicht möglich. [...] Ich bin am Ende, SO litt ich – hier im Volk, für das ich mich
schlug – seit – Kind. Alles, ja alles vorbei in mir, auch für E., leider: Liebe,
Freundschaft sind Hände. Meine eigenen gebrochen. Jussuf. 31
Since she was a small child she has fought for the Volk, the people she loved. It is
quite clear, that she means the Jewish and the Arab people who exist in her imagined
beloved Hebräerland. She means the many different peoples who live peacefully side
by side, the peoples from the Biblelland as she calls Palestine because “Palestina ist das
Land des Gottesbuchs, Jerusalem – Gottes verschleierte Braut.” (GW II 788).
Hebräerland ties together parts of her earlier work, but by no means as much as
Konzert does. Deeply moving is the fact that Lasker-Schüler had to wait so many years
until she finally could travel, invited by friends to her “Bibelland”, which is how the
narrator repeatedly names Palestine; at this point Lasker-Schüler was 66 years old (GW
II 786). The first person narrator delves without much ado right into the description of
30
Hennecke-Weischer explores different types of applications towards what kind of literature scholars have
applied to Hebräerland. Henneke-Weischer, Poetisches Judentum : Die Bibel Im Werk Else LaskerSchülers 290ff.
31
The editor of her letters initially put Else in for E. But E. stands for her very last love Ernst Simon.
53
communicating with a Bedouin. Since she does not know Arabic, her fellow passenger
on the bus is quietly laughing, however “in principal, one understands one another in
this Holy Land” (GW II 787). This is Else Lasker-Schüler’s first memory from her trip
to Palestine. Since she finds it important enough to mention it on the first page, it must
have left a lasting impression. For a person who communicates through written words
and speech, the lack of communication as a poet and writer and self-appointed sister of a
prophet must have left her at times mute and deaf. Therefore, living in Switzerland was a
better choice for her and much lesser of an exile as her life would otherwise have been
outside of Europe. She had friends there, the language was in part German, and the
beautiful green and lush country of Switzerland resembles Germany much more closely
than Palestine with its barren land ever will.
Another aspect of Hebräerland, next to communication difficulties, is her feeling
of inadequacy in her Jewishness. This is evident through the narrator who admires the
religious and zealous clergymen, especially the head of the Jews of Jerusalem at that
time, Rabbi Kooks. Nonetheless, she criticizes the Jewish clergy fairly early in the text
by mentioning that he includes
leise murrend die »gesetzesvergessenen« Juden und Hebräer westlicher
Himmelsgegenden Europas in sein Gebet. Bindet mit heimlicher Überwindung
schier die Zweige der anverwandten Spezies, mißtrauisch, mißmutig, doch
gewissenhaft, mit der Faser seines stämmigen Herzens zu dem göttlichen Strauß
seiner teuren, gottesfürchtigen Geschöpfes Galiziens (GW II 799).
Lasker-Schüler put the word gesetzesvergessen in quotes in her original text. A woman
who has lost her home country because of the new laws of the Hitler regime, most likely
54
finds the word “Gesetz” in combination with religion and God neither religious nor
comforting. In my earlier discussion above about Buber I quoted Lasker-Schüler saying
that people should be more like “Jesus von Nazareth . . . pflanzlicher. Er drang die
Menschen nicht und wenn wir nur von seiner einfachen Lehre wüssten, gäbe es heute
noch Judenchristen und das wäre eine Brücke zwischen Juden und Christen“ (Briefe I
127). She knows that many of those rituals are manmade. It must have felt very
unsettling to realize this type of discrimination from a place on earth she has admired
since she was a small child. The Rabbi refers here to Jews who were by ethnicity and
culture Jewish and maybe not as much by religious traditions due to their assimilation. In
addition, coming from various countries all over, they were not as as well versed in the
Talmud and Torah. Lasker-Schüler feels criticized and vulnerable, when a guest at the
table gives her a look of disapproval for not following the strict rituals of the Shabbat
dinner:
Ein strafender Blick traf mich aus den Augen meines Nachbar, der mich erinnern
sitze beim Heiligen Schabattmahle und nicht an einer Geburtstagstafel.... Ich
wandte mich zu dem gestrengen Manne des Herrn neben mir und fragte ihn, ob er
die sieben weißen Kerzen brennen sehe. Doch alle nach ihrer Art, »nach ihrer
einigen, eigenen Flamme« (GW II 834).
A woman who has lost her home country and whose books were burnt went to the land of
her dreams to find the same reproach by a person who is supposed to be just like her,
Jewish, something she has been proud of for so very long. She just wishes to be able to
be herself, a poet and a person with her own thoughts, religion and past, burning
individually, like each of those seven candles, different but the same in their beauty and
55
function. This description of the Shabbat dinner stands in stark contrast to the one she
remembers just a few passages later. The narrator remembers the Easter meal at her
family’s home when she was ten years old that was full of laughter and fun: ”Mich weich
erinnernd, entfaltete sich von neuem im Reich des Oberpriesters am Zweig meines
Herzens ein Lebensblatt zwischen den liebreichen Knospen der atmenden Girlande“ (GW
II 853). This memory was evoked by attending Easter dinner at Rabbi Pratos von
Alexandrien’s home. He was originally from Italy and formerly in charge of the
Synagogue of Venice. The Rabbi admired her for her Hebräische Balladen and
apologized to Lasker-Schüler that he only knows her work in translation: “Er begrüßte
mich, »die Dichterin«, deren hebräische Balladen er kenne, leider nur übersetzt” (GW II
851). The Rabbi and his wife are familiar with European customs and European Jews.
Else Lasker-Schüler enjoyed the family with their children, the food, the music, as well
as the poetry reading during the course of the evening. These familiar customs reminded
her of her family and childhood. The narrator describes the Rabbi as a person who is
trying to find peace and happiness. He is not at all like the zealously religious clergyman
at the dinner described earlier who uses his Jewish religion to point out that she is an
offense to God because of her lack of decorum at the Shabbat table.
Lasker-Schüler is grappling in Hebräerland with the different Jewish backgrounds
and trying to understand them. She is very disappointed at times. However, she has not
lost all hopes, yet. At this point she still finds good and bad aspects in Palestine. She
travels much and portraits the Arab and Jewish people as living in peace. However, the
security and strength in her religious conviction is waning in this work compared to
Konzert. That may be the reason why she calls Palestine in German das Hebräerland,
56
land of the Hebrews, void of religions and names of peoples, as Margarete Pazi describes
in her essay “Verkünderin West-Östlicher Prägung” (65 - 74). The narrator continuously
points out the poverty between different tribes and even different Jews, especially women
and children. She writes:
Die Armut der Frauen und Kinder unseres Volkes und die des arabischen ergreift
mich schwer. Alle die armseligen Mütter mit ihren Kinder…. Ich werde traurig In ihren Wimpern hausen Insekten und schläfern die jungen Träger ein (GW II
817).
Since these children will never be able to see the beauty of life, the question arises how
can they believe in God and love? At their very tender ages, their eyes are already shut,
but one has to be able to see and envision God in order to create that imaginary paradise
as Lasker-Schüler tried to do in Hebräerland.
Lasker-Schüler as the narrator describes in her work Hebräerland that she felt
very sad about leaving for Switzerland. However, in Switzerland she may have felt
lonely as Michael Schmid-Ospach argues (Schmid-Ospach et al. 16-19). Nonetheless,
she concedes that she loved Switzerland with its “lieblichen Tälern, die Bäche lächeln
wie Grübchen” (GW II 211). With all the difficulties she encounters in Palestine she was
able to go back to a familiar location and write and create a place that is more than a
documentary of concretely realized encounters and communication, as Doerte Bischoff
points out, but a place where the protagonist is not only able to design a real and ideal
world but also has the possibility to constitute herself to her relationship to the world and
to others (467-68). As Buber terms it, Else Lasker-Schüler devoted herself in
Switzerland to a designing of a longing or yearning (qtd. from Bishoff 470). Her longing
57
is still described as somewhat hopeful and, yet, already skeptic images surface of the
world that she has been trying to build since she was a child. This is evident in her letter
to Schalem Ben-Chorin, to whom she wrote in 1937 on her second trip to Palestine:
Herr Korin, […] überhaupt, ich kann es nicht ertragen, wenn man mir helfen will.
Die Leute meinen immer, der Dichter brauchen Hilfe, aber das stimmt nicht: wir
Dichter sind doch immer die Klügeren und behalten zum Schluß gegen die Bürger
Recht (Schmid 261). 32
Jan Assmann agrees with Else Lasker-Schüler’s words to Ben-Chorin and writes that
”she makes magical an unmagical corner of Germany, discerns the miraculous in the
neglected and ignored, and finds wisdom and comfort in prayer and cosmic perspective”
(212). With Hebräerland, Lasker-Schüler moved on from her previous work, Konzert, to
a very new level of writing. Her voice has changed to a less religious all-embracing
acceptance of the individual, in particular the poor, women, and children. Some of the
people she mentioned in Konzert still appear, such as Peter Hille, her father, and
memories of her family members, but many are just mentioned in passing. She has come
to terms with some of the changes in her life. The protagonist’s prophetic endeavor to
rebuild and maybe finish the construction of different peoples living in peace with each
other, religion is at the forefront in Hebräerland. However, towards the end of this work,
the experiences with the practical and familiar give the protagonist joy. She describes the
area in relation of whom she meets:
32
Schalom Ben-Chorin describes his relationship with Else Lasker-Schüler in his essay “Jussuf in
Jerusalem”.
58
In Haifa am Fuß des Carmels wohnt der berühmte Maler und Radierer: Hermann
Struck . . . Unbändig war meine Freude, als ich in einem Winkel der Cafelaube
den Arckitekten [Rahel] . . . entdeckte . . . Oben auf dem heiligen Plateau des
Carmels erbaute der österreichische Baumeister Krakauer . . . Auf einmal standen
wir vor dem Waldhaus des prachtvollen liebreichen Dichters Arnold Zweig . . .
und unwirklich vollzieht sich die Trennung von meinen Freunden . . . In meiner
Träne verschwimmen am Ufer meine geliebten Freunde (GW II 969 – 70).
Lasker-Schüler’s last thoughts in Hebräerland are about her friends. Familiar names and
people from Germany and Austria settling in her “Bibelland,” make it difficult for her to
leave. She is losing friends again, familiar friends and a Heimat when she leaves to go
back to Switzerland, thinking that she might not see them again. At this point, the reader
can already see the change of Lasker-Schüler’s religious voice from a self-assigned
responsibility as a poet and a writer to spread God’s word in Konzert to a person who is
worldlier. The religious voice is becoming stronger and more urgent but also more selfconscious and less convincing; it is changing from the prophetic to the prosaic and from
the visionary to the more practical towards the end of Hebräerland. This change can be
seen clearly in her last work published during her lifetime. However, she changes her
religious voice in Mein blaues Klavier completely from the practical and prosaic to the
personal, herself.
Mein blaues Klavier - Exile in Palestine
After her third and last trip to Palestine in 1939, Lasker-Schüler was not allowed
to return to Switzerland. During the fall and winter of 1940 and 1941, she wrote her play
59
IchundIch, which was published postmortem in a special edition in 1979 by dtv sr 39.
She also wrote most of her poems for Mein blaues Klavier during that time, which was
published in June of 1943 with only 330 copies. Else Lasker-Schüler signed each
individual copy – they were dedicated to “Meinen unvergeßlichen Freunden und
Freundinnen in den Städten Deutschlands – und denen, die wie ich vertrieben und nun
zerstreut in der Welt, In Treue!” (Klüsener et al. 315). Mein blaues Klavier consists of
32 poems, which have been partially written in Switzerland but finished in Palestine. The
themes of exile and losses dominate the first part. The poems exude longing for a lost
home, family and friends, sorrow for the darkening of the world and the certainty of
death. Only one poem is dedicated to Jerusalem. The twelve poems of this anthology
before the very last “An Mich,” however, are a collection of poems dedicated “An Ihn”,
the man she passionately loved for the last few years of her life. He is Ernst Simon, a
professor, theologian, philosopher, and a man who appreciated her work as a poet. These
twelve poems are beautiful love poems. However, their tone is different from the love
poems she wrote as a younger woman. They show the unfulfilled and hopeless love to
this man who was 34 years younger than she was, married with two children. The poem
“So lange ist es her….” serves as an example of this change of mood.
Ich träume so fern dieser Erde
Als ob ich gestorben wär
Und nicht mehr verkörpert werde.
Im Marmor deiner Gebärde
Erinnert mein Leben sich näher.
Doch ich weiß die Wege nicht mehr.
Nun hüllt die glitzernde Sphäre
Im Demantkleide mich schwer.
Ich aber greife ins Leere.
60
The loneliness and the despair of the lyrical I are obvious. The poem seems to be written
from beyond, as if she were watching from above and not able to touch and feel. The
remembrance of youth and passion are still there. However, she fully knows it is not for
her to have anymore. Her end is near and her body is old. Lasker-Schüler never
accepted aging very well, one reason, why she spent most of her life making herself
seven years younger. Ernst-Andres Ziegler writes:
Sie stand stundenlang vor seinem Haus, nur in der Hoffnung, ihn für einen
Moment sehen zu können. Sie kümmert sich nicht um das, was die Leute sagten,
war verrückt vor Sehnsucht, schrieb glühende Gedichte, pausenlos Liebesbriefe.
Die Ehefrau hat einfach alles abgeheftet (Schmid 195).
Else Lasker-Schüler has always been a passionate woman. Having failed in building this
“Land der Hebräer”, the new land where different peoples and religions can exist in
peace and find a new Heimat, she directs her passion from the religious and prophetic to
the personal. Testimonies of this development are other poems, which speak of her
family, such as her mother and son, who she wants to be reunited with. Her religious
voice has changed from building and prophecy of a bright and safe future to resignation
on earth and reunification with family and friends in eternity, which indicates her
German-Christian assimilated upbringing. Sigrid Bauschinger writes that the city of
Jerusalem reflects a “Necropolis, the streets are mausoleums, a city that yet has to
experience resurrection, a burial place of an ancient city” (Else Lasker-Schüler :
Biographie 413) . I agree, and argue that she felt buried alive without even being able to
speak her mother tongue.
61
Lasker-Schüler’s religious and prophetic voice as we know it from Konzert and
Hebräerland has almost fallen silent. That is no wonder, considering the language she
used to write in was silenced. At the beginning of WWII no German was allowed to be
written in letters going in and out of Palestine. Lasker-Schüler used English and
Wuppertaler Platt, the dialect of her hometown to communicate with her German friends.
It is very sad that she has to communicate in a dialect from the hometown that has
rejected her, one that she left behind as a young bride when she moved to Berlin in 1894.
Wei Hu writes in her dissertation:
Obwohl die autobiographischen Anekdoten einen faktischen Anlass haben, sind
sie literarische Konstruktionen. Erst in der Formulierung und Gestaltung tritt der
Erkenntnisgehalt hervor, wobei es nicht auf die faktische Korrektheit ankommt,
sondern auf ihre Bedeutung zur Erkenntnisgewinnung. Hier geht es beim
Erzählen der Familiengeschichte um ein Fortführen und Festhalten der Tradition
des bürgerlichen Zeitalters, um ein Schließen der Lücke, die Hitler in die
Kontinuitätslinie der Tradition gerissen hat (Hu 113). 33
Lasker-Schüler’s attempt to build an imaginary paradise, which she envisions as a life
living under her Urvolk, together with other peoples, failed. Her prophetic promises and
hopes to be fulfilled on Earth, still imagined in Hebräerland, are not evident in Mein
blaues Klavier. She was still trying to fill a gap in both Konzert and Hebräerland. The
loss of her friends, family members, and especially her son, led Lasker-Schüler to
continue her search for a Heimat. Therefore, it is no surprise, applying Hu’s thesis
above, that Lasker-Schüler attempted to close the gap. For her, there is only one road left
33
Wei Hu writes her dissertation using the examples of exiles such as Stephan Zweig, Heinrich Mann and
Alfred Döblin.
62
to follow to find God and her loved ones she has lost – within herself “Meinwärts” and
beyond in Heaven. 34
Closing Remarks
Based on my findings, I conclude that with her loss of home, living in exile, first
in Switzerland and then in Jerusalem, Else Lasker-Schüler has lost her prophetic stance
towards reuniting religions in peace on Earth. She has lost her ability to communicate in
her mother tongue to an audience, a European or German audience. Between her first
trip to Palestine and the publication of Mein Blaues Klavier, nine years have gone by.
Many of Lasker-Schüler’s contemporaries have moved on or died. At this point, she was
74 years old. She has given up on her new audience in Israel, which is so different and
has nothing in common with her former life in Europe. She now concentrates on people
and thoughts she has carried within her throughout her life. Lasker-Schüler cannot
construct the world in its former beauty. This inability is partially due to the loss of
familiar surroundings, including climate and nature, as well as the loss of friends. Her
religious voice changed from the outer world and the prophetic stance towards herself,
inwards with her eyes on Heaven beyond. I agree with Almuth Hammer, who argues in
Erzählung erinnern: Literatur als Medium jüdischen Selbstverständnisses that ”Der
poetologische Gesamtentwurf Else Lasker-Schülers in einem rein ästhetischen
Verständnis vom Religion nicht aufgeht“ (208). He states further, that poetology has
established through Lasker-Schüler’s work that
34
Last line in the poem “Weltflucht” Styx.
63
auch der Anspruch erhoben [wird] über das Sich-Einschreiben in die jüdische
Tradition zu einer Neuformulierung jüdischen Selbstverständnisses zu gelangen,
um diesem damit zugleich einen neuen Ort zuzuweisen“ (208).
Else Lasker-Schüler’s poetic voice has changed in her work through exile. However, in
the end, as Hammer establishes, her Jewishness is different due to the fact of her
assimilation. Her work is a building block in traditional Jewish elements with the goal to
fill in the gaps of memory caused by assimilation and to re-establish her own Jewish selfimage and identity. When she lost her physical Heimat she tried to find her it in her
Jewishness, evident in Konzert und Hebräerland.
In the end, though, her very first published book of poetry, Styx, compared to her
very last published book during her lifetime, Mein blaues Klavier are very similar. Her
life is accompanied by many losses - family members, friends and her physical Heimat.
Her son died in 1927 when she was 53. These losses find their voice in Styx und Mein
blaues Klavier in the Christian context of heaven. Lasker-Schüler dedicates the second
poem in Styx to her mother and most of the other poems to her family and friends. This
longing for her mother, as well as brother and son culminate in the very last poem out of
the Mein blaues Klavier¸“An Mich.” It bears witness to her never-ending yearning for a
reunion with her family her emotional Heimat:
…Ich sitze noch heute sitzengeblieben auf der untersten
Bank der Schuklasse, wie einst...Doch mit spätem versunkenem
Herzen: 1000 und 2jährig, dem Märchen über den
Kopf gewachsen.
…Meine Freiheit soll mir niemand rauben, - sterb ich am
Wegrand wo, liebe Mutter, kommst du und trägst mich hinauf
zum blauen Himmel. Ich weiß, dich rührte mein einsames
Schweben und das spielende Ticktack meines und meines teuren
Kindes Herzen (GW I 371).
64
To have chosen this poem as her very last poem in her last book of poems published
gives it tremendous significance. The title “An Mich” lends itself to the conclusion that it
is a gift to her. It is her final understanding of the world. She sums up her life and the
important issues in her life by lamenting going back into the fold of her family, her
mother, her son, as well as the loss of her home, her Heimat, which she never found on
Earth but hopes to find in heaven. Her seemingly aimless wandering is symbolized by
Wegrand and her search for Heimat. To stop and sit at the side of the road means she
never reached her final destination on earth. However, as I have established, LaskerSchüler’s Heimat is with the family she had lost. Her lifelong search for a place of
happiness, peace, and a home, is above and beyond in heaven, because according to the
title of Horst Bienek’s essay about Lasker-Schüler, “Nur Ewigkeit ist kein Exil”
(Bienek). Else Lasker-Schüler’s religious voice from a young woman’s ideology to the
voice of a mature woman resigning in her earthly quests and nearing the end of her life
still shows the yearning for answers in regards of family, religion, and Heimat. Styx and
Mein blaues Klavier¸ works that were published in Germany in 1902 and Palestine in
1943 – forty-one years and two worlds apart – have the religious voice of her Christian
assimilated upbringing. The discovery of her Jewish religious heritage carried her full of
purpose and hope through the early trauma of exile. However, Lasker-Schüler’s religious
Christian voice returned to the writing of her earlier years in her search for Heimat, which
can only be achieved in reuniting with her family in heaven.
65
CHAPTER II
Nelly Sachs
Nelly Sachs’ life and work is an amalgamation of secrets, suffering, and
longing, as well as incredible success during her lifetime. In the first part of this chapter,
I will discuss Sachs’ biography and life experiences in combination with some of her
work. The second part of this chapter will be dedicated to Sachs’ sense of Heimat and
her Jewishness. This discussion will help clarify many terms and developments
throughout Sachs’ life. In the final part of the chapter, I will discuss all the above
mentioned influences in order to establish if and how exile influenced Sachs’ experience
of religion in exile and work.
I see many similarities between Nelly Sachs’ work and life and Else LaskerSchüler’s work and life, which I discussed in the previous chapter. In addition, there
were many personal differences between the two, in regards to their approach of dealing
with hardship and losses. Both writers used the medium of writing to handle their
individual life challenges and to find their place in literary history. One of the biggest
differences between the two women and their personalities is that of their mental
dispositions. Birgit Antonsson describes Sachs as a person with “einem Hang zur
Wehmut,” while Lasker-Schüler had a tremendously positive outlook on life and even
towards death (Dinesen and Kungliga Biblioteket (Sweden) 7). Lasker-Schüler looked at
life as an adventure, while Sachs deemed it to be a terrible burden.
Nelly Sachs was born to William and Margarete Sachs as Leonie Sachs on
December 10, 1891. She was the only child of this upper middle class family in Berlin.
66
Her father was a factory owner with multiple talents in engineering and the arts. Her
mother was twenty when Sachs was born, a very young woman with a Junior High
School education. Nelly Sachs grew up dressed in silk and satins. She had everything a
child could desire, even a pet deer in her backyard that she called her little brother, as one
of Sachs’ cousins wrote through her husband to Ruth Dinesen in 1982 (Nelly Sachs :
Eine Biographie 241). In addition, he also wrote that she always had all her whims and
wishes fulfilled. However, Dinesen points out that there may have been some jealousy
because Sachs’ cousin, Emmy Brand, had four more siblings and her family lived a lesser
privileged life. Her father, Alex Sachs, did not have as much of an influential role in the
business as his brother William did (Dinesen Nelly Sachs : Eine Biographie 242). Nelly
Sachs had many cousins but she was not close to any of them. Later in life, in exile in
Sweden, Sachs set out to find her family members and get in touch with them. Growing
up in riches with private schooling and a lot of personnel may have hindered Nelly
Sachs’ development of social skills, but not for the lack of trying on her parents’ part.
They had family get-togethers, traveled together, and even sent her to a “Landschulheim,
um es abzuhärten” (Dinesen Nelly Sachs : Eine Biographie 30). Sachs’ life, according to
her own recollection, was filled with loneliness, as I will discuss later in this paper.
There was one happy constant in her life, though. Sachs was close to her mother, whom
she loved dearly because of her light-hearted “Gemütsart und ihrer Schönheit” (Dinesen
and Kungliga Biblioteket (Sweden) 24).
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The Daughter Poetess
Nelly Sachs’ father played an extremely important role in her life, even after his
death. Dinesen writes that Sachs tried to describe her father to Egon Kötting, however,
“ohne dass es ihr gelingt. Er war gebieterisch und setzte sich so energisch durch, daß
keiner im Hause sich auch nur vorstellen konnte, etwas gegen seinen Willen zu tun“
(Dinesen Nelly Sachs : Eine Biographie 31). All through her life, Sachs tried to please
her authoritarian father and tried to stay in control of her relation to him, even after his
death in 1930. She was working on constructing her image of him, just like her poems –
with continuous changes and corrections. On the other hand, as I will explain below,
Nelly Sachs chose to keep her relationship to her father private, as so many other things
in her life. Comparing Nelly Sachs’ recollection of her childhood and relationship with
her father through letters written to Berendsohn, it seems to me that her memories were,
at times, made to fit occasions. Two letters that she wrote to Berendsohn strengthen my
assumption. On the one hand, on January 22, 1959, Nelly Sachs wrote that her
relationship with her father “war eine tiefe Scheu, fast mit Furcht gemischt, und er ließ
auch keinen zu sich“ (Dinesen Nelly Sachs : Eine Biographie 32). On the other hand, just
three days later, on January 25, 1959, Sachs wrote to Berendsohn that she had always
wanted to be a dancer, however, never enjoyed formal lessons. She explains that her
artistic development emerged out of the love to dance to her father’s music and her
musical poems developed from there:
Da ist in erster Linie die Musik meines Vaters, die er oft stundenlang des Abends
nach seinem Beruf auf dem Klavier phantasierte und die ich mit Hingegebenheit
und gänzlicher Fortgerissenheit von Kindheit auf im Tanz begleitete...Denn sie
68
sind ganz aus dieser gemeinsam Atmosphäre erwachsen, die meinen Vater und
mich so gut wie wortlos und doch im Innersten verband (Bahr 32).
These two statements – one portraying her father as a person one could not get close to
and the other depicting him as a father whose penchant for music and the arts paved
Sachs’ way to become a very well-known artist – are in contrast to each other, especially
the deep connection with each other. These are major contradictions about essential parts
of Sachs’ life – her relationship to her parents and her childhood years – within two days
of each other to the same audience. To say the least, Nelly Sachs tended to idealize her
recollections.
She constructed her life and her work in order to vie for her rightful place next
to icons like Hölderlin, Novalis, and Rilke, whom she admired all her life. She omitted a
lot of information about most aspects of her life including her work, her relationship to
her parents, and her religion, shrouding herself in mystery and secrecy. She liked to
present herself as a medium for higher powers, as is evident in the following words by
Dinesen:
In den Sonetten [Sachs‘early works from approx. 1910] werden Proserpina, die
vom Gotte des Todesreiches geraubt wurde, Arethusa, Sappho und auch die
heilige Clara, Franz von Assis Braut, besungen. Vor allen anderen aber wird die
Madonna zur Schwester der Seele, das junge Mädchen, das sein göttliches
Auserwähltsein wie einen Traum und dennoch mit Schmerzen trägt... Solcherart
erfüllen sie ein Ideal des göttlichen Erwähltseins (Dinesen Nelly Sachs : Eine
Biographie 88).
69
Nelly Sachs and Else Lasker-Schüler had similar ideas of the responsibilities of a poet.
In addition, they agreed that a poet is appointed by God. However, the difference
between the two writers is the feeling of pain. Lasker-Schüler enjoyed her task as a
“prophet,” even though her heart was heavy with the responsibilities at times. However,
for Nelly Sachs it was a lifelong burden. For a later discussion about Jewishness, I would
like to point out that Sachs’ motifs in the quote above are of mythological and Christian
origin.
Taking Control
Nelly Sachs followed in the traditional footsteps of 19th century writers,
especially those of the Romantic Movement. With her writings, Sachs demonstrates an
intuitive understanding of the process. In addition, the prolific author never liked to
admit how hard she worked on her writing and how many transformations her writings
experienced over decades; she liked to remind her audience and friends that her work,
including that of her childhood years, was borne by suffering. This is evident in Sachs’
story of the development of Eli. Ein Mysterienspiel vom Leiden Israels. Sachs writes in
various letters to Moses Pergament, Gunild Tegen, and Emilia Fogelklou-Noland about
Eli in which she dates the origin of the play at different times. The development,
according to Dinesen, is from April 1944 until November 1945. However, “die
Entstehung ist ein Teil der Gesamtfiktion“ writes Dinesen, who explains also why Sachs
wrote to Jacob Picard in a letter that she wrote Eli in 1942 and not during the years
mentioned above (Nelly Sachs : Eine Biographie 154). She questions Sachs’ motivation
70
for changing the past and wonders: “Warum ist die Wahrheit nicht gut genug?” (Dinesen
Nelly Sachs : Eine Biographie 155). Dinesen explains that because
Jacob Picard und die übrige Leserschaft 1951 den ganzen Umfang des jüdischen
Martyriums kannten und erwarteten, daß auch die Autorin 1944-45 von dem
Massenmord gewußt haben mußte. Die Nachkriegszeit, in der der Verfasserin
zufolge das Stück spielte, hatte nicht nur die totale Unmenschlichkeit
industrialisierten Verbrechens offenbart. Kalter Krieg und politischer Mord
hatten zudem die Hoffnung auf einen Neubeginn unter einer Form von göttlicher
Gerechtigkeit, von der Eli getragen wird, dermaßen Lügen gestraft, daß die Vision
des Werkes als einfältig und unzeitgemäß anmuten mußte, wenn nicht die
Entstehungszeitpunkt hervorgehoben – und zurückdatiert wurde! Solche
Lichtvisionen gehörten mitten in den Krieg, als die Zukunft am dunkelsten aussah
(Dinesen Nelly Sachs : Eine Biographie 156).
Nelly Sachs built her career and took full control over how her work would be
received by the world, even if it meant tweaking the truth numerous times. She validated
her choice by explaining that it is her greatest wish to have her work reach the Jewish
audience: “Ich habe das tiefe Gefühl, daß jüdische Künstler auf die Stimme ihres Blutes
wieder zu hören beginnen müssen, damit die uralte Quelle zu neuem Leben erwache”
(Sachs, Dinesen and Müssener 46). Unflaggingly, she contacted publishers and famous
writers all over the world to gain access to their connections, as well as resurrected
relationships with former German friends and acquaintances. 35 For a woman living in
35
Among Nelly Sachs’ friends and supporters were many influential and famous people, for example
Martin Buber, Paul Celan, Rudolf Hirsch, Theodor Adorno, Ingeborg Bachmann, Johannes Becher, Selma
71
exile, in a foreign speaking country, Nelly Sachs showed tremendous strength, diligence
and perseverance following her calling as a poet who needed to document the suffering of
the world.
Suffering
In spite of her privileged childhood, Nelly Sachs claimed that her suffering
during the early years resulted from extreme loneliness. She describes herself as do her
biographers, who rely mostly on Sachs’ own recollections, as a child with a delicate
physical and emotional constitution. Nelly Sachs presents her childhood in unpublished
meditations, written in 1950, after the death of her mother, as “Einsamkeitshölle”
(Dinesen Nelly Sachs : Eine Biographie 16). However, Dinesen writes that Nelly had a
best friend, Dora, for years, even before the “Verlust des verbotenen Geliebten,” which
was before her seventeenth birthday (Dinesen Nelly Sachs : Eine Biographie 82). They
were best friends for more than twenty years and even shared an art studio in Berlin until
Dora got married in 1926, when Sachs was already thirty-five years old. It is very
difficult to piece Nelly Sachs’ biography together, due to the fact that many of her peers
are gone, either displaced by the Holocaust or dead. Nelly Sachs herself lived in exile
from 1940 onward. Therefore, the biographers have to rely for the most part on Sachs’
own information about her life. For example, most of the information we have about
Nelly Sachs are memories, which appeared “plötzlich,” as Ruth Dinesen writes in
quotation marks:
Lagerlöf, Enar Sahlin, Kurt Pinthus, Max Tau, Peter Hamm, Alfred Andersch, Hans Magnus Enzensberger,
Etschi Horowitz, Bengt Holmquist, Johannes Bobrowski, Ilse Blumenthal-Weiss.
72
Von Nelly Sachs selbst gibt es nur ganz wenige Zeugnisse aus den Jahren nach
der Begegnung mit der Liebe, und diese berichten hauptsächlich vom Leben mit
den Freundinnen. An einer einzigen Stelle erinnert Nelly Sachs sich „plötzlich“
daran, wie es war, wenn im April der Faulbaum im Tiergarten blühte und sie ihren
Vater auf einem Spaziergang begleitete...(Dinesen Nelly Sachs : Eine Biographie
80)
In a letter dated January 27, 1946, she writes to her cousin Manfred George and his wife
Mary about shared childhood memories that contradict her own later memories:
An Mary habe ich eine schöne Kindheitserinnerung. Ich wohnte einige Tage bei
ihnen während der Reise meiner Eltern, und wir hatten uns lieb und ihre großen
braunen Augen und ihre schönen Zöpfe sind mir eine deutliche Erinnerung. Und
du, lieber Manfred, erinnerst Du Dich noch der Kindergesellschaften? ...Deine
Einsegnung...“ (Sachs, Dinesen and Müssener 45).
There are childhood memories she shared with the few friends and relatives that survived
the Holocaust and the war. However, she preferred to keep most of her private life
private and only tried to relate to biographers or journalists what she decided to be
pertinent to her image. For example, when Walter A. Berendsohn prodded her for more
information regarding her life, she responded in a letter dated June 25, 1959 that “nach
meinem Tod werden andere beurteilen können, was an meinen Dingen wert war zu
überleben. Ich selbst will meine Einsamkeit!“ (Sachs, Dinesen and Müssener 218). This
written outburst happened after several letters by Berendsohn, who gently pointed out
some discrepancies in her biography. Nelly Sachs was upset at Berendsohn for trying to
change a paragraph of the biography she had written for his biography about her. We do
73
not know the whole truth about Sachs’ life, but do we need to? On the one hand, I would
like to know the facts because I don’t like to be misled. On the other hand, I don’t think
we have a right to the information. Nonetheless, not knowing is better than knowing
untruthfulness.
Ruth Dinesen, for example, bases some of her analysis of Sachs’ childhood on
the work “Chelion.” Biographers agree that “Chelion” represents Nelly Sachs’ own
childhood memories. Nelly Sachs names the protagonist of the story Chelion and
scholars like Dinesen, Berendsohn, and Bahr don’t question that it is a version on
Sachs‘childhood nickname “Lichen,” which probably came from the endearment
“Nellychen.” However, it is also the name of one of the two sons of Elimelech and
Noemi in the beautiful story of Ruth in the Old Testament. Ruth married Chelion, who
died with her father-in-law and brother-in-law. They left her and her mother-in-law
behind without begetting a son to carry on the family line. The biblical story tells of the
deep love of a daughter- in- law to her mother-in-law, who helps the mother-in-law
achieve through another marriage to carry on the family’s bloodline by giving birth to a
son:
Ruth 4:15 He [the new son of Ruth] shall be to you a restorer of life and a
nourisher ofyour old age; for our daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to
you than seven sons, has borne him (Bible 241).
The name Chelion can be found in the Hebrew Scriptures and Sachs intends this
reference here. It is known that Sachs knew the Scriptures well and, therefore, knew
about this Bible story. Olof Lagercrantz wrote in Versuch über die Lyrik der Nelly Sachs
that “Nelly Sachs war in ihrer Jugend von einem jüdischen Rabbiner in jüdischer
74
Religion unterrichtet worden und hatte gefunden, daß das Judentum zu vernunfts- und
gesetzesmäßig sein“ (140). She had religious lessons since she was a small child. Sachs
claimed that she wrote Chelion years before she read it in the Jüdischer Kulturbund in
1933. It is her childhood story, in which she reinvents her relationship with her father
and finds a connection to and with him that cannot be verified anymore. Following in
the footsteps of the image of a nineteenth century writer, Sachs builds her own image by
constructing a direct line to her father and ancestors through her divine art, which she,
according to the arrangement of her biography, inherited directly from her father.
In addition, a footnote in Ehrhard Bahr’s Nelly Sachs substantiates my
assumption of Nelly Sachs trying to build a continuity of that life line. Bahr writes about
Nelly Sachs’ love experience as a seventeen-year-old with a man her father supposedly
did not approve. This experience brought her near death. She never married, but found
solace in her writing, instead. After her father’s death she met with him and started or
continued the relationship. Unfortunately, this man, or maybe another whom she loved,
died in a concentration camp and Nelly Sachs dedicated “Gebete[n] für den toten
Bräutigam” to him in an anthology published in 1947. Bahr was agitated by a suggestion
of Albrecht Holzschuh, who commented on one of the poems, “Man könnte vermuten,
Sachs habe den Wunsch nach einem Kind von diesem Bräutigam andeuten wollen” (qtd.
from Bahr 201). Bahr responds to that quote:
Es ist der Gipfel literarischer Naivität und Geschmacklosigkeit, wenn Albrecht
Holzschuh eines dieser Gedichte mit dem Satz kommentiert: [o.a. Zitat] ... Die
angefügte Bemerkung, daß eine Kenntnis des Gesamtwerkes ein solches
Verlangen als unwahrscheinlich erscheinen läßt, bietet keine Entschuldigung für
75
die Entgleisung, die die kritische Intelligenz des Autoren nicht hätte durchgehen
lassen dürfen (Bahr 201).
The wish for a child is not that abnormal, nor is Holzschuh’s remark that despicable and
non-intellectual. Nelly Sachs’ wish for an heir - if only in her world of poems - is a very
natural and also beautiful thought, especially after having lost all that was known to her:
her Heimat, her language, and above all, much of her family and many friends. In
addition, considering my discussion on Nelly Sachs’ attempt at constructing her life and
work, I find Holzschuh’s remark quite intriguing. I am very surprised by the personal
level of these poems, because Sachs’ deliberately and often successfully tried to keep her
personal life out of her public image.
Similarly to Else Lasker-Schüler’s work about her family, and especially her
son, who died so young, Nelly Sachs is able to give homage to the Bräutigam, as well as
all her lost friends and family members. With their work, both authors are able to give
their loved-ones a place in literary history, where they will be remembered forever.
Taking care of her ailing mother, living in poverty in a small apartment in Stockholm,
Sweden, removed from everything she knew may have brought upon a longing for a child
that could have helped her focus on a future and a continuation of a family lineage.
Therefore, it is not surprising that Sachs is trying to close the circle and establish an
uninterrupted bond of her divine calling to be a poet by weaving many years later, on
December 10, 1966, her father’s words, imagined or real, into her address to the world
when receiving the Nobel Prize. She started with “Heute […] gedenke ich der Worte
meines Vaters, die er an jedem 10. Dezember in meiner Heimatstadt Berlin äußerte: Nun
feiern sie in Stockholm das Nobelfest” (Dinesen Nelly Sachs : Eine Biographie 30).
76
Nelly Sachs did not have much control over many parts of her life. She was
born into a rigid patriarchal family with a clear picture of her role in life. It is
understandable that she at least tried to control her privacy. However, as Falkenstein
writes, “Diese Einstellung förderte jedoch die Entstehung von Legenden und das, was sie
gerade verhindern wollte, falsche Schlüsse aus ihrem Werk auf ihr Leben und
umgekehrt“ (Falkenstein 6). These discrepancies in memories regarding dates and
events make it hard to work with Nelly Sachs’ legacy. It forces the critic to pry deeper
and question more than otherwise may be necessary.
Sachs had been an obedient and devoted daughter to both of her parents. She
lived the life of a woman of her times, confined by society, dependent on a patriarchal
family system, and seemingly untrained and unable to earn a living of her own. She
nursed her father until his death in 1930 and then her mother under excruciating
circumstances until her death in Sweden in 1950. She worked on painting and published
some poems, just as it was expected of a woman of her bourgeois background, until the
dire circumstances of the rising nationalism forced her to change her life style onward.
However, I will be writing more about Sachs’ work later in this chapter and will provide
more information on her writing before exile. When Hitler came to power in 1933 many
things started to change, including the reception and type of Sachs’ work. Sachs was
already forty-four years old and had an identity, developed over the course of the past
four decades. She was forced to redefine herself from a German woman to a woman
born in Germany of Jewish descent. Sachs was forced to give up all her belongings and
take on the name Sara as a middle name in 1939, as all Jewish women had to. With the
help of her best friend, Gudrun Harlan, Nelly Sachs was able to flee to Sweden in 1940,
77
at the age of forty-nine. This was just in time because her deportation letter to the work
camp for her and her mother had already arrived. At the side of her ailing mother, Sachs
remained in Sweden for the rest of her life until her death in 1970. She became a citizen
of Sweden in 1952. Nelly Sachs, born with a delicate constitution, suffered and survived
tremendous hardship, while working to follow her calling as a poet. Else Lasker-Schüler
had a similar fate, as I documented in the previous chapter. She was also home-schooled
due to illness, a highly impressionable child, and suffered tragic losses throughout her
life. Her last years in Palestine were accompanied by a loneliness that went beyond
Sachs’ experience because most of her contemporaries were displaced and World War II
was still waging. In addition, Lasker-Schüler was not able to communicate in her mother
tongue because German letters were not allowed to be mailed in Palestine.
Longing
After moving into exile, Sachs’ career as a writer took on unimaginable
dimensions, in part due to the fact that Sachs was working very hard in order to succeed.
She had a great support system and the right connections. The 1940s in Sweden were
marked with tremendous accomplishments. However, they were accompanied by the
mourning of tremendous losses. Sachs nursed her beloved mother for ten years until she
died in February of 1950. The suffering over her losses and the news about Nazi
Germany propelled her into a remarkable spell of productivity. Not only did she learn
Swedish, but she also began translating some of her earlier work into Swedish, as well as
translating Swedish literature into German. During the 1940s, Nelly Sachs wrote her
most famous works, Grabschriften in die Luft geschrieben (1944), Gebete für den toten
78
Bräutigam, Eli. Ein Mysterienspiel (1945-46) und Chöre nach Mitternacht (1946). Also,
in 1947, she created “Die Muschel saust“¸ “In den Wohnungen des Todes“ and “Von
Welle und Granit.“ The collection of poetry, Sternverdunkelung, came into being
between 1947 and 1948.
There was a definite break two years later because of the death of her mother.
Having spent almost sixty years with her mother and having nursed her like a baby for
many of those years, left a big black hole in Nelly Sachs’ life and heart, leading to a
nervous breakdown. As Gabriele Fritsch-Vivié describes the relationship:
Once they had settled in Stockholm, Nelly Sachs’ bond to her mother grew even
stronger. Margarete Sachs was all that she had left of the home and family she
had known, and Nelly Sachs looked to her mother as an anchoring force, the
connection to the reality and home they once had shared, treating her mother as
both patient and muse, confidante and child (qtd. byBower 64).
This impending loss of her mother that lasted well over ten years, a woman ailing already
before the dramatic flight to Sweden, kept Nelly Sachs from taking on employment in
Sweden, as well as healing from the hard years during the persecution in the 1930s Nazi
Germany. Sachs’ only other consolation - next to having saved her mother’s life - was
her work and that may be the reason for her prolific output in the 1940s. It took Sachs
many months of recovery before she found solace in Buber’s Die Legende des Baalschem in October 1950. Buber’s work gave her new meaning and strength to continue
working. The longing to be heard, the need for her writing to succeed, grew with the
years and made Sachs more determined, yet. She even became frustrated during the
1950s, which turned her against many of her friends. Her frustration grew stronger when
79
she saw a decline of interest in her work, which is evident in several of her letters to
Walter A. Berendsohn, in one of which from November 1957 she explains why In den
Wohnungen des Todes, Eli and Sternverdunkelung, will not see a second edition: “In
meinen Gedichtbüchern habe ich einfach zu viel Wirklichkeit gegeben” (Sachs, Dinesen
and Müssener 177). She realizes that new and other works, especially by Jewish writers
out of the new Israel, are surfacing, however, Sachs is fighting for her place in Jewish
literary history:
Warum sollte man in Israel außer den eigenen Stimmen, die ihres Landes
heutigen Stand besingen, nicht auch einer Stimme Raum geben, die dort einsetzt,
wo des jüdischen Volkes Entdeckertat sich außerhalb der sichtbaren Grenzen
bewegte und für die Menschheit eine der wenigen ewigen Geisterrevolutionen
vollbrachte, die heute noch eben so wirkt »bis in der Kindergebete milchweißem
Schaum« (Sachs, Dinesen and Müssener). 36
Sachs sees her work as one of the few unique contributions to mankind, as well as a
building block of Israel. Sachs played an important role in the Jewish community across
the world, especially for the misplaced and suffering Jewish population, but together with
many others, she reached that goal. In addition, people started to see her work as art, as
an expression of coping and overcoming a tragedy of an individual and a people. Nelly
Sachs had a longing for success that turned her into an amazing marketing manager of
her own work, out of fear of losing her audience and maybe losing her meaning of life,
36
The editors wrote that “Zitat bisher nicht nachgewiesen” (ibid 178).
80
her right to live, as a survivor. For example, she wrote to Peter Hamm in January of
1958: 37
Aber ich werde weiter suchen, lieber Peter, nur ein bißchen Geduld, vielleicht
finde ich noch etwas. Mein Verleger schweigt ganz. Der Arme will mir vielleicht
nicht das Herz schwer machen, daß niemand das Buch kauft und niemand es
erwähnt. So war es ja außer wenigen Ausnahmen auch bei Sternverdunkelung.
Ich glaube wirklich, die Kinder werden Waisen bleiben außer in Ihrem und
einigen wenigen anderen Herzen...(Sachs, Dinesen and Müssener 183).
Her children will remain orphans? That is an interesting way of looking at ones’ work.
Sachs’ longing for continuity, her longing for children that I established above, is now
placed on her work. One has to wonder, though, who is the father of those children? Is it
the Jewish people whose parenting is lacking because they are building Israel, as well as
new lives in new countries, or is it the German people, who don’t publish her work
because they don’t want to read about death and suffering right after World War II and
are trying to rebuild their own lives, wracked in guilt and misery? However, only two
months later, Sachs writes to Berendsohn on April 4th of 1959 that she herself has
outgrown Eli:
...nämlich ich habe mit »Eli« abgeschlossen. Es sind 16 Jahre her, daß ich ihn
schrieb, um ein ganz persönliches furchtbares Schicksal für mich ertragbar zu
machen, ganz einfach um zu überleben. Beim Wiederhören habe ich jetzt einen
solchen Schock bekommen, daß ich jahrelang nun nicht einmal mehr den Namen
hören kann (Sachs, Dinesen and Müssener 211).
37
Peter Hamm (* 1937 in Munich) is a German poet, writer and literary critic. He is the author of many
documentaries, including portraits of Ingeborg Bachmann and Peter Handke.
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This letter was written one and a half years after her first conflict with Berendsohn in
regards to the reception and publication of her work in Germany as I describe it above.
Nelly Sachs had a change of heart and decided to adapt to the need of her audience with
more work and a very different tone in her work. She continued to be successful by
changing her focus from the suffering of the Holocaust to the suffering of the world. She
also changed the tone in her work by using words less dripping of blood and murder. Her
poetry is still heavy with melancholy and laden with questions and longing for death.
However, her focus was now on daily and world events, nature, aging, and even some
sprouting a kernel of hope, as is evident in the following excerpt of the poem from
“Flucht und Verwandlung” in 1959:
Aber vielleicht
haben wir
vor Irrtum Rauchende
doch ein wanderndes Weltall geschaffen
mit der Sprache des Atems?
Immer wieder die Fanfare
des Anfangs geblasen
das Sandkorn in Windeseile geprägt
bevor es wieder Licht ward
über die Geburtenknospe
des Embryo?
Und sind immer wieder
eingekreist
in deinen Bezirken
auch wenn wir nicht der Nacht gedenken
und der Tiefe des Meeres
mit Zähnen abbeißen
der Worte Sterngeäder.
Und bestellen doch deinen Acker
hinter dem Rücken des Todes.
Vielleicht sind die Umwege des Sündenfallens
wie der Meteore heimliche Fahnenfluchten
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doch im Alphabet der Gewitter
eingezeichnet neben den Regenbögen –
Wer weiß auch
die Grade des Fruchtbarmachens
und wie die Saaten gebogen werden
aus fortgezehrten Erdreichen
für die saugenden Münder
des Lichts (Sachs Späte Gedichte 23)
This poem was very important to Nelly Sachs. She read it at the Nobel Prize presentation
in 1966. It proves my hypothesis that Nelly Sachs claimed her work to be one of the
building blocks of Israel. It is a beautiful poem of doubt and hope. Doubt that not all
may be lost and that her work, with the “Sprache des Atems,” in this case even her
German language, which is explained below under Jewishness, have made a difference to
others. Maybe she and other writers were able to till the ground on the back of death.
Sachs refers to the Holocaust with the words “Rücken des Todes” but also indicates that
there may be a future for Jewish people after so much death. She indicates a loss of
understanding with her reference to “Umwege des Sündenfallens,” but with “Gewitter”
and “Regenbogen” she refers to Jewish mysticism of the dualism of good and evil in all
forms. Sachs indicates in the last stanza that there are people with the need for hope, who
are trying to make things happen, like building the State of Israel. “Die Grade des
Fruchtbarmachens und wie die Saaten geborgen werden“ is up to God. Nobody knows
the truth. Her change of tone and content in her work enabled her to become more
widely received. People lived and survived the most unthinkable pain during the
Holocaust and yearned for hope and beauty. Crowned with success, Sachs received
many prizes during the 1950s and 1960s, including the Meersburger Droste-Preis für
Dichterinnen in 1960. However, receiving the Nobel Prize in 1966, together with Shmuel
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Yosef Agnon, was the career highlight of her life.38 In addition, by the time of her death
on May 12th of 1970, her work had been translated into fifteen languages. Nelly Sachs
longed for success and achieved great success even during her lifetime. However, her
late poetry shows that her longing had not ended with her success. It continued, as I will
show below.
Jewishness
Nelly Sachs grew up in an assimilated Jewish household. Bower writes that the
Sachs family belonged to the “Berlin Jewish community in name only, contributing
financially but not attending synagogue or celebrating Jewish holidays” (Bower 6). In
this home environment, Sachs developed a sense of self that was defined neither by racial
nor by religious categories (Bower 5). Nonetheless, as a younger child she received
instructions in Judaism. Falkenstein quotes Olof Lagercrantz saying that “Nelly Sachs
war in ihrer Jugend von einem jüdischen Rabbiner in jüdischer Religion unterrichtet
worden und hatte gefunden, daß das Judentum zu vernunfts- und gesetzesmäßgig sein”
(Falkenstein 11). Bahr points out that “jüdisches Glaubensgut, in der Familie vorgelebt,
wie etwa bei Else Lasker-Schüler, scheine nicht zu den bestimmenden Kindheits- und
Jugendeindrücken gehört zu haben“ (Bahr 34). In addition, Bahr explains that Sachs did
not read and write Hebrew nor did she speak Yiddish. She only used the Jargon spoken
by many including Kafka for example. The Sachs family adhered to the Christian
38
Shmuel Yosef Agnon was born in July of 1888 in Galicia and died in 1970 in Jerusalem. He was the first
Hebrew writer to win the Nobel Prize in literature. His works were published in English under S.Y. Agnon
and dealt with conflicts of the traditional Jewish life, its language and the modern world. He is a center
figure in Modern Hebrew fiction.
84
calendar and even put up a Christmas tree for their non-Jewish maids. Nelly Sachs
struggled with her German-Jewish identity from the time the Nazis took control of
Germany and forced her to face her Jewish ethnicity, but other people did not make her
identity an issue. They thought of her as a good person, a German and a Christian? „Sie
war so unglaublich edel, moralisch und christlich, daß ich mir ganz schäbig an ihrer Seite
vorkam“ writes the sister-in-law of Gudrun Harlan, Sachs‘ best friend, that saved her life
and stayed on her side throughout her life (Dinesen Nelly Sachs : Eine Biographie 92). I
wonder if Lieselott Harlan even realized that Sachs was not Christian, but Jewish. Maybe
it did not matter. She simply gave her the highest praise she could think of. Still today,
Jewish characterizations are in general not very flattering, but the opposite and the clichés
were and still are usually very negative.
The Sachs family had embraced German culture and customs for generations
and suddenly, in her early forties, Sachs was forced to re-evaluate an identity she had
known for so long. Sachs became active in the Jüdischer Kulturbund and took on the
middle name Sara. 39 These struggles are evident in her work, which I will explain
below. In order to cope with these religious and ethnic identity issues, Nelly Sachs
turned towards a religion, as well as a people, with which she was familiar up unto that
point only in name and passing. In 1933, at the age of forty-two, when Hitler came to
39
The Jüdische Kulturbund is a German Jewish organization founded in Berlin in May 1933 when the
National Socialist regime dismissed Jewish high school teachers, artists, and authors from their positions
and excluded all Jews from German cultural life. Its existence was accepted by the Gestapo only after the
words "Deutsche Juden" were eliminated from its title and their activities were under Nazi scrutiny. The
Jüdischer Kulturbund devoted itself to spread Jewish art and culture in spite of the Nazi persecution. They
secured continued cultural activity by providing funds from the resources of its members and through the
communities themselves. The work of the Jüdischer Kulturbund largely helped to maintain a closely knit
Jewish population.
85
power, Sachs started to delve into Jewish mysticism, as Bower describes, into the
“Hasidic mysticism, seeing in it affinities to the mysticism of Jacob Böhme and Christian
mystics she had admired before the Nazis came to power (Bower 6). 40 Böhme himself
was familiar with the Sohar and, therefore, the familiarity between Böhme and Jewish
mysticism is not surprising. In fact, it was probably rather comforting at that time.
Sachs considered herself a mystic, a Chassidic mystic, as she points out in a
letter in 1957 to M. Abenius, a contemporary of Nelly Sachs and a Swedish literary critic:
Aus meinem eigenen Volk kam mir die chassidische Mystik zu Hilfe, die eng im
Zusammenhang mit aller Mystik die Quelle aller existentiellen Durchströmung
des Alltagsaugenblickes ist und sich ihren Wohnort weit fort von allen
Institutionen und Dogmen immer aufs neue in Geburtswehen schaffen muss (qtd.
from Grittner 243).
Grittner writes extensively on mystic reception and mystic experience in the life and
work of Nelly Sachs. She comes to the conclusion that Christianity was a strong force in
Sachs’ life, especially because of the “Christus-Gestalt” (Grittner 301). In addition, she
concludes that “Sachs schätzte nicht nur das Christentum hoch, auch in Mohammed sah
sie ein Beispiel an Humanität“ (Grittner 304).
However, Hassidic Mysticism, the thinking of Baal-Shem-Tow, gave Sachs the
strength and the tools to be able to use the German language after the Holocaust and
combine the experience of an exile writer, using a language that was forcefully taken
40
Jacob Böhme (1575 – 1624) was a German mystic and theologian. He is hailed to be an original thinker
in the Lutheran tradition.
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from her.
41
The philosopher Theodor W. Adorno writes, ”Nach Ausschwitz ein Gedicht
zu schreiben ist barbarisch“ (Adorno Gesammelte Werke 597-98). Nelly Sachs proved
just the opposite by applying an element of Baal-Shem-Tow’s doctrine. His doctrine
includes that nothing can be separated from God, which means that all things are forms in
which God reveals Himself. When man speaks, Baal says, he should remember that
speech is an element of life, and that life itself is a manifestation of God. Even evil exists
in God. This seeming contradiction is explained on the ground that evil is not bad in
itself, but only in its relation to man. Sin, for example, is not positive, but is identical
with the imperfections of human deeds and thought. This doctrine gives Nelly Sachs the
courage to face the German language in her writing again. She is able to use German
speech, even though the Holocaust was started by German speaking people. Evil exists
in man and is done by man no matter the language. German speech has good and evil, as
explained by Hasidic Mystic. Sachs does not use the German language of the enemies.
She uses a form through which God could reveal and did reveal Himself.
The Swiss literary scholar and critic, Werner Weber, writes that Nelly Sachs was
able to give restitution to the German language:
Und dann sind da die Seltenen, die der Rede den lebendigen Laut wieder zu geben
vermögen, in welchem das Meinen und das Sagen sich inmoralischer Ordnung
halten. Zu diesen Heilern der Sprache gehört Nelly Sachs. In einem Gedicht aus
dem Kreis Sternverdunkelung ruft sie uns an:
Völker der Erde
ihr, die ihr euch mit der Kraft der unbekannten
41
Rabbi Yisroel ben Elizier (1698 – 1760) often called Baal Shem Tov or Besht, was a Jewish mystical
rabbi. He is considered to be the founder of Hasidic Judaism.
87
Gestirne umwickelt wie Garnrollen,
die ihr näht und wieder auftrennt das Genähte,
die ihr in die Sprachverwirrung steigt
wie in Bienenkörbe,
um im Süßen zu stechen
und gestochen zu werden –
Völker der Erde,
zerstöret nicht das Weltall der Worte,
zerschneidet nicht mit den Messern des Hasses
den Laut, der mit dem Atem zugleich geboren wurde.
Völker der Erde,
O daß nicht Einer Tod meine, wenn er Leben sagt –
Und nicht Einer Blut, wenn er Wiege spricht –
Völker der Erde,
lasset die Worte an ihrer Quelle,
denn sie sind es, die die Horizonte
in die wahren Himmel rücken können
und mit ihrer abgewandten Seite
wie eine Maske dahinter die Nacht gähnt
die Sterne gebären helfen (Sachs Nelly Sachs Zu Ehren : [Gedichte, Prosa,
Beiträge] 42).
Nelly Sachs calls on the peoples of the world to choose their words cautiously. She asks
them not to lie and not to abuse speech. She asks them not to say “good” and turn around
and do “evil” as she points out in “O daß nicht Einer Tod meine, wenn er Leben sagt –
Und nicht Einer Blut, wenn er Wiege spricht –.” Words were her tools to cope with her
fate of unfulfilled and forbidden love, the losses of parents, friends, home and country,
when she turned seventeen years old and lost her will to live for the first time: “Nur durch
die Schwere des Schicksals, das mich betraf, bin ich von dieser Ausdrucksweise [dem
Tanz] zu einer anderen gekommen: das Wort!“ (Sachs, Dinesen and Müssener 201).
Speech gave Sachs the support she needed all through her life. However, it forced her to
face the identity of belonging to a people that at this point in time did not have its own
language, as Joseph Bernfeld concludes: “ein seltsames Volk übrigens, das in der
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Tatsache, keine eigene Sprache zu besitzen, in der es seine Gefühle, seine Erinnerungen
und Gedanken ausdrücken könnte, keinem anderen gleicht” (Sachs Nelly Sachs Zu
Ehren. Zum 75. Geburtstag Am 10. Dezember 1966. Gedichte, Beiträge, Bibliographie
27). Nonetheless, Nelly Sachs was able to express herself and find solace in speech.
Heimat
In this part of my dissertation I will distinguish between different types of
Heimat for which Nelly Sachs longed, including finding of part of it through Jewish
mysticism after exile in Sweden. Nelly Sachs lived in Berlin until forced into exile in the
year of 1940. She was forty-nine years old. She left Germany with ten Deutschmark in
her pocket, her ailing mother at her side, as well as a small suitcase in her hand. Heimat
per se was not a big topic of discussion in her writings, as it was with Else LaskerSchüler. However, losses, including the loss of home and language, were discussed in
her letters, as well as imbedded in most of her work. Sachs’ work, especially compared
to Else Lasker- Schüler’s, concentrates on the present and the past, rather than on the
future. It mostly concentrated on suffering and telling about suffering than on hope and
a change of the world. Sachs never longed to find the Heimat, in the sense of a place of
solace and happiness. She never longed for the relationships with past family members
or childhood dreams, locations and events. Her childhood was an “Einsamkeitshölle,” as
I have mentioned above. Nonetheless, she was searching for her own type of Heimat,
especially in exile. She found it in her language, as explained above, even before she
moved into exile as Thomas Grudmann explains in the “Geleitwort des Verlegers” of
Nelly Sachs…”an letzter Atemspitze des Lebens”:
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Aus leicht nachvollziehbaren Gründen hat sich Nelly Sachs mit dem Leben in
Deutschland nicht wieder befreunden können, zugleich bedurfte sie nicht der
Rückkehr in die Heimat, weil ihre Heimat die Sprache war:
An Stelle von Heimat
Halte ich die Verwandlungen der Welt (Lermen and Braun 6).
The above two lines are the last two lines of the following poem:
IN DER FLUCHT
welch großer Empfang
unterwegs –
Eingehüllt
in der Winde Tuch
Füße im Gebet des Sandes
der niemals Amen sagen kann
denn er muß
von der Flosse in den Flügel
und weiter –
Der kranke Schmetterling
weiß bald wieder vom Meer –
Dieser Stein
mit der Inschrift der Fliege
hat sich mir in die Hand gegeben –
An Stelle von Heimat
halte ich die Verwandlungen der Welt – (Sachs Späte Gedichte 16)
I agree with Grudmann that Sachs found Heimat in her speech. I argue, though, that she
already found Heimat in her own written words well before she had to move into exile in
1940, as I will explain below. I do agree with Grudmann’s argument that Nelly Sachs
describes that she found Heimat in transformation. Heimat, as pointed out in the poem
above, is a constant transformation, a search, a futile search; nonetheless, changes have to
be embraced. Sachs wrote the poem after she became familiar with Jewish mysticism.
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However, she needed more than only the Heimat of her language. She yearned for a
place to belong. In a letter to Johannes Edfeld, on January 1, 1953, she writes
Und wenn nun auch zuweilen von den jungen deutschen Kritikern der Versuch
gemacht wird, Else Lasker- Schüler und mich wieder als deutsche Dichterinnen
einzureihen, so weiß ich nur zu genau, daß ich es bestimmt nicht mehr erleben
werde, mit meinen Dingen eine hiesige Land-Heimat zu gewinnen (Sachs,
Dinesen and Müssener 145).
This quote bears three questions. First, what does Nelly Sachs mean with Dingen and
second, what is implied with hiesig, and third, what does Land-Heimat mean? I suggest
with Dingen she means her poems. Poems she assumed, probably rightfully so, Germans
did not want to read. Her assumptions were correct, considering the fact that she had a
very hard time publishing her work in the 1940s and 1950s in Germany. For example,
most of Sternverdunkelung was destroyed by the publisher because it did not sell. I will
talk about the reasons later when discussing this particular book of poems in more detail.
The word hiesig may imply the location to be in Germany, not so much Sweden, because
she included Else Lasker- Schüler, who spent the last seven years of her life in Jerusalem
and not in Sweden. However, I argue that she means life on earth in contrast to beyond.
Now to Land-Heimat: – Heimat on land – in a country with soil underneath – a
geographical location. For Sachs it is her work, the written word in her mother tongue,
German, that causes her difficulties in finding a Heimat, next to the persecution during
the Holocaust, as is evident in a letter to Berendsohn in 1957:
Weiß ich doch, daß wer es mit meinen Dingen sagt immer noch eine eisige
Boykott-Mauer einrennen muß. Was soll man sagen, ich gehöre ja eigentlich
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nirgends mehr hin. Mein eigenes Volk will mich nicht, und dort wo meine
Muttersprache ist – ja da verstehe ich nur zu gut die Einwände (Dinesen Nelly
Sachs : Eine Biographie 249).
Sachs feels that her own people do not want her and that she does not fit because she
cannot help build Israel with physical strength, as some of the younger ones can. She
cannot till the soil and learn another language to communicate again – she is now 66
years old and frail. The same issues concerned Lasker-Schüler, too. In addition, LaskerSchüler was forced to stay in Palestine, in a climate, a country side, with food, with
medical care, that was all different from Europe. In addition, getting a visa to go move to
Israel was not easily obtained at that point in time for Sachs. Lasker-Schüler suffered in
Israel from Heimweh for the green rolling hills of Europe and the ability to communicate
in her mother tongue.
Sachs writes to Kurt Pinthus in October of 1952 that many of their peers have
gone back to Germany, or even Israel. However, for her it is too late:
Und so viele sind zurückgekehrt. ... und viele sind wieder in Deutschland. Aber
ich werde niemals wieder aus Schweden irgendwo hinkehren. Für Israel ist es zu
spät. Da müssen sie die Jugend haben” (Sachs, Dinesen and Müssener 143).
She would never leave Sweden because Israel needs the young, she claims, implying that
her age is a handicap and the reason for her resignation to pursue a Land-Heimat. In
addition, when Sachs writes, “Aber wohin mit allem. An die deutsche Sprache gebunden
hat man als jüdischer Mensch nicht viel Aussicht,” she voices her resignation that the
Heimat she found, the Heimat in her work, prevents her to find a geographical Heimat
(Sachs, Dinesen and Müssener 144).
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In order to differentiate between one Heimat and another, Sachs implies that she
has found another, non-geographical Heimat next to her work. If she cannot and will not
find a Land-Heimat in this lifetime what has she discovered that goes beyond the
geographically understood Heimat instead? This stands in stark contrast to Sachs’ earlier
opinion from 1944: “Ich bin keine Zionistin in dem Sinn, wie es jetzt aufgefaßt wird, ich
glaube, daß unsere Heimat überall dort ist, wo die Quellen der Ewigkeit fließen” (Sachs,
Dinesen and Müssener 41). Nelly Sachs was still content at that time, having found
refuge in Sweden. Later, in the late 1940s and 1950s, more homesickness and longing set
in. I argue that it had to do with the loss of her mother and aging. Sabine Grittner’s work
on Nelly Sachs, “Aber wo Göttliches wohnt - die Farbe ‘Nichts,‘“ goes into much detail
on Heimat and Heimatlosigkeit. Gissner explains that Sachs‘ world „ist aufgrund der
Verbrechen der Menschen verdunkelt und verhärtet, sie ist dem Tod verfallen und der
Heimatlosigkeit preisgegeben. Doch sie kann verwandelt werden durch die Sehnsucht
der Leidenden und Liebenden“ (Grittner 169). Sachs found the calling by documenting
the longing of the suffering and loving people. She found a Heimat in that duty for
humanity. In addition, she found Heimat in her friends after her mother had died. Nelly
Sachs had many friends and supporters, some of them she had known over forty years. In
addition, during the last fifteen years of her life, starting in 1955, she became especially
close to Paul Celan. They both suffered from the losses of their loved-ones during the
Holocaust, as well as from Heimatlosigkeit. They both found solace in their work and
with each other. Sachs wrote to Paul Celan, his wife and son:
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Lieber Bruder und Freund Paul Celan, gesegnet sei das neue Jahr für Sie und die
Ihren! Sie haben mir mit Ihren Gedichten eine Heimat gegeben, von der ich erst
glaubte, daß der Tod sie mir erobern würde. So halte ich es hier noch aus. ..
An Stelle von Heimat
halte ich
Paul
Gisèle
Eric (qtd. from Grittner 16).
At this point in her life, she finds a kindred spirit in Paul Celan. Not only did she
find solace in her own writing, she found it in somebody else’s. Celan is also a person,
suffering from the Holocaust, troubled by memories and struggling with the words of the
German language. Not only did Nelly Sachs find Heimat in her relationships with friends
and her work, she found solace in Jewish mysticism, especially the translation of the
Sohar by Martin Buber, after the death of her mother in 1950. As already mentioned
above, it pulled her out of her deep depression of losing the only close family member
she still had left in Sweden, and set her on a path to new religious ventures. Not only did
exile change her life, but also additional experiences in exile changed her religious views,
as well as her tone and the content of her work. Towards the end of her life, Nelly Sachs’
search seemed to have lost all hope of finding the Heimat. This is similar to LaskerSchüler’s experience, when she moved her search from Earth to heaven during the last
few years of her life in Jerusalem. I will demonstrate in more detail the relationship
between Heimat, exile, and religion in Sachs’ work in the following and last part of this
chapter of my dissertation.
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Works
Contrary to Else Lasker-Schüler, Nelly Sachs has been researched only
sporadically in recent years, in spite of receiving the Nobel Prize in 1966 together with
Shmuel Yosef Agnon. Born in 1891 in Berlin, Germany, Nelly Sachs's career as a poet of
note started only after her emigration, when she was nearly fifty years old. However, I
will discuss Sachs’ early work up until the year of 1933, when Hitler took over, to her
work written in Germany before she fled to Sweden. Thereafter, I will talk about her
exile work, in order to point out the differences between different phases of her religious
experience in exile, as I already have briefly discussed above. Last but not least, I will go
in detail about her very late work, especially one of her last cycle of poems, “Die
Suchende.”
Legenden und Erzählungen – Works and poems until 1933
Ruth Dinesen writes extensively in “Und das Leben hat immer nach Abschied
geschmeckt” about the early work of Nelly Sachs. Dinesen compiles all material
published in Germany before Nelly Sachs left for exile in 1940. However, most of
Sachs’ early work was not published: “das ungedruckte Werk [ist] außerordentlich
umfangreich. Es konnten bisher etwa 200 Gedichte, zwei Porsawerke und vier bis fünf
Marionettenspiele aus den Jahren vor 1940 festgestellt werden“ (Dinesen "Und Es Hat
Immer Nach Abschied Geschmeckt": Frühe Gedichte Und Prosa Der Nelly Sachs). In
addition, there are discrepancies, caused by Nelly Sachs herself, about what is to be
considered her early work and/or her late work. For example, Dinesen quotes
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…Ich hatte die Ehre und das Glück seit meiner Kindheit Briefe mit Selma
Lagerlöf tauschen zu dürfen, die teilnahm mit unendlicher Güte an meinem Leben
und meiner Arbeit. Die Karte, welche sie an das noch ganz junge Mädchen
schrieb als Antwort auf mein erstes Märchenbuch, das ich ihr sandte...(ibid 23).
The above quote is Sachs’ recollection of an event that happened in 1921. Sachs was
thirty years old. Why she considered herself a very young girl at that age is “etwas
merkwürdig” as Dinesen points out (ibid 23). Sachs writes that she had been
corresponding with Lagerlöf “seit ihrer Kindheit,” but, the first correspondence was a
gift to Lagerlöf. The work, Legenden und Erzählungen, was published by F.W Mayer,
Berlin-Wilmersdorf in1921 . As mentioned above, it misleads and takes away from
Sachs’ work when she manipulates dates to adjust her image. How seriously can you
take a woman who considers herself a “very young girl” at the age of thirty?
Nelly Sachs admired the Swedish writer Selma Lagerlöf. Lagerlöf was a Swedish
teacher and writer who was the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize of literature in the
year of 1909 "in appreciation of the lofty idealism, vivid imagination and spiritual
perception that characterize her writings" (Nobelprize.org).42 How important and critical
that relationship would prove someday could definitely not be foreseen. With the help of
Lagerlöf, Nelly Sachs was able to obtain a visa for Sweden and, therefore, was able to
survive the Holocaust. In addition, the literary influence of Lagerlöf can be found in
Sachs’ very first published work Legenden und Erzählungen. The title of Lagerlöf’s The
Story of Gosta Berling in German translation carried the same title, Legenden und
42
Selma Lagerlöf (1858 – 1940). She was a country school teacher and a suffragette. She became most
famous for her children stories The Wonderful Adventures of Nils. She also wrote The Miracles of AntiChrist, and The Story of Gösta Berling, among many more.
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Erzählungen. Nelly Sachs dedicated the book to Lagerlöf and sent it to her for her
birthday with the inscription
Berlin, im November 1921
Siegmundshof 16
Dieses Buch soll Selma Lagerlöf zu ihrem Geburtstag einen innigen Gruß aus
Deutschland bringen. Es ist geschrieben von einer jungen Deutschen, die in der
großen schwedischen Dichterin ihr leuchtendes Vorbild verehrt (ibid 22).
Lagerlöf was very well known in Europe at that time. At this point of my research I am
confident to point out that Nelly Sachs liked to lean on writings of people she admired.
She used Lagerlöf’s fairytales in content for her own writings. Dinesen assumes that
Legenden und Erzählungen was in many aspects a tribute to Selma Lagerlöf’s own work.
Nelly Sachs‘ Legenden und Erzählungen consists of five legends and four short
stories. Scholars conclude that this work, due to its subject matter and themes, is neoromantic. This work is a mixture of „Märchen, Legende und Parabel, bisweilen mit
Bruchflächen gegenüber realistisch-naturalistischen Partien“ (Dinesen "Und Es Hat
Immer Nach Abschied Geschmeckt": Frühe Gedichte Und Prosa Der Nelly Sachs 54).
Four of the stories are closely related to the Lagerlöf legends: “Die Närrin von Siena,”
“Das Christusbild,” “San Marcos Taube,” and “Der gefesselte Silen.” Dinesen concludes
that her research reveals that those works could not have been written prior to the year of
1908. The “Legende vom Fra Angelico” was a written after 1914, when the book
Angelus Silesius was published. The work about the evil sorcerer Merlin could not have
been written before the publishing of a translation by Schlegel in 1911 and, therefore,
“widerspricht folglich auch dem Datierungsversuch der Dichterin” (ibid 55). Sachs
follows the models of other writers in context, form and characters. Even the typographic
layout of the title page was similar to Lagerlöf’s.
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However, the later Nelly Sachs can already be found in these stories. Her
fascination with the cosmos, like moon, sun, and stars is evident, as is death and
suffering. She already combines Earth and cosmos in these works: “Auch deuchte es der
Pfarrfrau, er halte keine rechte Richtung ein, reite vielmehr bald im Zickzack, bald im
Bogen daher, als gelüste es ihn, die vielverschlungenen Linien eines Sternbildes auf
Erden nachzuziehen” (Dinesen "Und Es Hat Immer Nach Abschied Geschmeckt": Frühe
Gedichte Und Prosa Der Nelly Sachs 105). Most important at this point is, though, that
all her work is of Christian origin and written in an old-fashioned language. The tale,
“Tod im Pfarrhof“, takes place during the Thirty-Year-War. The protagonist is a priest’s
wife who suffers from the loss of her only child. She rejects all earthly duties and love,
while the priest works untiringly to tend to the sick and dying. His wife only
accompanies the priest to get infected, hoping to be able to reunite with her child as soon
as possible. She rejects life, good deeds and hope. That did not go unpunished. She
meets a man on a white horse, whose eyes were black holes. He pulls out a string
instrument and plays the most beautiful music. The wife was not able to lift herself up
and go with the man, while her husband, the priest, is able to leave and go to heaven. She
has to remain on Earth. From that day forward
...wunderte sich ein jeder, wie sie ungeachtet ihres Schmerzes, den sie um ihren
verschiedenen Eheherrn trug, fortan wieder von Huld und Güte überfloss. Wer
ihr den Schlüssel gereicht hatte, der das dunkle Gemäuer ihres Kummers
eröffnete, daraus die Flamme der Liebe fröhlich entwich, das ahnte zum Glück
niemand (Dinesen "Und Es Hat Immer Nach Abschied Geschmeckt": Frühe
Gedichte Und Prosa Der Nelly Sachs 225).
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Dinesen explains that this work is already
ein tastendes Suchen nach Bedingung und Ziel des Lebens. Es erscheint als eine
noch vage Vorstellung von einer Art Komplementarität des Guten und Bösen, von
einer gegenseitigen Abhängigkeit zwichen dem Menschen und der Natur und von
einer Sehnsucht nach der utopischen Heimat (ibid 56).
Sachs was probably between twenty and thirty years old when she wrote and published
this book in very small numbers. Only two copies of this work have surfaced so far.
However, her future voice is already present. After exile, though, Sachs only wrote lyric
and dramas. In addition, her form, style and content changed. Her discovery of Christian
mysticism in the thirties and Jewish mysticism in the 1940s and 1950s helped her develop
the ideas of good and evil in all things that have form, like speech, for example.
“Rehe” – And other poems until 1940
In 1933, eight years after the publication of Legenden und Erzählungen in 1921,
Sachs published various poems. During that year, she published another three, in 1935,
three more, in 1936, five, in 1937, seven, in 1938, four, and only one in 1939. It is quite
interesting that Sachs started publishing her work after Hitler came to power because
publishing became increasingly difficult in German newspapers and magazines.
However, between 1937 and 1939 she published in Jewish magazines only. It is not
possible to trace the date of origin of many of the poems. As with many of Sachs’
writings, she contradicts herself in regards to their origin. Form, content and style of her
poetry before exile vary greatly. However, Dinesen comes to the conclusion that her
early poems “sind alle in der traditionellen Formsprache ihrer romantisierenden
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Entstehungszeit. Solche Formen finden sich noch unter den frühesten
Nachkriegsgedichten, den „Grabschriften in die Luft geschrieben“ und den „Gebete an
den toten Bräutigam“ (Dinesen "Und Es Hat Immer Nach Abschied Geschmeckt": Frühe
Gedichte Und Prosa Der Nelly Sachs 91).
The content of Nelly Sachs’ poetry before exile has many different themes. They
include dance songs, which are one of her earliest poetry, then nature poems, which
include earlier and later poems before exile, prayer poems, which she wrote after her
father’s death, biblical poems, which are mainly love poems, and at last farewell poems
during the late 1930s, through which she said good-bye to many of her friends who were
fleeing Berlin. In the scope of this dissertation I will only use a few early examples to
determine the difference between her poems before and after exile. One is entitled
“Rehe” in the Berliner Tageblatt in 1933.
Rehe
Sie sind desWaldes Legenden
Darin die Geheimnisse zärtlich verenden
Der Bäume, der duftenden Blumen der Nacht,
Im Auge des Springquells jenseitiges Leuchten,
So wandeln die weither Aufgescheuchten
Und streifen den Tau mit den Hufen sacht.
Haar rauchend vor Scheu und immer im Leide,
Wenn eine Kugel auf traumtiefer Weide
Hinpflügt, was nie ganz zum Tage geweckt –
Es zeichnet der feuchte Schmerz sich im Moose,
Ein müdes Blatt noch färbt sich zur Rose,
Und Leben hat immer wie Abschied geschmeckt (Dinesen "Und Es Hat Immer
Nach Abschied Geschmeckt": Frühe Gedichte Und Prosa Der Nelly Sachs 248).
Before Nelly Sachs left Germany, the above poem was published four times. Kurt
Pinthus introduced Nelly Sachs in 1936 in the C.-V.-Zeitung, Berlin “als eine der bisher
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unbekannten [jüdischen] Lyrikerinnen (ibid 62). 43 He uses the above poem as an
example of her “Jüdischkeit” (ibid 80). He claims
Es kommt nicht auf jüdische Dekorationen und Motive an, mit denen ein Gedicht
äußerlich umkleidet ist, sondern auf jüdisches Gefühl und jüdische Anschauung,
aus denen es notwendig erwächst – wobei Gefühl und Anschauung durchaus nicht
immer auf historische jüdische Tradition zurückzugehen braucht (ibid 80).
The poem “Rehe” is a poem full of melancholy. The beautiful deer live like legends in
the shadows of the forests, never having a chance of daylight and always persecuted by
hunters. They suffer until felled by bullets. Pinthus compares the lives of deer to the
lives of the Jewish people – wandering, suffering and persecuted: “Hinpflügt was nie
zum Tage erweckt.” The theme of the lives of deer will be recurring throughout Sachs’
work, which I will point out below when talking about Sternverdunkelung. It is also
important to point out that Else Lasker-Schüler was not mentioned as a Jewish writer in
Kurt Pinthus’ Menschheitsdämmerung. Symphonie Jüngster Dichtung (Pinthus), as I
mentioned in the previous chapter.
However, not all of Sachs’ publication during the 1930s was received favorably.
Her childhood memories, “Chelion,” which I mentioned above, were considered to be too
“süßlich,” as was her puppet show “Jahrmarkt der Träume” ((Dinesen "Und Es Hat
Immer Nach Abschied Geschmeckt": Frühe Gedichte Und Prosa Der Nelly Sachs 98).
As I have already explained, Nelly Sachs was a person who took tremendous care of her
image. After these critical (and to her probably very painful) receptions of her prose,
Sachs never published prose again.
43
C.-V.-Zeitung existed since 1922 as a weekly publication of the Centralvereins deutscher Staatsbürger
jüdischen Glaubens.
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Nelly Sachs turned more towards the Bible in her work, as did many Jewish
writers, due to the fact that they were forced to deal with their Jewish identity. Dinesen
wonders, though, if Sachs’ poems, as Pinthus mentions above, are “biblische Gedichte,
oder ist das Biblische nur Dekoration und Motiv, ohne daß Gefühl und Anschauung auch
schon biblisch wären?” (ibid 81). The first poem of the cycle, “Abendlieder der Ruth”
has the same topic as her childhood story “Chelion.” Ruth is responsible for having to
give birth to a son to her dead husband, as is Jewish custom according to the Old
Testament. All the other poems are love poems, in name Jewish but not in motif. The
poem “Jakob and Rahel” already nears in style to the poems written after exile. It is a
dialogue between Jakob and Rahel, where they address each other with “O Hirte, ich will
dienen…O Hirtin, ich will breiten…” (ibid 256). Later, we will see the ‘O’ in many of
Sachs’ poems. It is a style quite dominant in her early exile work. Using Jewish names
in their early writings is something Else Lasker-Schüler and Nelly Sachs have in
common. Lasker-Schüler also wrote her Hebräische Balladen (1913) Jewish in names
but not in content.
Last but not least, I will briefly discuss Sachs’ last published poem before she left
for exile:
Nachtlied
Wenn wir schlafen gehn,
Weinen wir hier in die Kissen:
Wachen ist tiefes Vermissen
Schlafen ist Heimwärtswehn.
Wenn wir schlafen gehn,
Werden wir liebend gebetet:
Engel naht, tränenverspätet,
Schwindet auf duftenden Zehn.
Wenn wir schlafen gehn,
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Ueben wir lächelnd das Sterben.
Unsere Träume färben
Sich rosig vom Wiedersehn.
Nelly Sachs’ “Abschiedsgedichte” are also love poems. Sleep and death are interrelated.
They bring hope of reunions; however, it is only a “Heimwärtswehn.” This beautiful
word is a combination of three: Heimweh, heimwärts and wehen. Sleep gives the illusion
of the wind blowing you home, while it is only a drifting towards home. It is not the real
experience…it is just a dream that increases your yearning for a reunion with loved ones.
She is yearning for a Heimat already. Sachs’ Heimweh themes of her later work will
continue this topic. Sleep is a bittersweet experience of something to hope for in death.
There is no reprieve from the experience, unless you dream, which is only a practice for
death and makes death more acceptable, more heimwärts.
I chose to analyze “Nachtlied” because it is a poem that comes from her heart.
She used her romantic style with rhyme and her preferred topic, Todessehnsucht. Being
vulnerable because of the losses surrounding her, friends and family members fleeing the
country, as well as the death of her father, make her poems from the 1930s more personal
and sensitive. However, this is exactly the reason why Nelly Sachs rejected her own
work after gaining fame for her exile literature. Peter Hamm states that Nelly Sachs told
him
dass sie viele Gedichte der dreißiger Jahre vor ihrer Flucht aus dem Dritten Reich
vernichtete, teilweise weil sie ihr allzu persönlich, teilweise weil sie ihr
unheimlich, unkünstlerisch und unmöglich erschienen. In ihrer Umgebung
meinte man, es seien Fieberphantasien (Hamm).
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Nelly Sachs and friends admired Stefan George in contrary to Else Lasker-Schüler, who
rejected his belief that poetry should be exclusive. Sachs writes in a letter to Hans
Magnus Enzensberger in 1961
Ich habe, wie ich dir schon schrieb, schon als ganz junges Mädchen eine andere
Richtung versucht, die meinem Innern sehr nahe lag. Meine Freunde fanden sie
so unverständlich (sie gehörten meistens dem George-Kreis an), daß ich sie ganz
geheim hielt und dann vor der Hitlerflucht alle verbrannte (Dinesen Nelly Sachs :
Eine Biographie 58).
Sachs tries to explain the changes in her work, her style and even content. Again, when
she says “als ganz junges Mädchen,” she does not mean the age between five and twelve,
as I explained above. Since Nelly Sachs was an obedient daughter and citizen, she
followed some trends of society. An example of this is her idealization of her father as a
great hero and artist, and her mother as a spoiled mother and wife with few
responsibilities. Sachs treats and describes her mother like a child later in life. As I have
established above, Sachs may have yearned for a child, as her mother had the role for
many years. Dinesen writes that Nelly Sachs gave an impression of her mother to have
“kindliche Züge, so wenn sie mitten in den schweren Verfolgungsjahren ihre Tochter mit
Kinderliedern tröstet“ (Dinesen Nelly Sachs : Eine Biographie 84). Sachs adhered her
life to a given frame, given by society. Her unhappiness is clear; her motivation for
success makes sense. Why was only the late part of her pre-exile poetry accepted by her
peers and actually quite successful? Because Sachs started to break the chains of society
by moving beyond and writing about something her peers all understood and could relate
to because of the changes in society due to the persecution of the Jews.
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“Grabschriften in die Luft geschrieben” – Exile in the 1940s
Nelly Sachs’ exile work can be divided into three categories. The first category is
the years where she dealt with the horrors of the Holocaust, which also made her famous.
The second category is the years of finding a new voice to help build society and stay a
part of it. The third category is her late work, which includes “Die Suchende.” I will
examine Sachs’ work in the 1940s first.
Nelly Sachs fled Germany in 1940. Without her many friends’ efforts she would
have been on a train to Auschwitz instead. In spite of the horrific experience and the
trauma of losing everything and everybody except for her mother, Sachs never made her
own exile a subject of her work. Instead, the exile experience was taken right out of the
Bible. Exile experience is one of the oldest concepts of Jewish theology, mysticism and
philosophy. The works Sachs written in the 1940s are Ein Spiel vom Zauberer Merlin
(1940), „Grabschriften in die Luft geschrieben“ (1943), „Gebete für den Bräutigam“
(1944-45), „Dein Leib wie Rauch durch die Luft“ (1945), Eli. Ein Mysterienspiel (1945),
and „Chöre nach der Mitternacht“ (1946). In 1947, Nelly Sachs wrote „Die Muschel
saust,“ „In den Wohnungen des Todes,“ and „Von Welle und Granit.“ Only very few of
Sachs’ poems were published or read in public during the 1940s, none but one in WestGermany, Sternverdunkelung (1947 – 1948). It was published with the help of many of
her Swedish friends by the Bermann-Fischer Publishing house in 1949. However, “In
den Wohnungen des Todes” was published with the help of Johannes Becher in 1947 in
East Germany.
Sachs’ early exile poetry is different from Else Lasker-Schüler’s in part because
she left seven years later than Lasker-Schüler. Sachs experienced more of the
105
persecution. She lived through the fear of the Gestapo following her every step in Berlin.
However, she did not experience the physical suffering in the concentration camps, even
though it is a big part of her early exile work. Due to the style and content, her writing
has expressionistic tendencies. However, if it weren’t for the real horror of the
Holocaust, one could assume that Sachs intended to write in that style for emotional
effect. Sachs did not experience any of the traumas herself, neither as a witness, or
physically. However, with her work she processed the horror she read in newspapers and
heard on the radio. Having lived in Germany during the Hitler years until 1940, into the
beginning of World War II, Sachs could only imagine the terrible horrors her family
members, friends, and people had to go through. Bezzel-Dischner writes in her chapter
“Rettend-erlösende Funktion der Erinnerung” about the function of memory:
Auch in realistischen Werken sehen wir Wirklichkeit nicht so, wie sie ist,
geschildert, sondern so, wie der betreffende Autor erinnert. In Werken der
Moderne tritt ein Weiteres hinzu: Die Erinnerung hat sich gegenüber dem einst
„geschilderten“ Leben verselbständigt, sie ist zu einem Wachträumen geworden...
Die Funktionsweise der Erinnerung wird wichtiger als das Erlebte, von dem sie
ihren Ausgang nahm (Dischner).
Nelly Sachs processes in In den Wohnungen des Todes the news she learns through
newspapers, letters and radio. World War II was waging and she knew that a man dear to
her heart had died in a concentration camp, and among him more family members,
friends, and many of her people.
The descriptions of concentration camps, the horrors Sachs must have imagined,
come across in “Den Wohnungen des Todes” as very realistic. It is not neo-romantic
106
anymore, the meaning is not hidden. In addition, comparing this new style to her
writings before exile, much has changed, except for the difficulty to access her work. As
with all her poetry, I find, it has to be read numerous times. As disconnected as her life
in exile from these events must have been like, as disconnected is the appearance of this
poem to her pre-exile work:
Den Wohnungen des Todes
O die Schornsteine
Auf den sinnreich erdachten Wohnungen des Todes
Als Israels Leib zog aufgelöst in Rauch
Durch die Luft –
Als Essenkehrer ihn ein Stern empfing
Der schwarz wurde
Oder war es ein Sonnenstrahl?
O die Schornsteine!
Freiheitswege für Jeremias und Hiobs Strauch –
Wer erdahte euch und baute Stein auf Stein
Den Weg für Flüchtliche aus Rauch?
O die Wohnungen des Todes,
Einladend hergerichtet
Für den Wirt des Hauses, der sonst Gast war –
O ihr Finger,
Die Eingangsschwelle legend
Wie ein Messer zwischen Leben und Tod –
O ihr Schornsteine,
O ihr Finger,
Und Israels Leib im Rauch durch die Luft! (Sachs In Den Wohnungen Des Todes
5).
This poem is very different from her work before exile. First, the content is very clear.
Sachs describes the concentration camps, and the words Rauch, Schornstein, Wohnung
des Todes are not metaphors as Sachs usually used. Second, the form is completely new.
None of the stanzas have the same length. Except for the two rhetorical sentences there
are no complete sentences. None of the lines rhyme. In addition, the melancholy and
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Todessehnsucht are not present. She writes about death itself. However, the anaphoric
‘O’ we have seen in some of her earlier work, for example “Jacob und Rahel,” is still
present, as is the use of the Gedankenstrich, the dash – just more of. The German word
Gedankenstrich is a much better word than the dash for the use intended by Sachs. In the
above poem, it stands for the thoughts that cannot be found to describe the horrors, while
in her earlier poems, the Gedankenstrich stands for thoughts that are supposed to finish a
line in a poem – extra words, not speechlessness as it is now. In den Wohnungen des
Todes consists of four cycles of poetry. In addition to the style mentioned above, there
are recurring styles used prior to exile, like stanzas and rhyming. Falkenstein quotes
Bahr: “Wir können einfach nicht mehr die alten verbrauchten Stilmittel anwenden. In
keiner Kunst ist das möglich” (Falkenstein 32). That is the reason for the drastic
additions and changes in her style. However, the pre-exile content at that point, her
longing for Heimat and her own suffering, has moved towards a description of suffering
of the people as a whole, and not the individual only.
Eli. Ein Mysterienspiel vom Leiden Israels as well as Sternverdunkelung fall
under the same category as In den Wohnungen des Todes. However, Eli was not
published until 1951 in Malmö. It was printed in only two hundred elaborate and hand
signed copies, again with the help of her friends in Sweden. Sternverdunkelung was
printed in Amsterdam in 1949. Only Sternverdunkelung had a great reception and, in
spite of untiring efforts by friends and supporters, it did not sell well at all. Eli was
especially important to Sachs because it was written in memory of a dear friend that died
in a concentration camp. Scholars assume it was the great love of her teenage years, with
whom she had a relationship after her father died in 1930. Eli is a play with fifteen
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Bildern. The events are set in a small Polish town right after World War II. The Jewish
population of this little town, about three million,
bildeten den Mittelstand zwischen dem Adel und den Bauern und waren in allen
bürgerlichen Berufen tätig, auch als Handwerker. Ja, es entwickelte sich im 18.
Jahrhundert unter der Führung von Rabbinern eine schwärmerisch-mystische
Religionsbewegung, der Chassidismus (Berendsohn and Sachs 31).
Berendsohn claims that Nelly Sachs had read the Sohar by Gershom Sholem, because
Sholem’s translation was published in 1935. However, recent scholars disagree. Ruth
Krantz-Löber, for example, asserts that according to letters it can be quite certain that
Nelly Sachs did not read the translation of the Sohar, Die Geheimnisse der Schöpfung
von Sholem, until she received it as a gift from a Rabbi in Sweden after the death of her
mother (Kranz-Löber 78). Therefore, Eli is a work that was created from her memories,
the Bible, as well as Böhme’s and Buber’s mystic and Hasidic works she had
encountered by then.
In the Mysterienspiel, a young boy gets killed. His name is Eli. He is not the
protagonist, but Michael is. Michael is a shoemaker, created as the model of the Hasidic
belief. He is to bring miracles closer to people and is equipped with the appropriate
personal traits. He is brave, unerring, and saved lives:
War der Michael im Bethaus,
im brennenden Bethaus,
hat die Flammen gebunden,
hat den Jossele gerettet,
den Dajan gerettet,
den Jakob gerettet,
aber der Eli ist tot.
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The Mysterienspiel is full of fates of individuals who, though, represent the fate of the
whole Jewish people. The atrocious events are not played out directly on the stage, but
they are told by individuals:
Der Soldat,
der die Erde über uns zuschüttete
und uns begrub –
gesegnet sei er –
er sah bei der Laterne Schein
denn es war Nacht,
daß sie mich nicht genug geschlagen hatten,
und daß sich meine Augen öffneten,
und er holte mich heraus
und verbarg mich – (Sachs In Den Wohnungen Des Todes 9)
Nelly Sachs applies in this poem both good and evil. First, the soldier killing and
burying, then miraculously is saving one of the victims because she was not quite beaten
to death, yet. The miracle of surviving, as well as the proximity of good and evil, is
evident in Sachs’ work. At this point in her work, Sachs still had hope for a peaceful life
for the Jewish people, as well as a Heimat in religion. Sternverdunkelung is a
continuation of suffering of the victims of the Holocaust, as well as the ongoing hope for
a Heimat, except, the sense of Heimat now moved into the twilight; it seems to be less
approachable and less possible:
Auf den Landstraßen der Erde
Liegen die Kinder
mit den Wurzeln
aus der Muttererde gerissen.
Das Licht der erloschenen Liebe
ist ihrer Hand entfallen
deren Leere sich mit Wind füllt.
Wenn der Vater aller Waisen,
der Abend, mit ihnen
aus allen Wunden blutet
und ihre zitternden Schatten
die herzzerreißende Angst
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ihrer Leiber abmalen –
fallen sie plötzlich hinab in die Nacht
wie in den Tod.
Aber im Schmerzgebirge der Morgendämmerung
sterben ihnen Vater und Mutter
Wieder und immer wieder (Sachs Sternverdunkelung : Gedichte 51)
The themes of death and pain, the continuity of bereavement culminated in the four
different cycles of poems in Sternverdunkelung. This poem is beautiful. However,
neither the Germans nor German-speaking Jewish people all over the world were
interested in this book of poetry. It did not sell. The publisher had to pulp the majority
of the print. One of the reasons may be that both all countries and peoples involved in
World War II have moved their daily activity from mourning to rebuilding. People may
be in pain but did not want to be reminded of their pain in literature and relive it over and
over again. People wanted closure, healing from the pain on both sides, not remembering
how and that their children died miserably. Unfortunately, many also wanted simply to
forget it, as if it never happened.
At this point of Sachs’ career as a writer, her frustration and disappointment in the
success of her work was great. Other writers, including friends, were also disappointed
and that brought on a definite change in Sachs’ work – more so than exile has. Braun
wrote “Die nach Sternverdunkelung entstanden Gedichte gehören in eine neue
Schreibphase. Die stereotyp wiederkehrenden Metaphern, die großen, steilen Worte, die
Domin noch vor einer Lektüre abschreckten und Johannes Bobrowski „zu nahe an dem
Inferno“ zu stehen schienen, treten zurück (Lermen and Braun 34). Sachs herself writes
to Berendsohn in 1949 „Hier haben alle Verleger Angst, ihr schönes Papier mit einem
Stück glühender Lava zu verbrennen“ (Lermen and Braun 182). Years later, in 1956, she
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wrote to Johannes Edfelt, “Ja ich leide richtig unter den Demütigungen aus Deutschland“
(Sachs, Dinesen and Müssener 155). One year later in 1957, when the above mentioned
works did not get into second print, Sachs voiced her realization of the difficulties of
these works: “In meinen Gedichtbüchern habe ich einfach zuviel “Wirklichkeit” gegeben.
… [Sie] werden wohl auch aus diesem Grunde es schwer haben, eine zweite Auflage zu
erleben. Vom Eli ganz zu schweigen“ (Sachs, Dinesen and Müssener 176) thus setting
the stage of a change of mind. Michael Braun writes „Mit erstaunlichem Geschick paßte
sie sich den Erwartungen ihrer Briefpartner in aller Welt an (Lermen and Braun 21). At
this point Sachs seems to agree with friends and colleagues about the critique of her
work, as is evident in the following quote from a letter to Berendsohn in 1959:
...nämlich ich habe mit Eli abgeschlossen. Es sind 16 Jahre her, daß ich ihn
schrieb, um ein ganz persönliches Schicksal für mich ertragbar zu machen, ganz
einfach um zu überleben. Beim Wiederhören habe ich jetzt einen solchen
Schreck bekommen, daß ich jahrelang nun nicht einmal mehr den Namen hören
kann (Briefe 211).
“Flucht und Verwandlung” – The 1950s and the Kabbala
Nelly Sachs lost her mother at the age of 59. That loss tossed her into a bout of
depression that was finally able to be lifted by a book given to her by a Rabbi – the
Sohar. This book, as well as the loss of the only relative she was close to, changed her
work drastically. It became more contemplative, the words less staccatoed. Sachs writes
in her diary about the Sohar:
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Möchte nur noch an Quellen trinken. Der Sohar erlöst das Wesen hinter den
Worten. Nachdem die Elegien und das Haar geschrieben sind, darf ich an dieser
Quelle ruhen und trinken. Finde so tiefe Bestätigung für alle Träume (qtd. from
Lermen and Braun 38).
Sachs’ voice is more religious than it has been before; however, it is less painful and
desperate. In addition, the works she wrote in the 1950s did not have the same
difficulties of being published as her works from the 1940s had. She was quite
successful. Various poems were published in Sweden and Germany, and her work, Und
niemand weiß weiter, was published for the Buchmesse in 1957. She wrote the poems for
Flucht und Verwandlungen from 1958 to 1959, and the book was published in the same
year. This work, written ten years after Sternverdunkelung, is in many ways different in
content and style. It also shows a different approach in her religious belief and her sense
of Heimat.
Und niemand weiß weiter is a compilation of 64 poems from her pre-World War
II years, and the early 1950s, separated into eight groups. The painful experience of the
Holocaust lost in intensity, but melancholy is still the character of this work. Sachs
includes different tragic events like Hiroshima, Maidanek and others into her work. The
book is still dominated by the words like Tod and Sehnsucht. However, the topic
expands by moving documenting the Holocaust horrors towards documenting the
prospects of survivors. In addition the hope of a Heimat in eternity is possible, as is
promised in this poem:
In der blauen Ferne,
wo die rote Apfelbaumallee wandert
mit himmelbesteigenden Wurzelfüßen,
wird die Sehnsucht destilliert
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für Alle die im Tale leben.
...
und der Stein seinen Staub
tanzend in Musik verwandelt. (Sachs Nelly Sachs 39)
This poem is a Wegweiser for all to find eternity. There is a Heimat with joy, music, and
dance. The homeless, ripped out by their roots, will be able to climb up and beyond.
There are several more poems hinting at the beyond, promising Heimat. Flucht itself
becomes a topic less of suffering and more of a means to transcend into the beyond.
Sachs was able to retrieve these hopes for Heimat from the treasure of the Sohar, which
gave her the strength to use the words of the German language to generate “good” next to
the “evil” that words can also create.
Her second to last published work, Flucht und Verwandlungen, consists of 54
poems that are not grouped with any headings, except for one, Hiob. This book still has
the same topics of Flucht, Tod, and Sehnsucht. However, it has an all over approach of
healing. Sachs promises that Einer, who is the Redeemer, will come and bring peace:
Einer
wird den Ball
aus der Hand der furchtbar
Spielenden nehmen.
Sterne
haben ihr eigenes Feuergesetz
und ihre Fruchtbarkeit
ist das Licht
und Schnitter und Ernteleute
sind nicht von hier.
Weit draußen
sind ihre Speicher gelagert
auch Stroh
hat einen Augenblick Leuchtkraft
bemalt Einsamkeit
Einer wird kommen
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und ihnen das Grün der Frühlingsknospe
an den Gebetmantel nähen
und als Zeichen gesetzt
an die Stirn des Jahrhunderts
die Seidenlocke des Kindes.
Hier ist
Amen zu sagen
diese Krönung der Worte die
ins Verborgene zieht
und
Frieden
du großes Augenlied
das alle Unruhe verschließt
mit deinem himmlichen Wimpernkranz
Du leiseste aller Geburten. (Sachs Flucht Und Verwandlung 24 f)
With the reading of the Sohar, Nelly Sachs began to include more and more of the
cosmos into her writing. Life and death moved beyond the Seeing Eye into a cosmic
sphere, “weit draußen.” The Redeemer will be just because he is the great force that will
take the ball from the hands of those behaving unjustly. The judging will not be from
here but from beyond. And he will bring peace. Birth and death are interrelated;
therefore, peace will come in death – the quietest of all births to the place called Heimat.
Sachs sounds calm and at peace. She seems to have found a solution for her religious
search.
“Die Suchende” Last Poem published
Last but not least, I would like to discuss Nelly Sachs’ last published work, “Die
Suchende,” from 1966. This poem has 85 lines and is almost like lyrical prose. It is
numbered one through seven – not by stanzas but by topic. Number one, for example,
has seven stanzas. The poem does not have rhyme. The lengths of the stanzas vary from
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one to sixteen lines. Bahr describes this poem to be an exception in Sachs’ late work. I
fully agree with that observation. This is a very personal poem. It comes from the heart
and lays her soul bare.
Bahr claims that „Die Suchende” is the following:
Autobiographie und Schicksal der Marja Wolkonskaja sind hier verbunden und
zur Person der „Leidbesessenen“ mythisiert, so daß sich das Gedicht von der
autobiographischen Aussage ablöst. 44 Die Analogie zwischen Nelly Sachs und
der russischen Fürstin, die von Puschkin besungen wurde, ist dennoch
offensichtlich: beide sind auf der Suche nach dem Geliebten (Bahr 158) .
I disagree with Bahr. “Die Suchende” is clearly an autobiography by Nelly Sachs and her
struggle with love and faith. The Eisprinzessin she refers to in the fourth part is the taken
from the Danish fairy tale, Sneedronningen, by Hans Christian Andersen. 45 Yes, Nelly
Sachs admired women who experienced great love, including Marija Volkonskaja.
Dinesen points out that Sachs has been working on an earlier drama on Volkonskaja, but
44
Princess Marija Volkonskaja (1806 – 1863, married to Prince Sergej Grigorjewitsch Wolkonski in 1825,
followed her husband into exile to Siberia in 1826, after he took part in the Debrakist uprising. She lost her
status, her title, and her wealth in order to be with him. She lived near him in Irkutsk for 29 years. Of the
four children they had together, only two survived. Her husband was pardoned in 1855 and they moved
back to St. Petersburg.
45
The English title is Snow Queen. This fairy tale tells of great love between Kai and Gerda, two children
who grow up as neighbors. The queen of the snowflakes travels throughout the world with the snow. Her
palace and gardens are at the North Pole. Hobgoblins make an evil mirror that distorts reality. The mirror
shatters and pieces of glass fall into people’s hearts and freeze them. The Snow Queen successfully abducts
Kai after he has fallen victim to the splinters of the troll-mirror. She promises to free Kai if he can spell
"eternity" with the pieces of ice in her palace. Gerda goes to free Kai at the palace. Her innocence and the
Lord’s Prayer save his life, as well as the power of Gerda’s love. The fairy tale ends with the following
quote from the New Testament: “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little
children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3).
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she does not refer to “Die Suchende.” She mentions that Sachs worked on a lyrical
drama, in which Sachs “in verkürzter Form eine frühe dramatische Arbeit über Marja
Wokonskaja wieder auf[nimmt]“ (Dinesen Nelly Sachs : Eine Biographie 297). Sachs’
experience with love as a seventeen-year-old girl brought her near death. She survived
because of her writing. I will cite the poem in part and point out the important aspects of
Nelly Sachs’ biography.
The first part of the poem tells about a young woman falling in love, love that was
doomed from the beginning:
1
Von der gewitternden Tanzkapelle
wo die Noten aus ihren schwarzen Nestern fliegen
sich umbringen –
geht die Leidbesessene
auf dem magischen Dreieick des Suchens
wo Feuer auseinandergepflückt wird
und Wasser zum ertrinken gereicht –
Liebende sterben einander zu
Durchädern die Luft – (Sachs Die Suchende)
The thunderous dance band and the notes that fall out of their nests, refer to Nelly Sachs
parents’ home, where her father played the piano every night and she danced to his
music. Nelly Sachs and her family were on vacation when she fell in love - love that was
not to be. The first stanza of the first part of the poem relays the story of Sachs’
childhood, youth and first love. The poem continues with the hardship of “schleift der
Lichttod des Suchens Geschichte in den Sand –” (Die Suchende). 46 The author searches
for the loved one and while doing so writes the history in the sand, suffering continuously
from exhaustion with unremitting danger of dying from her efforts to escape. It is a
46
Lichttod is death by too much sunlight on some very small, mostly single cell, animals that usually live in
sand. It is a gruesome death because those animals get very active when exposed to continuous sunlight
and usually die of exhaustion.
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lifelong suffering. The fourth stanza tells of the death of the “Geliebten vom Henker
ausgeblasen” (Die Suchende). Sachs father did not approve of the relationship. The
futile search for the loved one continues in the next two stanzas. The last three lines of
the sixth stanza of the first part of the poem are as follows:
Die Suchende in ihrer Armut
nimmt zum Abschied die Krume Erde in den Mund
aufersteht weiter – (Sachs Die Suchende)
The Suchende is disappointed by her love. Nelly Sachs never shared what truly went
wrong with her first love experience. However, she was near death, until she resurrected
herself through the written word that saved her life. She took writing as the crumb
needed to live because she had almost died of malnutrition after she came home from that
fateful vacation.
The second stanza “Du bist der Weissager der Sterne // ihre Geheimnisse fahren
aus deiner Unsichtbarkeit // siebenfarbiges Licht aus verschleierter Sonne“ is Sachs‘
discovery of her need and ability to write (ibid) . She is defining herself to be a writer.
The last line of that poem says “She herself is the prophet and the words Sonne and
Sterne, as part of her later more defined cosmic repertoire is already present. The last
line of that poem “Vulkanische Beichten unter meinen Füßen – ” is the premonition of
her responsibility as a writer.
The third part of the poem is about her experience in Berlin before exile, the
anxieties, and the German-Jewish identity crisis:
3
Ausgestreut bist du
Same der nirgends häuslich wird
wie kann man Windrichtungen absuchen
oder Farben und Blut
und Nacht die religiöse Angst
Ahnung – der Faden im Labyrinth führt dich – (ibid)
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The reader can feel the author’s fear of losing control. The lack of orientation, the
Heimatlosigkeit, and the unknown religious orientation with the Ahnung that there is a
greater religious power that leads through life. She is hanging on to dear life. This is her
life during the late 1930s.
The fourth part tells the story of love and redemption. It is the longest of the
stanzas, with sixteen lines. Sachs writes about her love story with the Bräutigam, we
know from Den Wohnungen des Todes. The lines tell of reconciliation and redemption.
In this case, he warms her and the ice she built around her heart melts, but they run out of
time and cannot pick up the shards that spell Ewigkeit. This is in contrast to Andersen’s
fairytale, in which Kai’s condition for his release from the Snow Queen was to spell the
Ewigkeit from ice shards of the castle. The fulfillment of the love in “Die Suchende” is
not to be.
4
Es ist eine Ungeduld – Waldbrand knistert in den Adern
ruft: wo bist du – mit dem Echo vielleicht im Himmel
...
der kleine Bruder reitet auf der Ziege –
nur ihr Schmerz sagt ihr daß er tot ist
aber vielleicht hat die Sage ihn unter das Sternbild
des südlichen Kreuzes gestellt
dort wo die Eisprinzessin aus ihrem gefrorenen Grab steigt
ihr Schmuck klappert
er wärmt sie
das Eis fällt ab die strahlenden Jahrtausende
die Zeit geht in Flammen auf im Scheiterhaufen
brennt ab wenn die Vögel die Nacht aufritzen –
These lines give great clues regarding Sachs’ religious, as well as German-Jewish
identity crisis. The fairytale of the Snow Queen by H.C. Andersen is clearly of Christian
values with a Northern setting. However, in this poem she lets the little boy ride on a
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goat, not like Gerda did in the fairytale, on a deer. Sachs puts the fairytale in a southern,
Palestinian, setting with lines “aber vielleicht hat die Sage ihn unter das Sternbild des
südlichen Kreuzes gestellt“ (Sachs Die Suchende). The conflict between Jewishness and
Christianity is not solvable. Sachs tries to combine the two. However, all was burnt at
the stake – her life with her love, her religion, her people, and her Heimat.
In the fifth part of the poem she talks about the brief togetherness that ends in
death by the executioner. As Jews, they are prisoners, and death is the greatest gift of all
because it gives them the release from their emotional and physical exiles on Earth, a
release from suffering.
5
Sie sprachen einmal durch die Ferne zueinander
zwei Gefangene
der Henker trug die Stimmen aufgezogen
den Sehnsuchtsweg des Wahnsinns hin und her
Hatte der Tod je schönere Geschenke auszutragen – (Sachs Die Suchende)
In the following part of the poem, the writer now lives in exile, writing about her
experience in “Wahnsinn und Schrift der Blitze.” She longs for death, waits for
salvation. She struggles with melancholy and the will to live:
…
Wahnsinn und Schrift der Blitze
diese Flüchtlinge von anderswo her
warten bis Sterben ist geboren
dann reden sie –
She fights darkness and insanity. She sees misery and longs for death to find solace.
The last part of the poem tells of hopes and questions for a future and the cosmic,
which Sachs liked to use in all her work, increasingly so in her late work, comes into play
again:
7
…
dein Leib ist eine Bitte im Weltall: komm
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die Quelle sucht ihr feuchtes Vaterland
gebogen ohne Richtung ist das Opfer – (Sachs Die Suchende)
The victims of the persecution of the Jews are still out there – displaced and bent without
direction. Sachs does not find a solution to her search for religious direction. She still
seeks a Heimat. She looks for her Vaterland. The last line of the last part of the poem
stands alone. It stands alone as Nelly Sachs has all her life long. The “Einsamkeitshölle”
as a child, the lost love as a young woman, exile, and death means loneliness and a
continuous search for the true meaning of life. Sachs never saw her Heimat as someone
on Earth. Unfortunately, she still looks for it without much confidence to find it beyond.
It tells the reader how the first love of her life impacted the rest of it. It gives the reader
an insight on a person who took control over her image with every little detail. This poem
and its hidden message also gives some insight on her search for her religious identity. It
shows the discovery of the Sohar, as well as her identity crisis regarding Christianity.
Sachs sees herself as a victim of circumstances and her times. I have come to the
conclusion that Nelly Sachs’ search for Heimat and religious identity was a lifelong
struggle that found reprieve for a short period of time only, during the 1950s, when she
discovered the Kabala. Circumstances during the younger years of her life, which include
a love affair gone awry, her single status as a woman with professional ambitions, her life
confined by society and the persecution of the Nazis, made it nearly impossible to shake
her melancholy. The tendency towards melancholy is mirrored in her work, as is her
search for Heimat and religious identity.
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Closing Remarks
Sachs’ work originated with strong tendencies of neo-romanticism and the
Christian faith. During the Nazi persecution, Sachs was forced to face her Jewish
ethnicity, as well as her religious identity. In the 1930s, Sachs started to incorporate
mysticism in her work and found solace and success in her writing. However, her work
does shows increasingly clear Jewish tendencies, especially for the topics of Abschied,
the premonition of death and Heimatlosigkeit, which will ultimately end in lifelong exile.
Her work during exile increased in cosmic metaphors and changed in content and style.
She never made her own exile experience a topic of her work, but used the oldest
concepts of Jewish theology, mysticism and philosophy to document the horror of the
Holocaust in her work. She continued to write about death and pain, suffering and
longing.
In the 1950s, Sachs suffered through the death of her mother and encountered the
spirituality of the Sohar by Gershom Sholem. Sachs experienced a climax in a
confirmation of her Jewish faith. The topics changed from the murdered and suffering to
the survivors. Her religious voice sings of a Heimat in the poem “In der blauen Ferne.”
The Sohar gave Sachs the confidence and the words to rebuild Heimat with her words
carrying the prospect of a promise beyond. In addition, during 1950s Nelly Sachs’ work
still showed the longing for death – not necessarily to end suffering – but with hope that
there is greater power beyond to do justice by the ones who have been treated unjustly, as
is evident in her poem “Einer.”
My discussion in this chapter spans 56 years of work by Nelly Sachs. Nelly
Sachs’ last published autobiographical poem, “Die Suchende,” spans 56 years of her
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search to find love, Heimat and her religious identity. Sachs was not able to reconcile
Judaism and Christianity. The discussion in “Die Suchende” clearly indicates the
oscillation between these two religions: “Was für eine Himmelsrichtung hast du
eingeschlagen” (Sachs Die Suchende). Instead of becoming more secure in her faith,
Sachs’ voice increases in doubt. Longing for death has not changed, nor has the
loneliness. The one who has always been searching for answers found reprieve in the
Sohar, but only briefly, and remains a victim with little hope and the petition, “dein Leib
ist eine Bitte im Weltall: komm die Quelle sucht ihr feuchtes Vaterland,” to be redeemed
(Sachs Die Suchende).
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CHAPTER III
Barbara Honigmann
This chapter examines the works of Barbara Honigmann, which are closely
related to her identity as a German-Jewish woman born after WWII. Honigmann grew
up in East Berlin and migrated in 1984 to a Jewish community in Strasbourg, France. In
order to compare the development of the religious voice in her works to Else LaskerSchüler’s, and Nelly Sachs’, I will point out great differences between the three authors’
lives, first. Honigmann is the only child of divorced parents who survived the Holocaust
in exile in England and who chose to move back to East Germany in 1946 to help build
the new socialist state of the GDR. As a second generation exile and Holocaust survivor,
Honigmann’s experience is very different from Else Lasker-Schüler’s and Nelly Sachs’
who grew up during the rise of socialism and lived through the Holocaust. In addition,
growing up and living in East Germany until the age of 35 limited Honigmann’s exposure
to Judaism greatly, especially since she was raised in “einem völlig unreligiösem Haus”,
while Lasker-Schüler and Sachs in spite of being assimilated were educated and exposed
to Judaism (Thomalla 2-3).
Honigmann left the GDR in 1984, the same year her father died and her mother
moved to Vienna, without intention to return. Honigmann did not leave because of the
persecution of the Jews, as Lasker-Schüler and Sachs did. She left, as Lermen explains in
her essay, “In der ‘Fremde der Heimat’: Die Schriftstellerin Barbara Honigmann”
because “[sie] fühlte sich fremd in der völlig überalterten jüdischen Gemeinde in OstBerlin, in der Johannes und Ruben die einzigen Kinder waren” (Abret 109). Next to her
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religious reasons, Honigmann may have left East Germany because her mother had
moved to Vienna the previous year, or because she could no longer tolerate the political
agenda of the GDR. In spite of living in a communist country, Honigmann was raised in
a more Western lifestyle than many of her contemporaries. She spent a couple of weeks
every year in Austria with her mother, wearing European clothes and being raised by
parents who had spent many years in France, Germany, England, Austria, the US, and
Hungary before they started their lives in East Berlin in 1945. She writes:
Alles was ich in meiner Kindheit, als junges Mädchen und noch als junge Frau am
Leibe trug, kam, wenn es nicht eine Kreation meiner Mutter war oder von Marx &
Spencer in London, stammte, aus Wien (Honigmann Ein Kapitel Aus Meinem
Leben 50) .
In addition, the Honigmanns had many friends from all parts of the world,
literature from the West, Magazines like VOGUE, as well as access to resources that were
denied to many of their fellow East German Kameraden. Her childhood and early
adulthood was not marked by the privation of the GDR as it was for most Eastern
German citizens. These advantages enabled Honigmann to enjoy a better education, have
many connections in other European countries. In addition, being Jewish gave her the
opportunity to leave East Germany voluntarily.
Another difference between Lasker-Schüler, Sachs and Honigmann is the
difference in the genre of their work. Honigmann wrote plays and Hörspiele before she
left for France. She focused after her departure from the GDR on prose, mainly in an
autobiographical style. Honigmann confirms that many of her publications are
biographical. Nonetheless, she voices problems with that assessment:
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Aber irgendwie möchte ich das nicht so autobiographisch verstanden wissen, was
nicht heißt, daß ich‘s verstecken will. Für mein eigenes Schreiben möchte ich
auch die Freiheit haben, das zu vermischen. Das ist ja das, was mich am
Schreiben interessiert, daß ich mich von meiner eigenen Biographie auch lösen
kann. Und daß es egal ist, ob es stimmt oder nicht stimmt (Thomalla 1206).
In order to continue exploring the effect of exile on the change of the religious
voices through exile in the works of the three German-Jewish female authors, I first
needed to look into the concepts of Heimat and Jewishness of Barbara Honigmann’s life
and works. Then, I closely analyzed her work regarding this concept before and after her
move to France in order to see if and how Honigmann’s religious voice has changed.
Heimat
Until the mass displacement caused by World War II, Heimat had a similar
meaning to many people. Henryk M. Broder explains in his essay “Heimat? – No
Thanks!” what the word Heimat means, or at least how the dictionary defines it (Broder,
Gilman and Friedberg 37). For Else Lasker-Schüler that sense of belonging regarding the
physical space of Heimat in Elberfeld was mostly true. Nonetheless, she felt more at
home in her new hometown Berlin. She had longed for her home country, the familiar
space of language, culture, family and friends, while living and dying in exile. Nelly
Sachs grew up and lived in Berlin until she was forced into exile to Sweden at the age of
49. She never longed to go back to Germany, her place of suffering, because her
memories of Berlin during the persecution from 1933 to 1940 were too traumatizing.
However, she had no intentions of returning to the place of her youth and childhood
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either, as she had few happy memories in her “Einsamkeitshölle.” She did, though, yearn
for the language and familiarity of her home country during her last thirty years in exile
in Sweden. Barbara Honigmann’s experiences on the other hand were quite dissimilar to
the other two authors’. Due to the unique circumstances of her upbringing, her sense of
Heimat is much different from the traditional definition. Nonetheless, she feels like her
fellow writers in her search and longing for it.
Barbara Honigmann calls herself an Emigrantenkind, a child of emigrants (Fiero
7). Her status is different because the words exile and migration have different
meanings. Her parents migrated voluntarily to the communist East Germany after
returning from exile in England. Therefore, she tells her stories from the point of view of
a Nachgeborene of former exiled Jews and emigrant Jews in Eastern Germany. With the
experience of her parents, Honigmann has never lived the life of a person with the roots
and connectedness that is associated with Heimat (Fiero 132). In spite of being German
or Austrian, Honigmann’s parents were removed from everything they knew. Both her
parents were not from Berlin. Her mother was from Vienna with roots in Hungary, and
her father was from Rheinhessen. Honigmann grew up without her biological
grandparents or other relatives. In addition, Honigmann’s parents divorced when she was
six years old, so she was raised in two different households, with numerous partners of
her parents, including step-brothers and step-sisters, as well as step-grandparents. This
destabilized the traditional sense of family and home life. However, neither her
interviews nor her work convey that Honigmann or her protagonists lament this
experience. In fact, it gives them the freedom to discover themselves outside of their
culture, in which they are momentarily living, as well as the freedom to move forward
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and explore their identities outside this physical space of Heimat, especially their
Jewishness.
“Es fällt mir so schwer in so vielen Welten zugleich zu leben,” says one of
Honigmann’s protagonists (Roman Von Einem Kinde 30). Honigmann’s protagonist
explores many different worlds. Petra Fachinger writes that Honigmann’s work is
“situated at the borders of “Heimat” and “Fremde”, East and West, past and present, self
and other, Christianity and Judaism, and Christianity and Islam respectively” (Fachinger
58). The different Heimaten in Hongimann’s life are most closely portrayed in Roman
von einem Kinde with the discovery of Judaism as the final destination: “Hier bin ich
gelandet vom dreifachen Todessprung ohne Netz: vom Osten in den Westen, von
Deutschland nach Frankreich und aus der Assimilation mitten in das Thora-Judentum
hinein“ (111). Roman von einem Kinde consists of six stories that take the reader
through different countries, including East and West Germany, Russia, Slovakia, and
France, as well as a journey through orthodox and secular Judaism.
Honigmann moved from East Germany to West Germany in 1984. After three
months in Frankfurt, she, her husband and two sons moved to Strasbourg. Honigmann
seems to have followed the advice of Gershom Sholem, whom she met and who said to
her: “Jerusalem wäre gut, sonstwo wäre gut, aber Deutschland ist nicht mehr gut für
Juden. Hier kann man nichts mehr lernen, also hat es keinen Sinn zu bleiben, es ist viel
zu schwer“ (Honigmann Roman Von Einem Kinde 94). The family still lives in the same
apartment they moved into right after their arrival in France. However, as she writes in
her essay “Damals, dann und danach:”
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When I came to that other country, even if it was only three blocks beyond the
border, I also began to write – or shall we say, ‘really’ to write, like my great-grandfather,
my grandfather and my father. I wrote, of course, in German, like them, and published
with German presses. That was, then, already a return and I had scarcely left. But
perhaps writing was also something like homesickness and an assurance that we really
did belong together, Germany and I, that we, as they say, could not get away from each
other, especially not now, after everything that had happened (qtd. Brandt. Herzog,
Herzog and Lapp 158).
Honigmann concludes that she and Germany belong together, bonded by her
connection to her forefathers, in spite of her Jewish heritage, and especially because of
the Holocaust. Lasker-Schüler and Sachs felt the opposite. Because of the Holocaust,
they could not belong to Germany, and subsequently never had. The differences of
generation and experiences brought on that change.
After Honigmann moved to France, she immersed herself deeper in the study of
Judaism and seems also to have found her Heimat in her religious belief. Honigmann, as
well as her protagonists, have the same tribulations as Henryk M. Broder describes in his
essay, “Heimat? – No Thanks!.” “The greatest problem with Heimat seems to me that
one is expected to choose one. It would be better to simply have none at all. Or better
yet: to have many all at once” (Broder, Gilman and Friedberg 42). Honigmann has
chosen to have many Heimaten. She is at home in France, in Judaism, in the German
language and her work, and above all with her family, including her ancestors of
German-Jewish assimilated heritage. Else Lasker-Schüler also found her Heimat with
her family during her lifetime, longing for them after their death through her work, which
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was another outlet for the German language and heritage, as well as Heimat in exile.
Nelly Sachs lived with her mother until she turned 50 years old; she never had children
and, consequently, never longed for reunification with them. Her search for Heimat
started with a search for meaning after the persecution started, leading her towards a
journey with Judaism and mysticism. However, she felt most at home, even in exile in
her work and her language.
Jewishness
Barbara Honigmann, who was born in East Berlin on February 12, 1949, is one of
the most distinguished German-Jewish writers of the generations born after the
Holocaust. Her father, Georg Honigmann, was born in Wiesbaden, Germany. He moved
to Great Britain in 1933 and later returned to the GDR where he became a prominent
journalist and film producer. Honigmann’s mother, Alice was born in Vienna with roots
in Hungary. In 1934, she moved to Great Britain. She returned from exile with her
husband to East Berlin after World War II. Alice Kohlmann worked in film dubbing.
Barbara Honigmann studied theater at the Humboldt University in Berlin before
beginning her career as a theater director, painter, and writer. In 1976, she gave birth to
her son, Johannes. In 1981, she married Peter Obermann, who later took her surname.
Another son, Ruben, was born in 1983.
Jewishness is a major topic that winds its way all through Honigmann’s work and
life. However, her early works do not show signs of Jewish content. Born to parents
whose families had been assimilated Jews for generations and who rejected everything
Jewish in the communist state of the GDR, Honigmann felt the need to connect with her
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Jewish heritage after her son Johannes was born. She herself was raised in “einem völlig
unreligiösem Haus” (Thomalla 1205). In addition, Jewish life in the GDR barely
existed. In an interview with Brandt, Honigmann states that
The Jewish community had perhaps two hundred members and eighty percent
were sixty and older. A few years before we left the GDR, there was a worldwide
“return to the roots” movement and this wave, in a modest way, also reached us
(Herzog, Herzog and Lapp 161).
Honigmann explains that a group that included people from several generations
met once a month to listen and talk about a Jewish event. The majority of the people,
however, were not interested in Judaism but in their Jewish ethnicity. The few people
who were interested in Judaism left to follow their beliefs in other countries as
Honigmann explains below:
Therefore, we formed a small group, with four people only, and we would meet at
each other’s place to read and discuss religious texts. These four people left the
GDR very soon afterward; my husband and I moved to France, the other two to
Israel. You cannot easily revive Jewish religion with just four people (Herzog,
Herzog and Lapp 161).
Honigmann left Germany to find her way back to Judaism. Remmler writes in her essay
about Honigmann and Dischereit that “each author chose to take on a repressed (or
previously inconsequential) Jewish identity in adulthood, if under different
circumstances” (Gilman and Remmler 186). Honigmann’s Jewish ethnic and racial
identities are not an issue for her. They do not create difficulties in today’s societies in
general, especially not in the Jewish community in Strasbourg. However, the religious
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identity is often at stake due to the nature of her living in a world dominated by the
Christian calendar. Honigmann received the coveted Kleist Preis, on Saturday, October
14, 2000, just as her colleagues, Lasker-Schüler and Sachs did before her. However,
da ein Leben als Deutsche und als Jüdin auch ein Leben in verschiedenen
Zeitrechnungen bedeutet, ist es auch noch der 15. Tischri, Schabbat und erster
Tag des Laubhüttenfestes, das einzige jüdische Fest übrigens, für dessen Inhalt
und Charakter das Christentum keine Entsprechung gefunden hat (Honigmann
Das Gesicht Wiederfinden 158-9).
On that special day, Honigmann was torn between being German and following Judaism.
She had to compromise her religion in order to receive the Kleistpreis – therefore,
honoring her readers and her German heritage. She had inquired if the festivities could
be moved from a Saturday to another day – but they could not. Karen Remmler writes
that Honigmann is trying to achieve the goal of reconnecting with her Jewish roots:
“Honigmann seeks to write the life of her past by reconnecting with the dead Jewish
parent – in her case, her father” (Gilman and Remmler 197). I agree only partially,
because Honigmann’s religious heritage had been fully assimilated. Petra Fiero states
that Barbara Honigmann is an exception among the second and third generation writers,
“Da sie eine der wenigen ist, die ihre Religion praktiziert und der es um die heiligen
Texte und die Tora, den Mittelpunkt des Judentums, geht, wenn sie sich als Jüdin
definiert” (Fiero 2). Most of Honigmann’s Jewish identity is connected through her
family ties, but only by ethnicity. Her religious Jewish heritage, as well as her search for
Judaism through the birth of her son, is much very different from the experience Sachs
and Lasker-Schüler had. Honigmann’s religious ties were severed over 200 years ago
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with the “Assimilationsrausch” (Fiero 159). In addition, Honigmann does not try to go
back to her religious family traditions because there is nowhere to go back: “denn da sind
ja keine Bräuche aus der Kindheit, zu denen man nach Jahren der Entfernung nur
zurückzukehren brauchte. Die Wurzeln sind seit Generationen gekappt” (Fiero 159).
In essence, Honigmann has, at this point in her life, come to the conclusion that
Jewishness for her is a continuous discovery – a dialogue. She is on a lifelong journey in
her “Torah-Judentum” with the need to commute between her religion and her
Germanness (Fiero 160). The complete lack of religious exposure and education during
her childhood and earlier adulthood took a 180-degree turn. She actively seeks out
Judaism and learned Hebrew to connect with the original texts. Anat Feinberg asserts
that “[s]he left Germany mainly because she found no scope for a full and satisfactory
Jewish life” (Feinberg 165). Else Lasker-Schüler had the most Jewish influence in her
younger life, including living in Palestine towards the end of it. However, her late work
showed the least Jewish content by name. Lasker-Schüler, found Heimat in her work
instead of Judaism, and died with the hope that she would be reunited with her family in
heaven, which may be Christian but at least spiritual in content. Nelly Sachs grew up
assimilated also, but with some influence and knowledge of Jewish traditions and
literature. She found Heimat through her work and Jewish mysticism. It is important to
distinguish that Honigmann migrated to France voluntarily in order to find her Jewish
roots.
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Works
Barbara Honigmann is one of many second- and third-generation writers for
whom the remembrance of the Holocaust plays a major role. Before she moved to
France, Honigmann’s work included the Hörspiele Vom singenden springenden
Löweneckerchen (1979), Der Schneider von Ulm (1981), and the play Don Juan (1981).
Her prose collections include Roman von einem Kinde (1986), Eine Liebe aus Nichts
(1991), Soharas Reise (1996), Alles, alles Liebe (1999), and Ein Kapitel aus meinem
Leben (2004). She has also published several collections of essays, Am Sonntag spielt
der Rabbi Fußball (1998), and Damals, Dann, Danach (1999), and Das Gesicht
wiederfinden (2006). In addition, Honigmann wrote Blick übers Tal: Zu Fotos von
Arnold Zwahlen (2007) due to a literary prize. Her last published work thus far is Das
überirdische Licht: Rückkehr nach New York (2008), which is a Reiseroman.
Honigmann is the recipient of many literary prizes, among them Germany’s prestigious
Kleist Preis in 2000 and the Koret Jewish Book Award in 2004.
However, aside from language, there is a definite difference between her work in
East Germany and her work in France. Despite living in Strasbourg, France, since 1984,
Honigmann continues to write in German. In addition, she does not use the new German
spelling, even though it became law on August 1, 2006. In contrast to Lasker-Schüler
and Sachs, Honigmann did not start writing at a young age. She writes on the back cover
of Das Gesicht wiederfinden that:
Eigentlich bin ich, ohne es zu merken, Schriftstellerin geworden. Ich gehöre nicht
zu denen, die von sich sagen können, sie hätten »schon immer« geschrieben; noch
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nicht einmal während meiner Pubertät habe ich etwa Gedichte verfaßt, um mein
schweres Schicksal anzuklagen (Das Gesicht Wiederfinden).
Writing for Honigmann did happen naturally, but at a later point in life than LaskerSchüler and Sachs. Honigmann started writing when she was pregnant with her son: “My
first play was an adaptation of one of the lesser known fairytales of the Brothers Grimm
called Das singenden springende Löweneckerchen… I was pregnant at that time,”
(Herzog, Herzog and Lapp 159). In addition, during her decision-making to move from
East Berlin to the West, Honigmann completely changed genre and topic of her work
from fairytale Hörspiele and plays to works on Jewishness, Heimat, and identity. In her
subtle prose, Honigmann portrays the complicatedness of Jews born after the Holocaust
in the country responsible for the genocide. The experiences of Honigmann’s characters
often resemble those of the author herself. Honigmann’s protagonists struggle with the
difficulties of living as Jews in Germany - most of them leaving Germany for France, like
the author - while remaining rooted in the German language and committed to Germany’s
cultural traditions.
Autobiographic Writing
Scholars agree that much of Honigmann’s work is autobiographical. Honigmann
writes the legend about her mother as “kurz hinter der Wahrheit und dicht neben der
Lüge, so wie es ihr Credo war” (Ein Kapitel Aus Meinem Leben 138). In addition,
Honigmann claims that “auch das autobiographische Schreiben ist ja Fiktion…Das
autobiographische Schreiben liegt irgendwo in der Mitte zwischen Tagebuch und
Roman“ (Das Gesicht Wiederfinden 39). This quote reveals the difficulty to determine,
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which parts of her work are autobiographical. Honigmann usually uses the first person
narrator most of the time, including names of her family and places of her travelling and
residence. Her works include Briefromane, Reiseromane, Tagebücher, and collections of
essays. Donald Winslow writes that, “The autobiography is such that it encompasses the
truths about a person’s life as they see it, telling particular events as they see relevant to
telling about these ‘truth’” (Winslow 2-3). Not only is the content ambivalent and has
much double meaning, the titles of her works are also ambiguous. Ein Kapitel aus
meinem Leben, may be the story about the first person narrator and her deceased mother,
or a chapter out of her mother’s life. The same applies for Roman von einem Kinde. It
could mean the story of the birth of the narrator’s son in the first text of the six texts of
this book, or it could be a Bildungsroman about a woman coming of age, telling her best
friend in a letter how she has matured. In addition, it may also be the title of a person,
someone who happens to be the child of Jewish parents and has to come to terms with
these difficulties. Honigmann argues that autobiographically inspired readings might
have some value but, most often, they are blind to what is really important in a text or
painting. After all, every artistic expression is somehow autobiographical; for certain
writers it might just be a little more obvious than others…It’s quite dreadful that readers
always want to return to that autobiographical moment, which is the most uninteresting of
them all (Herzog, Herzog and Lapp 160). In addition, Honigmann uses an example of
biographical writing in her essay, “Ein Buch, das ich nicht geschrieben habe,”
(Honigmann Das Gesicht Wiederfinden 89). She explains how the dynamics of
biographical thinking changes the meaning for the reader with her Hörspiel about Else
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Lasker-Schüler “Letztes Jahr in Jerusalem.” 47 The Hörspiel deals with the life and
suffering of an exiled woman who turns into an illiterate in Jerusalem, trying to learn a
new language to communicate. Honigmann provides an example of how she may have
been inspired by Lasker-Schüler but how this Hörspiel could have been any other exiled
person in Jerusalem and it still would have achieved the same goal. In addition,
Honigmann did not use any quotes of Lasker-Schüler’s. On the other hand, though, I
argue that the Hörspiel may have been less successful if it had been about any old woman
exiled in Jerusalem. Lasker-Schüler is a legend unto itself and her name does attract a
large audience.
Die Frau in meinem Hörspiel könnte Else Lasker-Schüler sein, muß es aber nicht,
jedenfalls habe ich kein einziges Zitat von ihr verwendet...Und in gewisser
Hinsicht war sie ja tatsächlich nur eine unter vielen Exilanten, unter all den
Dichtern, Doktoren und Professoren, die dort aufräumten, ackerten, bauten... (Das
Gesicht Wiederfinden 97).
Honigmann’s goal in this essay is to describe how the dynamics of author, subject and
audience may impair the message and do injustice to each. Here essay, “Buch, das ich
nie geschrieben habe,“ is about Bertha Pappenheim. Honigmann explains that she never
wrote it because the audience in this case is “ein ganz bestimmtes, dem ich eine ganz
bestimmte Lehre zu erteilen wünschte, und dabei würde ich mich viel zu sehr mit meiner
Idee indentifizieren, wenn nicht gar Rechnungen begleichen wollen“ (Das Gesicht
Wiederfinden 110). This responsibility goes both ways. Not only is the writer
responsible for the message, the reader has to keep in mind that Barbara Honigmann has
47
Speech given at the Zürcher Poetikvorlesung (III): Über biographisches Schreiben.
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a message for her audience; therefore, she may teach this lesson any way she finds
necessary. There is a Lehre for the audience, coupled with a responsibility for the reader
to realize that the message is not necessarily all autobiographical. Honigmann, as an
author, uses different tools for her audience to understand the message. She gives the
reader an active part in that exchange and makes it dynamic. With this mindset, she
stays within the same traditional responsibilities as did Lasker-Schüler and Sachs. She
has a message for her readers, a Lehre. However, she criticizes writers who elevate
themselves as prophets in her essay, “Des vielen Büchermachens ist kein Ende” from the
Zürcher Poetikvorlesung (II): Über Schöpfung und Schreiben:
wie immer [ein Künstler] sich selbst versteht oder inszeniert, als erfolgreicher
oder verkannter Künstler, in jedem Falle sollten er selbst und sein Publikum das
Bild des Schriftstellers zwischen Überschätzung und Unterschätzung
entmystifizieren, denn sonst steigert er sich noch in die Rolle eines Propheten
hinein, oder sie wird ihm von einer Gesellschaft, die zwar jedes Regelwerk
ablehnt, aber dennoch Wahrheiten hören möchte, geradezu angetragen (Das
Gesicht Wiederfinden 84).
Lasker-Schüler defined herself as a prophet, with the responsibilities of one, as did Nelly
Sachs. However, they leaned in their opinion of the responsibilities of a writer on the
example of the Bible, in which the prophets were chosen to convey messages. In
contrast, Barbara Honigmann claims , “Der Schriftsteller ist aber gerade das Gegenteil
des Propheten, der nur ein Gefäß der Offenbarung ist, meistens gegen seinen Willen zu
dieser Rolle auserwählt und selten um Ausreden verlegen, sich ihr zu entziehen“ (Das
Gesicht wiederfinden 85). Honigmann also writes that the responsibility of a writer in
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today’s times lays in the hands of the author. Today’s writer has to use words that are
“vielfach abgenutzt…als wäre es noch nie gesagt, noch nie gehört worden” (Das Gesicht
wiederfinden 84). Honigmann goes beyond the traditional expectations of writers,
making her works applicable to many levels of today’s global and multi-cultural lifestyle.
Barbara Honigmann’s literary journey took her from a painter, a non-Judaism
practicing writer of Hörspiele and plays, to a woman living in France, writing in German,
and being German and an actively practicing Jew. She takes us with her and her
protagonists on a journey of self-discovery. Her readers experience her own, as well as
her protagonists’ search for Heimat, German-Jewish identity, and Jewishness over the
course of 34 years.
Works in GDR
Honigmann studied Theories of Drama and worked as dramaturgist and theater
producer in Brandenburg and East Berlin. In addition to her interest in theater and
writing, she is world famous for her art: “Schon während des Studiums began Barbara
Honigmann ihr langjähriges Hobby, die Malerei, ernsthaft zu begtreiben. In ihrer
Zürcher Poetikvorlesung…legt sie dar, wie sie durch das Bild zumWort vorgedrungen
ist...” (Fiero 10) She discovered her words through her art. Else Lasker-Schüler was also
a very talented and successful Doppeltalent. Nelly Sachs had an interest in dance and
music and found her aptitude for words through her dance. She was also a Doppeltalent
and did black and white drawings. These three women were and are extraordinarily
gifted.
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Barbara Honigmann worked at the Volksbühne and the Deutsche Theater in East
Berlin. She has been a freelance writer and artist since 1975. Honigmann’s early work
in the GDR was not as successful as the work published after her migration to France.
The Hörspiele and plays were later sold on records and accompanied many children
throughout their childhood. As a point of departure, to analyze the religious development
of Honigmann’s voice, I will discuss her first published work, Das singende springende
Löweneckerchen, and briefly mention her other plays, Der Schneider von Ulm and Don
Juan. The first chapter of her work, Der Roman von einem Kinde, was written while
Honigmann was still living in East Germany, but planning her move to the West. I will
briefly touch on that essay, as well, before I move into her early works from Strasbourg.
Das singende springende Löweneckerchen – The Beginning
Barbara Honigmann wrote Das singende springende Löweneckerchen after she
quit her job at the theater and during her pregnancy with her son, Johannes. 48 However,
the play, and later Hörspiel, “is a piece that marks the transition from my work as
dramaturge to my later prose writings,” Honigmann says in an interview with Bettina
Brand (Herzog, Herzog and Lapp 159). It was even produced as a record and today
people still walk up to Honigmann, saying “I grew up with the Singende springende
Löweneckerchen!” (Herzog, Herzog and Lapp 160).
The play leans on Grimm’s fairy tale of the same name. The original version was
first published in 1815 in the second part of the Brother Grimm’s fairytales. A father is
embarking on a trip and promises his three daughters to bear gifts when he will return.
48
A Löweneckerchen is an archaic word for lark.
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He finds everything his older girls wish for – shoes, clothes and jewelry. However, his
favorite daughter, the youngest, only wishes for a beautiful singing lark. He finds one
that is protected by a lion. In order to get the bird and get away from the lion, the father
pledges the first living thing that he will meet when he comes home to hand over to the
lion. Already dreading that it could be his youngest daughter he returns home to see his
worst fears come true. His favorite daughter must live with the lion that turns human
only at night. The lion cannot be exposed to daylight. He would lose the power to be
human at night for seven years. Hanna, makes a mistake and exposes the lion to daylight:
“Nun ist es geschehen, meine Hanna, und ich muß jetzt sieben Jahre in die Welt
fortfliegen” (Victor 145) He turns into a dove. Hanna embarks on a seven year long
journey trying to follow and find him. She finally wins him back through several
challenges including his memory loss and an impending marriage to a princess.
Elements of this fairytale can be found in many others, including marriage
between animal and human, the numbers three and seven for wishes and years, the long
journey to search for the fulfillment of a goal. The protagonist of the story, Hannah, is an
interesting character because she breaks all taboos of female assigned gender rules and
actively searches for her prince. In addition, she is not of royalty but is able to defeat the
princess by reclaiming her husband. The roles of the women in this fairytale are
reversed, as is the role of the woman in my interpretation of Nelly Sachs’ poem, Die
Suchende, in which young Gerda went on the journey to free her beloved Kay by battling
the Schneekönigin. Another coincidence is that both Sachs’ and Honigmann’s first
publications were adaptations of fairytales. Sachs leaned her first published work,
Legenden und Erzählungen, on Selma Lagerlöff’s translated work with the same title.
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Honigmann, Sachs and Lasker-Schüler stayed with their early works in the realm of
traditional writing. There is no trace of Jewish heritage in their first published works.
However, Honigmann, living and writing in censored and communist and very much
atheist East Germany, did not have many venues available to explore in her writings
beyond a certain point.
Honigmann’s other early works, Der Schneider von Ulm and Don Juan, also lean
towards traditional works. The Don Juan saga is even older than Faust. With
adaptations, she put her own marks on these works. In contrast to the original and
subsequent versions of the past five centuries, Don Juan has to realize that he has lived
his life in error, illegally returning to Donna Anna after being banished. During exile, he
realizes that his love affairs with many women were only a replacement for his own
shortcomings. He learns to solve his problems instead of ignoring them. Donna Anna
wanted to flee with Don Juan - he killed her instead. In the last scene he is wooing her
statue at the cemetery, while Don Juan is killed by the toppling statue in the original
version. In Hongimann’s version, Don Juan, tries to give the statue life. Honigmann is
grappling with the political situation in East Germany. The powerlessness of the
individual is suggested to be the individual’s own shortcoming. People have to take
action in order to overcome a problem, even if it means to kill an ideology. Jewishness
was not mentioned in this work.
Der Schneider von Ulm is an adaptation on Brecht’s poem with the same name.
Stern writes in his essay, “Barbara Honigmann, a preliminary assessment” that
Honigmann’s dramatic retelling of the story of the adventurous tailor Berblinger
and his self-propelled flying machine has a far more pointed political implication
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[than Don Juan.] With an unmistakable applicability to the artist and writers of
the former GDR, the tailor is far less fearful of state interference than of the “coopting” his individual achievement and claiming it to be a national
accomplishment” (Lorenz and Weinberger 334).
The protagonist, Berblinger, fails in his attempt at flying. However, he is not unhappy
about it. He does not want his individual achievement to become a collective
achievement. In addition, imbedded in the play is the tragic story of Berblinger’s wife
who does not want to birth her child into a world full of social and political constraints,
and therefore, births a stillborn. Both plays are very short and are usually performed
together, back-to-back.
Honigmann’s early works include political issues and most likely personal issues,
including Heimat and exile, as in Don Juan, and childbirth/rearing as well as the
collective ownership of one’s work, as in Der Schneider von Ulm. She adheres to
classical works for adaptations. She does not give the reader a glimpse of her future
journey into Jewishness.
Roman von eine Kinde – Work in Tansition
Roman von einem Kinde was published in 1986 and subtitled “sechs
Erzählungen.“ The first short story, in the form of a letter, was written before 1984,
while Honigmann and her family still lived in East Germany. This story leans on Bettina
von Arnim’s partially autobiographic epistolary novel, Goethes Briefwechsel mit einem
Kinde (1835). The other texts, written in 1984/85 are “Eine Postkarte für Herrn
Altenkirch,” “Wanderung, ” “Doppeltes Grab,” “Marina Roža,” and “Bonsoir, Madame
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Benhamou. ” All texts except for “Eine Postkarte für Herrn Altenkirch” and
“Wanderung” deal with Judaism and its traditions and rituals. However, those two short
stories deal with language, communication and loneliness. The content of this work,
aside from the last one, “Bonjour, Madame Benhamou,” takes place in East Germany.
The order of the six short stories seems consecutive, oscillating between memories and
reality. The first, which carries the same name as the title of the book, “Roman von
einem Kinde,” implies the beginning of the search for the meaning of life and Jewish
roots, borne by the pregnancy and birth of the protagonist’s first child. The protagonist’s
name is Babu, which happens to be the childhood name for Barbara Honigmann; the
son’s name is Johannes, as is the name of Honigmann’s first-born son.
The second story is an apology to an old lonely man, with whom the protagonist
lived for a short period of time. Herr Altenkirch loves postcards and connects in this way
with his subtenants after they leave. Sometimes he gets an occasional package, even
from the West. The loneliness and need for something to do for Herrn Altenberg is most
prominent. His condition to sublease a room is a daily breakfast with his tenant before
she leaves for work in the mornings: “Da habe ich ein bißchen Gesellschaft” (Roman
Von Einem Kinde 46). After she leaves town, the protagonist promises herself to write
Herrn Altenkirch a postcard once in a while because she knew that would make him
happy. However, she never does and apologizes to him in that short story, “Bitte
verzeihen Sie mir, Herr Altenirch” (Roman von Einem Kinde 149). There is no mention
of Jewishness in this short story and it stands in stark contrast to the next, “Wanderung,”
which deals with generational conflicts of memory and language.
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A group of young people meet once a year to go hiking. However, “Wanderung”
bears, as all her titles do, additional meaning. In this instance, Wanderung is a travel in
time and places, in literature, history, politics and people’s relationships. Religion is only
mentioned briefly, when the group travels to Galicia. However, the author does not
mention the significance of this area for the Ashkenazi Jewry. “Es war ein wahres Babel
dort, jeder sprach eine andere Sprache, sogar einen unverständlichen deutschen Dialekt,
den Zipser Deutschen, die sich dort im 13. Jahrhundert angesiedelt hatten“ (Roman Von
Einem Kinde 72). In addition, the author mentions a small village with people except for
the Ingenieur , did not speak German, and where people attend mass: “Er brachte mich
auch in das kleine Barockkirchlein, um es mir zu zeigen und auch, um mich dort zu
zeigen. Es war die Stunde des Gottesdienstes und die Kirche war voll“ (Roman von
Einem Kinde 76). In addition to the mention of languages and some implication of
religion, Honigmann’s travelling group has discussions on politics and history.
Wanderung implies the aimlessness of the Nachgeborenen in the GDR. The group
blames their forebearers for their problems and their endless discussions and arguments:
“über Hitler über Stalin über die Deutschen über die Russen über die Juden über den
Krieg über den Osten über denWesten über unsere Eltern, vor allem über unsere Eltern
(Roman von Einem Kinde 55).
Not only does Honigmann subtly weave together politics and religion in this short
story, the topic Heimat, though the word is not mentioned at any point, is constantly
present. However, her sense of Heimat includes roots and locations from long before
birth and far beyond a geographical location. For example, she points out importance of
the geographical connection of Galicia to the Jewish people. In addition, she mentions
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the Zips Deutsche to her friend Jack Zipes: “Da schrieb ich eine Postkarte an meinen
Freund Jack Zipes in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, daß ich endlich die Herkunft seines Namens
aufgedeckt habe, über die er selber nichts wusste“ (ibid 72).49 Honigmann connects the
last name of a friend with a place in Eastern Europe and the word endlich implies that he
and she have been looking from which he comes. She found his roots, his heritage, for
him.
The following three short stories, “Doppeltes Grab,” “Marina Roža,” and
“Bonsoir, Madame Benhamou,” continue to tell the story of the protagonist and her
family on their journey of religious discovery. With “Doppeltes Grab,” Honigmann
defends her protagonist’s choice to move to Strasbourg. The protagonist meets Gershom
Sholem and his wife in East Berlin. They visit the graves of his family members. Some
died in Berlin, a brother in Buchenwald, another brother in Australia and then, three years
later he himself in Jerusalem. He gives the protagonist the following advice: “Wandere
aus in ein Land der Thorakenntnis (…und sprich nicht, daß sie zu dir kommen, denn nur,
wenn du Gefährten has, wird sie sich dir erhalten. Sprüche der Väter 4,18“ (Roman Von
Einem Kinde 94). Honigmann did. 1984, she moved into a Jewish community in
Strasbourg, where she still lives in the same apartment. Heimat is not mentioned in these
three short stories. In fact, the further I delve into her work, I find that Heimat becomes
more and more obscure. Honigmann talks about roots and where people come from.
This phenomenon of migration and Heimat has been associated with the Jewish ethnicity
since the burning of the Second Temple, and is becoming increasingly more common.
49
Professor at the University of Minnesota.
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Honigmann does not mention Heimat while talking about Gehard G. Scholem, but
mentions his grave epitaph:
Gehard G. Scholem
geb. 1897 in Berlin
gest. 1982 in Jerusalem
People used to have their graves inscribed with simply their birth and death dates. Now,
however, it is more common to find these dates as well as the person’s place of birth and
place of death. Honigmann writes:
Die meisten Menschen haben nur ein Grab. Gerschom Scholem hat zwei...Er hatte
wohl auch Zeit seines Lebens in beiden Städten gelebt. Deshalb hat er ein
doppeltes Grab. So ein Leben war das eben (ibid 97).
This quote implies a lifetime spent at two locations without the benefit of Heimat.
The Marina Roža is a small place of Jewish worship in East Berlin which
the protagonist, Peter, find in the short story with the same name. He joins it for the
weekly Schabbes. The short story covers the limited opportunity of Jewish worship in
Moscow in 1982. Marina Roža excludes women and is illegal for foreigners. The
celebrations take place in a “baufälliger Schuppen und kurz vor dem Zusammenkrachen,
die Wände hielten sich, so schien es...und doch war sie durch die Schabbesstimmung der
Rebjata von heiliger Leidenschaft erfüllt“ (Roman von Einem Kinde 101). Fiero writes,
“diese Geschichte ist als Zwischenstation zu Straßburg, wo die Honigmanns ein Leben
inmitten des orthodoxen Judentums erwartet, zu bewerten, als ein Erproben, wie weit
man eventuell bereit ist die strengen Sabbatregeln einzuhalten“ (Fiero 25). In addition, it
is a follow-up on “Doppeltes Grab.“ G. Scholem was a follower of the Chassidim, just as
the Lubawitscher Rebjata practiced in the Marina Roža. The story ends with Ury, the
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leader of the group, being arrested and exiled to Siberia because of the illegal activities in
the Marina Roža. Honigmann is expounding on the continued tragic fate of the Jewish
people when practicing Judaism.
“Bonsoir, Madam Benhamou” is the last of the six short stories. By now, the
Honigmann family as well as the protagonist’s live in Strasbourg. The Honigmanns left
voluntarily and were not persecuted in East Germany. To my understanding, they lived a
privileged life-style and were free to emigrate due to the Helsinki Effect. They were
allowed to leave because they were Jewish. The year before, Honigmann’s mother
moved to Vienna. The Honigmanns had choices, in contrast to many of their fellow
citizens. However, it was a difficult choice to make. Honigmann writes:
Hier bin ich gelandet vom dreifachen Todessprung ohne Netz: Vom Osten in den
Westen, von Deutschland nach Frankreich und aus der Assimilation mitten in das
Thora-Judentum hinein (Roman Von Einem Kinde 111).
The family has been living in Strasbourg over a year. The children go to Jewish schools
and the protagonist takes evening classes at Madame Benhamou. Instruction for men and
women are separate. However, the female protagonist enjoys her classes and seems
content. The family is now abroad but at home. They have had to learn to adjust to the
foreign land: “Habe ich Heimweh? Ich hab Herzweh” (Roman von Einem Kinde 115).
They are not homesick. They are sad but not alone. The whole quarter is full of
foreigners just like them: “Zugereiste, Fremde wie wir. Schwarze, Maghrebins, Türken
und viele andere” (Roman von Einem Kinde 115). Honigmann explains that she did not
leave her house for a whole year. She observed the Jewish ritual, Shneim asar chodesh,
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for twelve months, which dictates that a person cannot attend festivities, especially with
music while mourning a parent. Her father had died the same year she left for France.
Roman von einem Kinde tells the tale of a woman finding her Jewish identity,
starting with the birth of her firstborn son, around 1976. She meanders through times and
places and shares her discoveries regarding Heimat and Jewishness with her readers.
Honigmann’s work during and after her move to France shows an increasing interest and
search for a Jewish identity and Jewish lifestyle. Up until this point in her work, the
interest is focused on family and Judaism.
Works in the 1990s
During the 1990s, Honigmann was a very prolific writer. She published Eine
Liebe aus Nichts, Soharas Reise, Am Sonntag spielt der Rabbi Fußball, und Damals,
dann und danach. My main focus is on the two novels Eine Liebe aus nichts¸ and
Soharas Reise. Honigmann’s Eine Liebe aus Nichts, and Am Sonntag spielt der Rabbi
Fußball, as well as Damals, dann und danach, are autobiographical prose works that
grapple with Honigmann’s life issues regarding her deceased father, her upbringing, her
Jewish identity, her German Heimat, and her family life in France, similar to her prose in
Roman von einem Kinde, just in more detail and more tightly woven. Soharas Reise,
though, is a fictional work that tells about Jewish life in today’s France and will give us a
closer look at a woman’s search for her identity in the Jewish religion beyond the borders
of only one particular country.
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Eine Liebe aus Nichts – German-Jewish Tragic Triangle
Honigmann’s Eine Liebe aus Nichts is a novel about the protagonist’s exploration
of her own roots. It describes the author’s relationship with her parents, their past and
their bond with Germany, as well as their lack of need for a Jewish identity, while she on
the other hand tries to find her own. Honigmann explores, through the experience of her
protagonist, her own father’s German roots and what it means to be of Jewish heritage in
a German country. The protagonists’ father is very much rooted in his German cultural
heritage like German literature, but, he never feels at home. He writes in his diary
“Staatenloser, der ich bin, gelte als Ausländer...” (Eine Liebe aus Nichts 97). The mother
could never adjust to Germany because she was nowhere at home:
Aber in Berlin hat sie sich nie einleben können. Sie behielt immer eine große
Feindseligkeit gegen diese Stadt... Und weil sie schon viele Jahre in Wien, Paris,
und London gelebt hatte, konnte sie nicht einfach sagen, ich komme aus
Bulgarien (Eine Liebe aus nichts 34).
This novel was written in the wake of the death of Honigmann’s father in 1984, shortly
after she left East Berlin and moved after a 3-months-stay in Frankfurt/M. to Strasbourg,
France. The content of the novel is in many ways a narration of Honigmann’s own
experiences. However, she weaves other experiences, like an unfulfilling love
relationship, into this work. In comparison to Roman von einem Kinde, Honigmann
delves deeper into the issues of the Holocaust, her feelings of displacement from
Germany to France, as well as Jewishness in Germany. She skillfully describes the life
circumstances by meandering between time and space to illustrate the development of her
protagonist. Exile, Heimat, and Jewishness are the main topics of this novel.
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Remmler asserts that “Honigmann’s novel does not focus on Germany per se, but
on the transience of Jewish existence within Germany’s borders. Germany is no Heimat
for Jews” (Gilman and Remmler 197). Using the example of the protagonist’s parents,
who disregard their ethnic, racial, as well as religious Jewish identity, Honigmann
emphasizes that there is no Heimat for Jews in Germany. Todd Herzog points out that
“[y]et, like the mother, he seems to return at the end of his life to an identity from which
he had long sought to escape” (Herzog 8). In addition, there may be no Heimat anywhere
anymore, not even in France. She emphasizes her argument by moving the protagonist in
Paris into a sub terrain apartment. The young woman is lost in the big city of Paris. She
roams the city during daytime and comes back at night to meander through her memories,
moving back and forth in time and the lives of her parents, questioning where they
belong, where they came from. The protagonist must come to terms with her choice to
leave Germany. However, she feels she lives in transit, like immigrants did, when kept at
Ellis Island before being allowed to begin their lives in the USA:
Nun sitzt er auf Ellis Island, der verdammten Insel, hat sein ganzes Leben hinter
sich abgebrochen und Amerika noch nicht mal mit dem Fuß betreten, aber er ahnt
schon die grausamen Wahrheiten der neuen Welt (Eine Liebe Aus Nichts 14).
Fiero writes, “Dass es diesen Platz nicht mehr gibt...bedeutet im Endeffekt, dass es
nirgendwo ihre Heimat ist” (Fiero 49). However, at the end of the novel, the protagonist
moves to the top floor. She now has a view over of the skyline, symbolizing her
increasing comfort in a foreign land. She becomes more comfortable with the feelings of
displacement resulting from moving from East Germany to Paris and the problems of
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settling in a cultural and linguistic context that remains foreign to her despite the many
attractions it offers for a Jewish life.
The freedom to explore Jewishness in Eine Liebe aus Nichts stands in stark
contrast to the protagonist’s former life in East Germany. She is now able to address
ethnicity and religion from a safe distance to the political agenda of the GDR and the
inherent anti-Semitic attitude of the Germans she knows. The reader is able to contrast
her relationship to Alfried, a former non-Jewish boyfriend from the protagonist’s life in
East Germany, to a relationship with a Jewish man named Jean-Marc from New York.
They communicate in French and “dadurch verlieren sie an Persönlichkeit, weil die
Muttersprache ein integraler Bestandteil der Identität ist” (Fiero 74). Both men reject
part of the protagonist’s identity. Jean-Marc rejects her German cultural background and
Alfried rejects her Jewish heritage. She, in return, rejects Alfried because of his German
background, especially his Germanic name ,“denn ich konnte, wollte und durfte den
Germanen nicht verzeihen, was sie den Juden angetan hatten” (Eine Liebe Aus Nichts
46). Alfried “vermied jedes Gespräch über unser Herkommen, unsere Gleichheit, oder
Ungleichheit, er wollte diese Wirklichkeit meines Lebens nicht sehen” (Eine Liebe aus
Nichts 46f). Whereas the protagonist was able to speak with Jean-Marc “von unserer
Herkunft, von unseren Eltern, woher sie kamen und wie sie vor den Nazis geflüchtet
waren” (Eine Liebe aus Nichts 55). Jean-Marc explains in detail how he and others in
New York reject everything German, including the language, because of the Holocaust.
In the end, the protagonist remains alone, “folgt nicht blindlings einem Mann, sondern
bleibt sich treu und versucht weitherhin, in Paris und nicht in München oder New York,
ohne Mann Fuß zu fassen” (Fiero 76). The protagonist is trying to free herself from the
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tragic triangle of German-Jewish existence. She leaves Germany and Alfried to
overcome German anti-Semitism, she rejects Jean-Marc to overcome the prejudice of the
Jewish people resenting German-Jews, and she overcomes her own prejudice against
things German by leaving Germany.
The novel begins with the description of the funeral of her father in a Jewish
cemetery on the outskirts of Weimar, in which nobody has been buried in decades. Her
father is trying to find his roots, after death. The protagonist is trying to find them during
her life time. She is trying to find a Heimat in a new country, in spite of her GermanJewish background. At the end of the novel, she moves into the attic. She feels more at
home in this new land because she is becoming familiar with her surroundings and finds
solace in her decision to have moved forward and up.
Soharas Reise - Emancipation
Sohara, the protagonist in Soharas Reise, lives in an orthodox Jewish community
in Strasbourg, France. In this setting Honigmann portrays the clashes between the
religious and cultural traditions among the members of the Jewish community. She is
exploring the different experiences of the Sephardim, who Frau Kahn, the neighbor and
friend of Sohara calls “abergläubisch und kindisch” and Ashkenazim, like Sohara, “die ...
so kühl und immer beherrscht, ich weiß gar nicht, wie die einen Tag wie Jom Kippur
überstehen können ohne Angst und ohne Tränen” (Soharas Reise 77, 87). Honigmann
sheds light on the thriving yet highly diverse Jewish community of today’s France. In
this book, Honigmann again meanders back and forth in time and places. The topics are
exile, speech, Jewishness, and Heimat. But her perspective in this work also includes a
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strong awareness of the situation for women both in the cultural Jewish world, as well as
in the practices of Judaism.
Sohara travels from Oran to “Amien, Marseille, Nizza, Orleans, Anger, Nantes,
Lille, Metz und schließlich Straßburg” (Honigmann Soharas Reise 16). She moves to
France with her mother and sister and leaves the graves of her ancestors and a 2000-yearhistory behind: “Zweitausend Jahre haben wir da gewohnt! Sechzig Generationen!”
(Soharas Reise 41). However, it is not the “Vaterland” that they mourn most, “sonderm
ihrem Haus, ihrem Garten, dem Meer, dem Strand, dem milden Klima und einer andere
Lebensart, einer leichteren, großzügigeren, wie sie sagten” (Soharas Reise 42). They
mourn the lifestyle they have lost. The mother who never recovers from the losses and
“konnte nicht aufhören zu weinen, drei Jahre lang hat sie geweint” (Soharas Reise 43),
makes it more difficult for Sohara and her sister to adjust to the new country and Western
life style. The girls are not allowed to live like other French girls. They are forced to live
in the past. Therefore, she makes the mistake and marries Simon Serfaty, in spite of her
misgivings and doubts. Her mother gives her the following advice:
...hatte mir für meine Ehe viele gute Ratschläge gegeben, du mußt dich deinem
Mann unterordnen, dich seinem Charakter beugen, nicht viel fragen, ihn nicht mit
deinen kleinen Probleme ärgern, ihm auch zeigen, daß du ihn bewunderst, kannst
ruhig ein bißchen Theater spielen (Soharas Reise 59).
Sohara accepts these rules, even after questioning her mother about them as “Heiraten
war doch das Wichtigste von allem” (Soharas Reise 100). Sohara has six children with
Simon – a man who calls himself the “Rabbiner von Singapur” (Soharas Reise 96).
Sohara raises the children on her own because Simon is hardly ever home. They live
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with the help of social services and Sohara is in charge of the children’s schooling,
religious education, and mental well-being. Sohara follows the religious traditions of the
Sephardim, keeps her hair covered, stays mostly at home and makes her children to be
the center of her life. However, her life in France is intolerable because she is living as
an exile. She lost her family and community support that her family had in their
homeland for over 60 generations:
In Oran … wie viele hatten da am Freitagabend bei uns am Tisch gesessen, der
ganze Clan, die Onkel, Tanten und unzählige Cousinen und Cousins, man wohnte
sowieso nah beieinander, und alle waren immer bei allen zu Besuch,
verschlossene Türen gab es nicht und kein Für-sich-allein-Sein, wozu auch (ibid
44).
Exile changed their lives, but Sohara’s family did not adjust its life and Jewishness to
exile. Marrying Simon, who encourages the traditional lifestyle from Oran, extorts
Sohara’s sense of tradition. Sohara does not explore new venues open to her as a woman
living in France until her husband abducts her children and she has to save them. “Ich
klage an!” she says and wants justice. 50 She has raised these children almost single
handedly and deserves to be with them and finish raising them.
Sohara goes on a journey of self-discovery as well as a discovery of her own
Jewishness and emancipation. After many days of self-doubt and self-hatred she realizes
that she is strong. She comes to the conclusion to take action with the help of her
neighbor Frau Kahn, a Holocaust survivor. Sohara has to free herself from her culturally
50
“Ich klage an!,“ is the title to an open letter by Else Lasker-Schüler to her husband, Herwarth Walden
who lied to her, cheated on her, and left her for another woman. In addition, Émile Zola used these words
in 1898 in an open letter to defend the French-Jewish Captain Dreyfus.
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and religiously induced obedience. Up to this point she has treated her husband like she
treats her God:
Jeder kleine und mittlere Verlust war mir willkommen; jede Grippe, jede
Migräne...[in der] Hoffnung, daß mir auf diese Weise ein ganz großer Schrecken
oder Verlust vielleicht erspart bleiben und Gott es nicht mit mir übertreiben
würde, ich wüßte schließlich nicht warum, denn ich liebe ihn, ich fürchte ihn, ich
lehne mich nicht gegen ihn auf (ibid 78).
The word God in this quote is exchangeable with Simon, her husband. She does
everything for Simon in the hope that he will be kind. When he takes the center of her
life away from, her children, Sohara overcomes her fears and seeks help. Due to the
constant absences of her husband, Sohara had a spiritual and supportive relationship with
the local Rabbi:
Er ist der Richter der Gemeinde. Er hat schon in vielen Rechtstreitigkeiten
entschieden, eine Menge Ehen geschieden, er hat die Gültigkeit der
Schabbatgrenze um die Stadt herum festgelegt und ist für die koscheren
Lebensmittel verantwortlich“ (ibid 91).
Sohara consults Rabbi Hagenau regularly with Jewish questions, because “In den ersten
Jahren hat Simon das selbst entschieden…in den späteren Jahren hat er sich dann darum
auch nicht mehr gekümmert” (Soharas Reise 92). With her decision to talk to the Rabbi,
Sohara sets herself free from her “Scham und …unwürdigen Leben” (Soharas Reise 104).
She looks outside her marriage for a solution. She removes her headscarf, gets a haircut,
takes long walks beyond the border of the Jewish quarter and even buys a piece of cake
from a “gojischen Bäcker” (Soharas Reise 98).
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Getting in touch with the Rabi with his global connections was the best decision
Sohara made. The network of Jewish relations across the world is able to bring Sohara’s
children back. Rabbi Hagenau points out that
alle Rabbiner der ganzen Welt kennen sich irgendwie, ich rufe drei, vier von
ihnen in anderen Städten an, und die rufen weider drei vier andere in anderen
Städten an...und unsere Kinder sind in den verschiedensten Ländern verheiratet,
so ist das Netz doch schon gespannt. Wir könnten es die »Torah Connection«
nennen (ibid 96).
Sohara’s family had lost the land of its ancestors. However, exile is something that has
happened in the past, so she must free herself from that confinement. Her Jewishness,
though, and the lessons and traditions from her childhood in Oran, have given Sohara a
sense of Heimat in her religion. Honigmann portrays Heimat not as a location, but as a
mindset. The Jewish people are at home everywhere where Jewish people are. There is a
Jewish network. However, Judaism must constantly be adjusted to new times. Gender
roles have changed so must Sohara. She takes on the responsibility for her children since
her husband is not. She also needs to be with them because “Ohne meine Kinder hatte
ich kein Zuhause mehr” (ibid 14). She has to fight for her Heimat. The meaning of
Heimat changes in Honigmann’s work from one’s place of origin to the place where one
now resides, with the people one loves.
The topic of religion supersedes the topic of speech in Soharas Reise. Sohara
travels from France to Germany, after which she flies over Belgium to London to get her
children. The children don’t speak English, but a Jewish woman recognizes that the
children’s mother is not there and uses the “Torah Network” by informing her husband
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who calls Rabbiner Hagenau in Strasbourg. Landing in London, she is overwhelmed by
the foreignness of the new location: “Nicht nur daß ich nicht verstehen konnte, was da
geschrieben stand, alles sah auch anders aus, Farben und Schriftzüge hatten eine andere
Gestalt... Mir wurde ziemlich bange (Soharas Reise 112). She then sees a “Chassid mit
einem Schild in der Hand, auf dem ganz groß SOHARA stand, und bei seinem Anblick
beruhigte ich mich wieder. Das Schild wäre gar nicht nötig gewesen” (Soharas Reise
113). The familiarity of the sight of the Chassid gives her comfort. However, they
cannot not communicate because “Es war das erste Mal in meinem Leben, daß ich einen
Juden traf, mit dem ich keine gemeinsame Sprache hatte” (114). Instead of
communicating with the words of their languages, they communicate through Hebrew
words they both learned from studying the Bible. Sohara studied the Bible “damals in
Oran” (114). In addition, the portrayal of Rabbiner Hagenau instills confidence that
being Jewish can also mean to be part of a new life and a new century. Jewishness has
transformed and taken control of the future, changing the image of the Jew from a victim
to a transnational person with control and power:
Er saß in seinem Arbeitszimmer, mehr wie ein Geschäftsmann in seinem Büro,
um ihn herum eine Menge Geräte, die zwischendurch klingelten und piepten,
Minitel, Computer, Fax und Kopiergerät...Das Telefon klingelte oft, und er
antwortete jedesmal in einer anderen Sprache, Hebräisch, Englisch, Französisch
oder Jiddisch...(ibid 90).
Honigmann portrays a woman, who suffers through the ordeal of exile from Oran,
through a bad marriage, and the abduction of her children. She lets Sohara mature into a
woman who is unfailing in her Jewish belief, and who finds her own freedom and level of
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emancipation, and then, without saying so: Lets her discover that Jewishness and Heimat
lie within the family and the community, no matter where you are, regardless of language
and origin, as the example of the budding friendship between Sohara and Frau Kahn
shows. The Jewish content of this work is very different from the works of Sachs and
Lasker-Schüler. The times have changed. On the one hand, the pain of exile from the
parents carry on and directly impacts the next generation. On the other hand, Heimat in
today’s world can be constructed with one’s lifestyle, especially with religion.
The vision of Judaism espoused in the novella is realistically heterogeneous, yet
capacious and tolerant as well. ... It takes Judaism qua religion very seriously, yet
does so without erecting an exclusionary wall between religious and non-religious
Jews,
William Collins Donahue asserts in his essay “The real Torah Connection in Barbara
Honigmann’s Soharas Reise” (Beitter 70). Honigmann’s voice in her work has changed.
She is enturing into different types of Jewish and Judaic identities and explores the
possibility for female Jewish emancipation.
Works in the 21st Century
In this part of my chapter, I will discuss Alles, alles Liebe, a Briefroman
published in 2000 for which Honigmann received the Kleist Prize, as well as Das
überirdische Licht, a Reiseroman from 2008. I choose not to discuss Ein Kapitel aus
meinem Leben from 2004 and Das Gesicht wiederfinden from 2006, in spite of their
great reception because they are autobiographical rather than fiction. These works are an
extension of Eine Liebe aus nichts and explore and reflect Honigmann’s years growing
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up with non-practicing Jewish parents in the GDR. Honigmann discusses her roots, her
relationship with her parents, and her Jewish and German identity in these works. Alles,
alles Liebe is very different from Honigmann’s earlier work, as is Das überirdische Licht.
The following discussion will shed more light on Honigmann’s choice of genre and
content in order to determine a change of her religious voice in her work.
Alles, alles Liebe – Reminising the past life in the GDR
Alles, alles, Liebe is in part autobiography. Nonetheless, compared to her other
novels, it has more first person narrators in order to give the reader various views rather
than one. The main protagonist, Anne, bears a close resemblance to Honigmann in age,
education, gender, ethnicity, and parental relationship. This work consists of letters
written from November 1975, to the beginning of January 1976, between Anna and her
friends and family members. Most of the friends live in East Germany; some, though,
live in Vienna, Moscow and Israel. Anna moves for eight weeks to the province of
Prenzlau as a script editor, only visiting Berlin over the weekends to reconnect with her
friends and practice for a play with her friends. The private play is called Das Haus von
Bernarda Alba, which, according to Fiero, is “eine Metapher für das Leben in der DDR”
(Fiero 139). Guy Stern quotes in his essay, “Barbara Honigmann: A preliminary
assessment” that “[Honigmann] has maintained, that she is not a political writer” (Lorenz
and Weinberger 332). I disagree with this assessment because as explained above, her
plays and Hörspiele before migration have hidden political content. In addition, political
issues in Alles, alles Liebe are on the surface. This Briefroman takes place during the
East German government’s support of an anti-Israeli UNO resolution. Zionism was
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classified as a type of racism: 51 “Eine offene judenfeindliche Haltung würden sie hier
nicht wagen, und wenn sie den Zionismus noch so sehr zum Rassismus erklären” (Alles,
Alles Liebe 126). In this work, Barbara Honigmann takes on the issues of discrimination,
alienation, and marginalization of the Jews in former Eastern Germany. Published in the
year 2000, sixteen years after she left the GDR, Honigmann’s topics continue to include
the generational issues of the Jewish people, as well as the German-Jewish symbiosis, or
“negative symbiosis” as Dan Diner describes it in his essay, “Negative Symbiose:
Deutsche und Juden nach Ausschwitz” (185-97). However, Honigmann is more
outspoken and direct. In addition, using the genre of the Briefroman gives Honigmann
the opportunity “einer Vielfalt von Stimmen Ausdruck zu geben” (Fiero 155). The novel
has sixteen protagonists who write and receive letters, thus enabling the reader to
encounter without confusion many different opinions and experiences about politics in
the GDR, Jewishness, exile, and Heimat.
Neither Lasker-Schüler nor Nelly Sachs wrote about politics. Had Honigmann
written this novel before the fall of the Wall and while she was living in East Germany,
she would probably not have written about politics this candidly, either, if at all.
Honigmann’s protagonist, Eva, for example, writes to Anna about a mutual friend, Alex,
who threw himself across the tram tracks one night while screaming: “…er hätte alles
satt! Die miesen Typen in der Provinz! Berlin! Die miesen Typen in Berlin! Die ganze
Misere! Die Scheiß-DDR! Die Enge! Die Starre! Das Unglück! Die Lügen! Das ewige
Runterschlucken!” (Alles, Alles Liebe 51). All the protagonists are quite disillusioned
51
More about the political background see Petra S. Fiero, Zwischen Enthüllen Und Verstecken: Eine
Analyse Von Barbara Honigmanns Prosawerk, Conditio Judaica, vol. 69 (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer
Verlag, 2008) 140-43.
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with their lives for various reasons, including politics, discrimination, and a general lack
of direction.
In Alles, alles Liebe, Jewishness is discussed on many different levels. I will talk
about different type of Jewish issues in the following part of this chapter. The Jewish
population is discriminated against out of political and historical reasons. On the other
hand, Honigmann points out that not only Germans discriminate against Jews; Jews
discriminate against Germans, as well. In addition, Jewish people across the world
discriminate against German-Jews because they do not understand how they can tolerate
living in the culture and country of their perpetrators. Honigmann is dealing with triple
discrimination – the German-Jewish Tragic Triangle.
The first line in the first letter of this epistolary novel leads right into the main
topic of anti-Semitism and discrimination. “Das erste Wort, das ich in Prenzlau hörte,
war »Zigeuner«” Anna writes in the letter to her friend, Eva, after she has moved to the
country side (Alles, alles Liebe 5). Anna Herzfeld’s non-German appearance
immediately evokes discrimination. In addition, her landlord asks her whether she is
“Türkin, Italienerin, Kolumbianerin oder natürlich Zigeunerin” (Alles, alles Liebe 8).
Anna’s friend, Eva, does not feel so sorry for her because she herself is named a “Hexe”
because of her “schrecklich krummen Nase” (Alles, alles Liebe 14). In the same letter,
Eva wonders if she should get plastic surgery to fix her nose. Eva blames the backwards
way of the provinces for these discriminations and stereotypes. However, in the same
letter she rants and raves against the theatre in general: “Das ganze Theater ist Schmiere
und die Leute sind Schweine, jedenfalls die meisten, Nazis und Antisemiten“ (Alles, alles
Liebe 14). She is displeased with the system, but nonetheless claims, “Ich habs
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runtergeschluckt, genau wie ich die Hexe runterschlucke” (Alles, alles Liebe 14). Eva
expresses her resignation towards the powerlessness of the individual against the system
and its people.
The problems between the next generation Germans and Jews are played out in
the relationships between Anna and her lover, Leon, and Eva and her lover, Klaus. The
women are Jewish and the men are German. Eva would like to have a lasting
relationship but, “Klaus ist lieb, aber leider ist er blond” (Alles, alles Liebe 39). Eva
describes Klaus as a stereotypical German with the tendency to be overly neat and
organized:
Oben in der Wohnung hat der liebe Klaus gerade Essen gekocht, weil er ja so
häuslich ist und deshalb gerne abends warm ißt. Wie ich ihn da so mit den Gesten
eingwurzelter Gewohnheit herumwirtschaften sah, packte mich die Wut” (Alles,
alles Liebe 148).
Eva rejects Klaus and throws him out of her place because to her he represents the
stereotypical German. The relationship between Anna and Leon fails because of Leon’s
lack of commitment and his fear that Anna expects too much of him. He cannot give
Anna what she is looking for. She compares him to the beauty of a Greek statue but he
considers himself “schwer zerstört” (Alles, alles Liebe 35). Before he tries to commit his
second attempt at suicide, he accuses her and her friends:
In Deinem jüdischen Kreis stellt ihr euer Jüdischsein heraus und kokettiert damit.
Ihr seid aber bloß eingebildetete Juden, denn ihr seid deutsch bis auf die Knochen,
gerade darin, daß ihr euch so gerne als Anwohner von Jerusalem seht. Eure
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Eltern sind Bonzen und Funktionäre, die dieses Scheißland zu verantworten
haben, in dem ihr euch so unglücklich fühlt (ibid 159).
Honigmann reminds her German readers that all Germans, especially the parents, are
responsible for the unhappiness of the population in East Germany, Jewish or not. Leon
reminds Anna that her parents made a choice to live there and build that country after the
Holocaust. Therefore, they are responsible, also. In addition, he explains that his mother
had to hide during the persecution because she has a son with down syndrome “und der
dich in Verlegenheit bringt, weil er sabbert…Meine Mutter konnte nicht nach England
oder Amerika auswandern, weil sie sich da nämlich auch nicht für mongoloide Kinder
interessiert haben” (Alles, alles Liebe 159). Anna lives a privileged life in East Germany.
She can travel fairly unencumbered. She even has a visa for Moscow. Anna is not afraid
to receive letters from Israel because she is somewhat rebellious. However, her parents
are connected, the repercussions are slim. Anna has access to books, music, clothes,
chocolate and cigarettes from the West when her mother travels to Vienna. Leon does
not have these privileges, unless it is through Anna. Their roles are reversed. Some
Jewish people are the Bonzen now, with power and influence, while he sees himself as a
victim of GDR politics.
Generational conflicts under the Jewish population of East Germany are presented
through the relationships of Anna, Eva and their parents. The Jewishness of the first
generation of Jews in the GDR was suppressed, while the second generation, often
because of their need for direction and meaning, tries to find their roots. The parents
want to be part of a better world without anti-Semitism. Fiero asserts that the first
generation of Jews suppressed their Jewishness because “ die Ideologen der DDR
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glaubten, dass der Sozialismus alle religiösen und ethnischen Unterschiede einebnen
würde...und [haben] ihre Kinder in einer Art »militantem Atheismus« erzogen” (Fiero
143). However, they cannot shake the past, as Eva writes:
Ich glaube, unsere Eltern sind in Wirklichkeit nie aus ihrem Exil zurückgekehrt,
und alles was sie sich eingeredet haben über »Neuaufbau« und »Neubeginn« in
der alten Heimat war ein noch größerer Selbstbetrug als ein »beginning anew« in
Länder des Exils, in England, Amerika oder Südafrika, wo wenigstens ihre Kinder
vielleicht eine Chance haben werden (Alles, alles Liebe 42).
Both, Anna and Eva blame their parents for returning to Germany and leaving their
children there, in a country that now victimizes the second generation. Anna’s mother
has travel privileges and is Anna’s connection to the outside world. While Anna’s father
is suspiciously absent throughout this Briefroman, Eva sees her father regularly.
However, she despises his “blonde goische Frau, die ich nur mit Mühe von der vor fünf
Jahren unterscheiden kann” (Alles, alles Liebe 43). Honigmann’s protagonists which are
the first generation of Jews in East Germany barely have a connection to their parents
aside from the obvious, financial support. Anna communicates with her mother about
items she needs from the West. Eva visits her father “als eine Pflicht…aber ich nehme
sein Geld,” while her mother “[sich] immer so verrückt aufführt” and, therefore,
embarrasses her greatly (Alles,alles Liebe 43).
One of the great issues in the generational conflict is communication. Language
in Lasker-Schüler’s and Sachs’ works stand for Heimat and belonging. These young
people live in the country of their birth and speak in their mother tongue. However, they
do not feel at home, nor do they feel they can talk to their parents. They do communicate
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with their peers, as the letters indicate, but not always are they understood. Eva writes to
Anna that she has given up talking to her father about important issues:
Früher haben wir uns noch gestritten, über politische Sachen, weil er immer alles
verteidigt hat, aber jetzt vermeiden wir solche Themen einfach...Wir sitzen uns
versteinert gegenüber, während seine Frau quasselt (Alles, alles Liebe 43).
There is no communication between father and daughter or stepmother and stepdaughter.
In addition, the past is not mentioned between Anna and her mother. They do discuss
current political issues, but only the current news. The need for communication is
tremendously important for Anna, who writes to Leon in one of her first letters: “…bitte
schreib mir, bitte erzähl und rede mit mir, bitte hör mir auch zu, bitte schweige und
verstumme nicht, bitte bestrafe mich nie mit Deinem Stummsein” (Alles, alles Liebe 38).
Leon stays honest. He has nothing to hide and keeps communicating in spite of the fear,
Anna may misunderstand him: “Ich werde dir jetzt etwas sagen, was Dir nicht gefallen
wird, auch auf die Gefahr hin, daß du es ganz falsch verstehst” (Alles, alles Liebe 159).
The German language between a German and Jew fails in the wake of the Holocaust
because Leon’s words hurt Anna’s feelings. He thinks that her “Jüdischer Kreis” is
exclusive: “Ihr fühlt euch als irgendeine Elite, und ich habe bis heute nicht verstanden
woraufhin eigentlich” (Alles, alles Liebe 159). He continues to point out that none of her
friends, the second generation, can show any special accomplishment, no work, and no
bravery of any type. In addition, the survivors of the Holocaust in Alles, alles Liebe use
English when mentioning the Holocaust or anti-Semitism: “Exile is no return” says
Stephan’s mother, who suffered greatly during the Holocaust, while Anna’s mother
writes, “Der Haß oder im besten Falle gleichgültige Antipathie der Juden gegenüber
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gehört leider zum normalen human behavior” proving Theodor Adorno’s theory to be
correct (Alles, alles Liebe 41, 71).
By choosing the Briefroman as the genre for Alles, alles Liebe, Honigmann uses a
medium of communication about an issue, in which communication fails. Jack Zipes
argues in his essay, “The negative German-Jewish Symbiosis,” that it will take time to
reform Germans so that they realize the problematic nature of provincial nationalism and
xenophobia” (Lorenz and Weinberger 152).52 Nonetheless, Honigmann is able to
communicate to her readers how difficult this process is and that it is not only the
Germans who discriminate but also the Jewish. Zipes asserts that “this reform process is
a difficult one for any nation… It is for this reason that the German-Jewish symbiosis
will remain negative and needs to be negative as a positive force for reform” (Lorenz and
Weinberger 152). The process of reform is taking place, which Honigmann emphasizes
through her Briefroman. The dialogue in Alles, alles Liebe is the beginning of an
understanding of the need to communicate.
To finish my discussion on Alles, alles Liebe, I will discuss Honigmann’s
definition of Heimat in this work. Heimat, as I have already established in Soharas Reise,
is where family and friends reside. It is similar to Else Lasker-Schüler’s definition of
Heimat. Lasker-Schüler’s friends and family members were either gone or not living
near her during her years of exile in Jerusalem. Therefore, Heimat was going to be in
heaven, where she would reunite with her mother, son, and friends. Nelly Sachs found
Heimat in language, friends and her work, and especially in Paul Celan. Their shared
experience gave each other solace.
52
Provincial anti-Semitism and discrimination was another topic of Alles, alles Liebe. Anna spent two
months on the country side, from which her letters originated.
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Anna, the main protagonist, writes these letters to friends and family because she
leaves Berlin for two months to work in the province. Being away from home gives the
protagonist the opportunity to view her relationships and friendships from a distance and
experience discrimination from the people on the country side. However, the reader
learns that Anna’s mother is visiting Vienna; therefore, her only relative is not in Berlin.
In addition, her boyfriend Leon is not at his house on her first weekend visit in Berlin:
“Ich fühle mich hier nicht zu Hause, wenn du nicht da bist” (Alles, alles Liebe 46).
When Anna’s mother returns, she writes to Anna, “Komischerweise fühle ich mich in
Wien trotzdem wohler als in Berlin, weil ich hier meine alten Freunde habe“ (Alles, alles
Liebe 71). As it is with Lasker-Schüler and Nelly Sachs, the protagonists are “at home”
where their friends and family members are. At the end of this epistolary novel, Anna
goes and sees friends in Moscow:
Die nächste Grenze, die ich überschreiten werde, ist übrigens erst einmal die zum
Heimatland aller Werktätigen, und ich freue mich schon darauf, wieder bei
Mischka in Moskau in der Küche zu sitzen. In dieser Küche fühle ich mich fast zu
Hause (ibid 128).
Home is not where Anna was born and raised. Home is where she is comfortable and
where she has her friends. There is a story by Eva Gelb imbedded in Alles, alles Liebe,
named “Die zwei Brüder” (Alles, alles Liebe 150). Using the example of two identical
twin brothers, Honigmann alludes to limited choices for people who don’t fit in if they
just look differently. One of the brothers stays home and ignores his different look, while
the other leaves and roams the world. It is an inner disposition of the individual that
guides these choices: “Ihre Haut glänzte wie Gold. Der eine schämte sich dafür, der
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andere dagegen tat, als ob da gar nichts besonderes wäre“ (Alles, alles Liebe 150). The
brother who is ashamed of his looks prefers to live the life of a wanderer, but “mit sich
selbst lebte er schon lange nicht mehr in Frieden” (Alles, alles Liebe 157). After finding
out the truth from his father why his looks differ from other people he writes it down.
However, when he returns from a lengthy trip, his father has burned his notes and left a
note for his son: “Nichts aufschreiben!” (Alles, alles Liebe 157). He concludes that his
father is probably right, “die Schrift sperrt die Geschichte nur ein” (Alles, alles Liebe
157). The brother remains living at home with wife and children “und da lebten sie
verhältnismäßig glücklich miteinander” (Alles, alles Liebe 156). The brother who knows
the history of his origin was able to settle down and live a fairly happy life. Again,
though, family is important. He finds his happiness with wife and children at home.
However, the word Heimat is not mentioned, implying that there cannot be a Heimat for
a man with golden skin.
While many narrators found their home with family, friends, and their language,
others find one more option for a Heimat as a person with Jewish heritage. Two people
in Alles, alles Liebe find their home in Judaism and are able to go back to Erez Israel.
Ilana, another narrator, writes to Anna how much they had to give up when they left
Moscow. She describes the land and the life, which reminds the reader of Else LaskerSchüler’s Hebräerland. The vastly different countryside built on differences between the
Arabs and Israelis does not promise a peaceful Heimat. The land that the Jews and the
Arabs have fought over for hundreds of years carries its own heritage and burdens that
the newcomers will inherit. Ilana and her husband call the recapture of East Jerusalem
during the Six-Day-War in 1967 a “Zeichen zur »Rückkehr«” while the reader is able to
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interpret the future for the young couple as an omen for their lives ahead (Alles, alles
Liebe 106). They enter a life in Judaism, amongst the chosen people, a life of conflict
and contradictions. Ilana writes:
When ich nach der Schwangerschaftsberatung nach Hause komme, wird Avi [her
husband] auf der Veranda sitzen, in der Uniform der Zahal und mit einer MP über
der Schulter, wird mit dem kleinen Menachem-Mendl am Playmobil-Schloß
bauen...und ich werde immer noch ein wenig erschrecken, meinen sanften Avi als
Soldat zu sehen (Alles, alles Liebe 105).
The contradictions are vast. Avi is a doctor, but in order to live in Israel he must to be a
soldier, first. His wife finds her home in Israel but at great cost. They live in the former
Arab-occupied location “jenseits der Grenze,” of which the readers know will be a
continuous contention between the Palestinians and the Israeli people (Alles, alles Liebe
107). Ilana does not mention that she feels zu Hause in her new world. She moved to
Israel because she and her husband think “daß das Lebendige im Inneren des Judentums
wohl ein Leben nach der Halacha oder wenigstens ein Bemühen um Verständnis des
Gesetzes sein müßte, also ein langes Lernen und Nachdenken” (Alles, alles Liebe106).
However, the extent to which they reach that goal is not disclosed. Using the example of
Ilana and Avi, Honigmann offers another sense of belonging for a Jewish person – the
move to Erez Israel. Ilana and Avi combine their ideological sense of Jewishness by
migrating to the place of origin of all Jewishness, religion, and ethnicity. The reader,
though, realizes that one cannot go back. Times and places have changed. In order to
realize that ideological place, the root of all Jewishness, Avi has to sacrifice his pacifism
and carry weapons.
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In Alles, alles Liebe, Jewishness is discussed on many different levels. The
protagonists grapple with the speechlessness of the generations before them, and the lack
of their parents’ Jewish identity. Another new topic in this work is discrimination. The
Jewish population is discriminated against out of political and historical reasons, but the
Jewish population is not immune applying biases and stereotypes towards the Germans.
The German-Jewish Tragic Triangle is and will stay in effect. Exile, which is a great
topic in both the Roman von einem Kinde and Soharas Reise, is only mentioned in
connection with the parents’ former life in exile during the Holocaust. Exile cannot be
applied to Ilana and Avi’s return to Israel. They migrate to a place only known to them
through the Bible to start a new Jewish life. The word Heimat is only mentioned once,
calling Russia “Heimatland der Werktätigen,” where her friend Mischka lives (Alles,
alles Liebe 128). Most mentions of a feeling of home takes place in connection with
family, friends, language, and work, as it is with Lasker-Schüler and Nelly Sachs.
Das überirdische Licht
Barbara Honigmann spent ten weeks in New York City as a writer in residence at
the New York University in winter of 2005. The result of her stay is a Reisebericht that
is completely void of sightseeing. Instead of sightseeing she is visiting Jewish
institutations, cemeteries, and families. Honigmann writes about her personal experience
in the USA and meanders, as is her style, back and forth between locations, memories
and history, including her other works. Das überirdische Licht does not offer many new
ideas to the reader who is familiar with her previous works – on the contrary, some topics
seem forcefully added and constructed to fit these works. This latest work was received
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with more criticism than any other. Eva Corino writes about Honigmann’s work that it is
“Ein typischer Fall von Stipendiatenprosa” (Corino). In addition, she asserts that
Das Grundproblem an der Stipendiatenexistenz in fremden Städten ist ja
folgendes: Sie ist angenehm, aber nicht unbedingt mitteilenswert! Weil die
Autoren dort auf die Schnelle keine Erfahrung machen, die ihnen und anderen an
die Substanz geht – und dann meinen, ihre flüchtigen Impressionen zu einem
Reisebericht zusammenkratzen zu müssen (Corino).
I agree with Corino. Honigmann writes this Reisebericht and fills the pages, next to bits
and pieces of a perceived American lifestyle, with many topics and people from her
previous works. Verena Lueken was very disentchanted in her article, “Groß sind die
buildings von New York und herb der tea,” with Hongimann’s choice to intersperse Das
überirdische Licht throughout with English words: “Bei Barbara Honigmann hat es
offenbar dazu geführt, dass ihr so einfache Wörter wie Gebäude, überfüllt, im mittleren
Alter, Mittagessen oder Referat entfallen sind, eine Ausfallerscheinung, die ansteckend
sein muss” (Lueken). The raving reviews Honigmann‘s previous works received,
without exception, do not appear after this work. This reminds me of the work of Nelly
Sachs, who changed the content of her work with her collection of poems, Und niemand
weiß weiter, from documenting the horrors of the Holocaust to adding the awakening of
hope for a better future. Sachs’ readers were looking for inspiring work, for a new topic.
Many people who read Sachs’ work experienced and remembered the Holocaust but did
not want to be reminded of the suffering through her poetry anymore. I see this work,
Das überirdische Licht, as a transition between old and new topics on Jewishness in the
21st century – one of them may be the question of exile and migration.
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Honigmann embeds her family history and personal migration experience in this
work, as well as that of many others. The discussion of Jewishness in its various forms,
the Holocaust, and the sense of Heimat are still at the core of Das überirdische Licht.
Underlying, though, is the budding question: What is exile? Barbara Honigmann added a
personal letter that she received from her husband, Peter Honigman to her own travel
experience. Peter Honigmann writes in a letter dated April 14, 1984, “Ein bißchen
komme ich mir vor wie Gulliver im Land der Riesen, vom Stadtbild abgesehen ist auch
alles Jüdische hier so groß, so üppig, so wohlhabend und so selbstverständlich, so
zahlreich. Ich frage mich, ob das noch Exil ist?” (Das Überirdische Licht 40). Peter
Honigmann wrote this letter from his first visit to New York City right after he left East
Germany. Barbara Honigmann compares it with her own experience about New York
City in 2005, which is much different after having lived in France for all these years.
In this last part of the chapter, I discuss Honigmann’s own Jewishness as I
perceive it in Das überirdische Licht. In addition, I include the Jewishness of people
Honigmann meets in New York City. Heimat and exile are intertwined with a short
discussion of where the topic of exile will lead in the future, and how it may compare to
the past. In addition, I touch on speech and language and the much criticized
phenomenon of using English instead of German for many simple words.
New York City is home to the largest Jewish population outside of Israel (AppealFederation). Jewishness in New York bears its own dynamic compared to the rest of the
world. During her stay of ten weeks, Honigmann attended various Schabbes in different
neighborhoods, or communities, as she calls them. During these visits at the Schabbes
locations, Honigmann describes the Jewish religious lifestyle of Jews in New York City
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who came to New York from around the word at various points in history. Since
Honigmann writes for a German audience, mainly non-Jewish, these visits point out the
accessibility to everything Jewish anywhere in the city, from eating opportunities to
diverse Jewishness. “…In deren Nähe, in der Bethune Street, sich übrigens auch die
Synagoge Simchat Tora für schwule, lesbische, bi- und transsexuelle Juden eingerichtet
hat” (Das überirdische Licht 15). Eating kosher in New York City is easy, even in the
school cafeteria. The kosher cafeteria is called Eatery and has two kitchens “und es gibt
an jeweils bestimmten Wochentagen entweder “fleischiges” oder “milchiges” Essen,
dafür haben sie zwei Küchen” (Das überirdische Licht 19). When Peter Honigmann
arrives during a winter snowstorms he finds he needs a coat. The couple goes shopping,
entering a coat store on Hudson Street. They learn that with the right coat on, one can
even look like a real Jew, which is meant as a great compliment from the AfricanAmerican sales person:
…ich ziehe ihn in den ersten Mantel-Shop…er probiert zwei drei Mäntel an,
Wintermäntel für Männer sehen eh alle gleich aus, doch beim letzten ermutigt ihn
der Verkäufer, ein African-American, mit dem Argument zum Kauf: Now you
look like a real Jew, sieht mich an und erwartet von mir die Bestätigung. Doesn’t
he? For 60 $. It’s a mezie. Wir nehmen ihn (Das überirdische Licht 79).
The Jews in New York are confident, happy, and seemingly well adjusted.
Honigmann spent much time with people at different Jewish communities and
congregations. The German-Jewish Tragic Triangle becomes more pronounced in Das
überirdische Licht. Some German-Jews are unhappy, resentful and still live with their
past in the present. In the chapter “Washington Heights,” Honigmann visits a
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congregation with the same name. The community used to be called “Viertes Reich oder
Frankfurt on the Hudson” (Das überirdische Licht 119). Honigmann is invited to meet
“die von ihm betreuten Damen doch einmal beim Kaffee-und-Kuchen-Nachmittag zu
besuchen, es würde ihnen bestimmt Freude bereiten, mich kennenzulernen und mit mir
deutsch sprechen zu können” (Das überirdische Licht 119). The afternoon bei Kaffee und
Kuchen turns out to be very uncomfortable. The ladies, who are in their 70s and 80s, do
not want to speak German. Only one of the women has a son but he resents everything
German. As did the ladies, except for their beloved tradition of having their coffee and
cake in the afternoon. Honigmann calls it the “Ende der deutsch-jüdischen Symbiose”
(Das überirdische Licht 119). Meeting these child survivors of the Holocaust makes
Honigmann feel uncomfortable. At this point, her German heritage was a burden. Going
back in time is an unpleasant experience for Honigmann, which stands in stark contrast to
the visit of another community. The story of the “Lower East Side Renaissance” tells of
a community named “Leute von Brzezan” in Lower Manhattan that was going through a
revival. “53 000 Juden sollen wieder in der Lower East Side leben,” Honigmann explains
(Das überirdische Licht 113).
Und so sehen die »Leute von Brzezan« beim Freitagabend Service dann auch aus:
Natives and Newcomers, Village Bohéme und schwarze Anzüge. Ein sehr breites
Spektrum von...klassischen Orthodoxie..auch ein Chassid in voller Montur (Das
überirdische Licht 113).
The wide range of attendants includes some older people from Brzezan, probably
Holocaust survivors. Nobody speaks German; they speak Spanish, Yiddish and English.
The community is diverse and relaxed. They follow the traditions and the evening ends in
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a birthday celebration for the president. This community does not have a German but a
Polish heritage. The burden of a German-Jewish heritage does not weigh heavily upon
its members.
Honigmann implies in Das überirdische Licht that it is time to move forward,
which is not possible for a German-Jewish Holocaust survivor. However, each individual
has to make their own choices of how they want to live their lives. The old GermanJewish ladies carry a greater burden than the Polish immigrants. I support my argument
with Honigmann’s anecdote of New Year’s Eve in New York City. Honigmann’s friend
Sanda invites her to a New Years Eve celebration at Times Square. Honigmann declines,
“so wie meine Mutter es auch ihr ganzes Leben getan hat…Goiji Naches! Sagte sie
verächtlich zu jeder Art Sylvester zu feiern” (Das überirdische Licht 141). Her friend
responds “Seit wann bist du denn so versnobt?” Honigmann joins her for the night and
has a wonderful time. She overcomes a rule her mother had dictated and Honigmann had
adopted so many years later.
Honigmann prefers her Jewish life to be “Kosher light,” but her husband insists
on certain rituals (Damals, Dann Und Danach 68). Barbara Honigmann takes the
Trageverbot and other religious rules relatively easy, compared to her husband. Same as
Nelly Sachs and Lasker-Schüler, she finds a compromise pleasing to her interpretation of
Judaism. Instead of leaving her keys and wallet at home during Shabbat, and the rule of
the Trageverbot, she puts them in her coat pocket. She knows this action would not be
approved by the Rabbi. The Trageverbot, also called “Trageproblem” by Honigmann is
considered a topic of contention in Manhattan (Das überirdische Licht 94). “Über das
Problem des Trageverbots am Schabbes in Manhattan wird seit ungefähr hundert Jahren
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gestritten. Manche Rabbiner erkennen die natürlichen Eingrenzungen der Insel als
Sabbatgrenze an, innerhalb derer das Tragen erlaubt ist” (Das überirdische Licht 32).
Raw Mosche Einstein declined to accept the natural borders of Manhattan. 53 Jews in
New York City are discussing how to be Jewish and not that they are Jewish. The
acceptance of all things Jewish stands in stark contrast to anti-Semitism encountered in
other parts of the world.
The “Torah Connection” that Honigmann’s readers already encounter in Soharas
Reise is omnipresent in Das überirdische Licht. Everybody knows somebody, who
knows somebody somewhere. For example, the lyricist Thomas, who died young and
whom we already met in Der Roman von einem Kinde is again remembered by Sanda in
New York City. The Chossid and his wife were married in Paris by Rabbin Sitruk, who
now is Grand Rabbin de France. Honigmann meets and greets people from all over the
world in the diverse little village of Manhattan. The only unhappy people are the
German-Jews, whose heritage will burden them forever, unless they change, especially in
their new home country.
Being Jewish in New York City is fully accepted by Jews and others, except for
German-Jewish Holocaust survivors and their children. Their heritage is a burden, no
matter where they go. The German-Jewish Tragic Triangle prevents them from moving
on in life and overcome that burden. Life in this city with the largest Jewish population
53
Mosche Einstein (1895-1896) was an orthodox rabbi originally from Lithuania. He was a scholar, and
an authority on all questions related to Jewish law. He was regarded by many as the de facto supreme
rabbinic authority for Orthodox Jewry of North America. He moved to New York City due to increasing
Soviet pressure in 1936.
177
outside of Israel is enjoyable and relatively easy for Jews, compared to places in Europe.
Honigmann portrays Jewishness in Das überirdische Licht to be global and transnational.
Heimat in Das überirdische Licht is defined through communities, family and
childhood memories. Honigmann remembers a meeting with her father’s cousin. Her
parents immigrated to the United States and settled in New York. Her father’s cousin
shares her photo album and tells cherished anecdotes from her former life in Germany
before her exile. Since she has seen photos during a Heimatabend, she has been riddled
with Heimweh. Honigmann’s cousin is not bitter but sad. However, this woman is very
old. Else Lasker-Schüler also cherished her childhood memories. Honigmann’s
memories become softer and more nostalgic than they have been in former works. This
is evident through her reconnections with her friends from her times in the GDR, Sanda
and Andy. Honigmann picks up a student-like life in New York City that reminds the
reader of the descriptions of her years in the GDR. The book critic Brezing writes
Honigmann “greift Aspekte ihres Studentenlebens wieder auf, als sie alle sich treiben
ließen, nächtelang diskutierten und schliefen, bei wem sie eben gerade waren” (Brezing).
Honigmann starts to remember her own past more than that of her parents.
Above all, though, Heimat in Das überirdische Licht is in Jewishness. The
matter-of -fact tradition for many Jews of all backgrounds to go to various Schabbes
across the city shows a people with confidence in its religious and Jewish identity. No
matter what type of Jewish religious traditions the characters follow, the language is the
same for all Jews across the world, even if the spelling varies. Hailing back to Yiddish or
Hebrew in religious matters reunites the Jewish people across the world. Honigmann
uses for most religious matters the Hebrew words. However, since the readers are
178
German, the word Trageverbot would not be recognized by any of us, therefore she is
using the German word for it.
The word “exile” is not directly mentioned in this work. However, Honigmann
gives the impression that except for the German-Jews living in New York, exile is not
made a subject of discussion. Moving to the United States is still a voluntary, very much
seeked, hopefully successful endeavor, and a privilege above all. One of Honigmann’s
characters is excited to tell her that she won a green card with through the lottery system.
In 2008 the United States gave “50 000 permanent resident visas to persons from low
rates of immigration to the United States” (USAGCLS). 54 Honigmann herself says
“Eigentlich möchte ich gerne in New York bleiben, denke ich jetzt manchmal. Für
immer, denke ich sogar manchmal. Nie mehr zurückkehren. Aus dem Kontinent meines
alten Lebens auswandern” (Das Überirdische Licht 154). As a United States immigrant,
you are among your own because everybody came from somewhere.
Speech in Das überirdische Licht is very different from Honigmann’s other work.
Her own writing style, as well as her choice to intersperse the whole text with simple
English words, is strange for a German reader living in the United States. However,
many German readers are perfectly well-versed in English and have visited the United
States at numerous occasions. Brezing writes
Mit mir unbegreiflicher Wonne flicht die Autorin immer wieder englische Wörter
in ihren Text ein, die dann auch noch kursiv gedruckt werden; als wäre es eine
erste Begegnung mit der englischen Sprache, die man voller Stolz präsentieren
muss (Brezing).
54
In 2008, “1227 Germans” won a green card and a free airplane ticket to the USA. The program is called
Diversity Visa Green Card System.
179
German is spoken very rarely by Honigmann’s characters in New York, except for her
relatives. The Holocaust survivors use only the words Kaffee und Kuchen in German.
They understand German. It is their mother tongue, but they do not speak German to
Honigmann or amongst themselves – in contrast to Mutti from Breslau, a relative of
Honigmann. Mutti moved to the US in 1938 and is a child survivor of the Holocaust, but
she only spoke English to Honigmann when referring to the horrors of the Holocaust:
“you know the concentration camps” (Das überirdische Licht 70). However, that could
be a language skills issue. Mutti has experienced the Holocaust from the American
English language angle. The German words for the Holocaust were not imbedded in her
mind, though the English were. Most immigrants prefer to fit in and learn English when
coming to the USA. In addition, radio, television, and newspaper information were all in
English. Very little German is used in New York City. Being part of the Jewish
community in New York City, the lack of German promotes less memory and friction.
New memories can be made without the constant remembrance of the language of the
perpetrators of the Holocaust – German.
Honigmann uses four languages in Das überirdische Licht. She writes in German
and intersperses the text with English words for things American, substantiating her
German heritage and her New York City location. For Jewish religious vocabulary she
uses Hebrew, making Judaism transnational. The Holocaust is referred to in English,
heeding Adorno’s reservations about using German after the Holocaust. Honigmann
refers to her life in France with a few French words and proverbs. She uses different
languages to identify certain events, locations and feelings. Else Lasker-Schüler never
180
voices misgivings about the German language, while Nelly Sachs often felt
uncomfortable with the German language.
Closing Remarks
Barbara Honigmann grew up in Eastern Germany under her parents’ ideology
that, as Wolf Biermann writes, “the Jews repressed their Jewishness or were especially
anxious to keep proving that, as far as they were concerned, everything that was Jewish
was obsolete and unimportant, or even objectionable” (S. Stern 104). Barbara
Honigmann, as well as Wolf Biermann, was one of the Nachgeborenen of a generation
that wanted nothing to do with Jewishness. Bierman was expatriated due to his criticism
of the GDR in 1976, the same year Barbara Honigmann gave birth to her firstborn son,
Johannes.55 Honigmann and her generation realized that “The Nazis wiped out the
Jewish people – but the Stalinists preferred to liquidate everything that was Jewish in a
Jew” and rebelled against it (S. Stern 109). Not until 1984, though, did Honigmann
migrate from East Berlin to Strasbourg, France.
Honigmann wrote her first play while pregnant with her first child. Her early
work, including Das singende springende Löweneckerchen, Don Juan¸ and Der
Schneider von Ulm, which were written and published in East Germany, have no Jewish
content. During her last years in East Germany, Honigmann wrote the first essay in the
book Roman von einem Kinde, with the same title, in which she grapples with her
Jewishness and her German-Jewish heritage. This work, though, was not published in
East Germany, but in Germany two years after she migrated to France, in 1986.
55
Wolf Biermann’s wife gave Barbara Honigmann the baby clothes from her own child shortly before they
left for West Germany.
181
Roman von einem Kinde was the beginning of Honigmann’s journey in learning
about her parents’ Jewishness and subsequently her own, and, of course, the resulting
lack thereof because of the GDR regime. Honigmann’s Jewish voice in Roman von
einem Kinde becomes loud and clear. It meanders through time and place and different
types of Jewishness, from the Eastern German provinces to East Berlin, to Western
Europe, then the world.
Honigmann explores her parents’ roots in Eine Liebe aus nichts¸ and tries to find
the answers to German-Jewish relationships, Heimat and Jewishness in France, after
leaving Germany. The reader can follow the protagonists’ joy of exploring Jewish
freedom outside of Germany, while learning that they cannot escape the problems of her
German-Jewish heritage. Soharas Reise is Honigmann’s first fictional novel. The
religious identity search by Sohara takes the reader on the journey of Sohara’s
emancipation from her exile and her traditional Orthodox Judaism, to find her own road
of Jewish identity. This novel explores the relationships between the Sephardic and
Ashkenazi Jews and their exile experiences. Soharas Reise introduces the “Torah
Connection” and the multinational Jewish network.
With Alles, alles Liebe Honigmann journeys back into the past and the former
GDR. It is an autobiographical epistolary novel and sheds light on the beginning of
Honigmann’s, as well as her generations’, Jewish journey, during the two months from
November 1975 to January 1976. In this novel, the reader learns of the German-Jewish
Tragic Triangle, the vicious cycle that starts with being a German-Jew to the world. The
second element of the triangle is Jew living in Germany, all the while resenting the
language and culture of the perpetrators of the Holocaust. Finally, it is the fact that the
182
German-Jew must live with those Germans who are anti-Semitic and who carry a
collective burden of guilt that concludes that triangle.
Das überirdische Licht takes the reader on Honigmann’s journey to New York
City. The Reiseroman informs of the multi-cultural, multi-national, and multi-faceted
Jewish life in the city of New York. Jewishness goes global; the “Torah Connection” is
alive and well. Jewish people are content with their identity, excepting German-Jews.
The German-Jewish Tragic Triangle continues, unless one responds like Honigmann by
trying to accept this heritage:
…in einer doppelten Bindung nämlich: an die deutsche Sprache und Kultur, in die
ich hineingeboren wurde, einerseits, und an das Judentum, in das ich ebenfalls
hineingeboren wurde, anderereseits. Ich versuche dieses ”Doppelleben“
anzunehmen...(Das Gesicht Wiederfinden 158).
Using the example of Das überirdische Licht, it appears that Honigmann has found a
solution for the dilemma of the double life of a German-Jew. The new Heimat of Jews is
in Jewishness. It is transnational, not in Germany. Jews need to find their own
Jewishness outside of their pre-Jewish traditions. The world has changed and the
Jewishness of their forefathers has been interrupted by the Holocaust and the fate of
Jewish exile across the world. Jews have to redefine their Jewish identity:
European and American Jews decided to emphasize their Jewishness for their
own reasons and their own eclectic ways, it was also possible not to make that
aspect of “identity” central to one’s self-definition at all (Hoffman 256).
In essence, this quote represents the journey of Barbara Honigmann and her protagonists
to find their Jewish identity in a transnational world. Honigmann’s Jewish religious
183
voice increases in strength with every work written since her departure from East
Germany.
184
CONCLUSION
Lasker-Schüler, Sachs, and Honigmann were of Jewish ethnicity and GermanJewish culture and language. Lasker-Schüler is the oldest of these three women. In spite
of the family’s assimilated lifestyle, she was always aware of her Jewish racial and ethnic
background in part due to her experience of anti-Semitism. Lasker-Schüler’s early work
was not particularly religious, besides the occasional mention of Heaven and the usage of
biblical names, indicating her Christian assimilated background. Exile in Switzerland,
though, increased her interest in Jewish writings, especially those of Buber and the
Kabala, and, therefore, changed her religious voice to include mentioning the Hebrew
Bible and other Judaic traditions. The loss of her geographical Heimat increased her
need to re-establish friendships with her Jewish friends and strengthen her Jewish identity
by expanding on Jewish interests, which ultimately led to three trips to Palestine. Her
works, Konzert and Hebräerland, are similar to Barbara Honigmanns works – part fiction
and part autobiographical essays – expanding on experiences with Jewishness. LaskerSchüler’s religious voice becomes stronger in these works. She critiques both religions,
Christianity as well as Judaism, and attempts to unite these two world religions in her
effort as a poetic prophet. This struggle with her assimilated Christian background and
her Jewish identity finds its outlet in her exile writings while she lived in Switzerland.
She clearly accepts her Jewish heritage, but would like to have her German cultural
identity to be considered, also. The reader can follow these struggles in Hebräerland.
Her second and final exile destination is Jerusalem. Her voice changes from hoping to
reunite these identities to resignation. Lasker-Schüler gives up her struggle to be the
prophet to her readers. She focuses in Das blaue Klavier, as she did in her first published
185
volume Styx, on love, family, and the longing for her losses in life – reunification with
her son and mother in heaven, hoping to find a Heimat she never found on Earth.
Nelly Sachs’ childhood and early adulthood were even more assimilated than Else
Lasker-Schüler’s. In contrast to the other two writers, Sachs tried to keep most of her
personal life confidential. She wanted her work to speak for itself. However, that is a
contradiction in itself because Sachs wrote because of her life experiences. Sachs’
German-Jewish heritage and her experience of Nazi persecution and exile created her
Jewish religious voice. Sachs never felt as if she had a Heimat. She was by nature
melancholic and searched for a place of belonging, which she found in her writings. She
never longed for her family as Heimat as did Lasker-Schüler because she moved to exile
in Sweden with her mother who lived until Sachs was nearly 60. Sachs’ work originated
in the 1920s with strong tendencies of the Christian faith. Still, during the persecution in
years in Berlin, Sachs wrote biblical poems, which are mainly love poems and not
explicitly of Jewish religious nature. However, her work does show increasingly Jewish
tendencies, especially for the topics Abschied, premonition of death, and Heimatlosigkeit
during the rise of National Socialism. In addition, there is the poem, “Rehe,” which Kurt
Pinthus uses as an example of her “Jüdischkeit.” (Dinesen "Und Es Hat Immer Nach
Abschied Geschmeckt": Frühe Gedichte Und Prosa Der Nelly Sachs 80). However, that
is a matter of interpretation. In the 1940s, her exile work is dominated by the topic of the
Holocaust and the hardship for Jewish people since the destruction of the Second Temple.
In the 1950s, Sachs discovered the Sohar and increased her interest in mysticism from the
1930s. She connected with Jewish scholars and writers across the world and found
solace and meaning and a little bit of Heimat in her work. Her last published work, Die
186
Suchende, though, bears testimony to the irreconcilability of her upbringing as a GermanJew with Christian assimilated influence and her Jewish religious heritage. As LaskerSchüler, Sachs was not able to combine her German and Jewish identities. Instead of
becoming more secure in her Jewish religious voice, Sachs’ voice increases in doubt
towards the end of her life. Her voice in Die Suchende clearly indicates the oscillation
between the two religions and in spite of the brief reprieve in the Sohar, she remains a
victim with little hope and the petition to be redeemed in heaven.
Barbara Honigmann migrated to France to be able to search for her Jewish
religious identity. Honigmann comes from a long line of assimilated German-Jews.
However, growing up and living in Soviet occupied East Germany, many more aspects of
Jewishness were wiped out by the Soviet regime. Honigmann’s published work before
her migration to France was void of any Jewishness. The first chapter of her first work,
Der Roman von einem Kinde, though, was written shortly before she left. This work was
the beginning of Honigmann’s journey to discover Jewishness within herself and her
writings, her family past and present. She continues her journey in Eine Liebe aus
Nichts, by widening the circle of her explorations of relationships between Jews and nonJews, German-Jews and non-German-Jews, generations and countries. Soharas Reise
takes the reader further into Jewish exile history. It introduces the “Torah Connection”
and how the Jewish network works through a common denominator – Judaism. In Alles,
alles Liebe, Honigmann meanders back to the 1970s to explain the German-Jewish
Tragic Triangle, with its insurmountable three parts of discrimination of being a Jew with
German heritage. In her last published work, Das überirdische Licht, Jewishness
becomes transnational – Jewish Heimat can be redefined by the individual. In contrast to
187
her predecessors, Honigmann offers a solution to the “Doppelleben” of a Jew born into
German language and culture.
There is a chain of development from Lasker-Schüler, to Sachs, and then
Honigmann. The “Torah Connection” already existed during Lasker-Schüler’s and
Sachs’ lifetime. The writings of Martin Buber and their personal acquaintance with
Gershom Sholem, for example, demonstrate their continuous strength and interest.
Jewish roots can grow strong again in spite of centuries of assimilation. In addition, there
is a possibility of reconciling Germanness and Jewishness today, which was not possible
for Lasker-Schüler and Sachs during and soon after WWII. German-Jewishness lies in
the hands of the individual. Honigmann’s texts suggest that Jewishness today is
increasingly becoming more diverse, acceptable, and global.
My interest in exile literature stems from my own migration to the United States.
The concept of Heimat was not important to me until I left Germany. I have spent half
my life outside my German home country and I am still longing for my Heimat at times.
During the process of writing this dissertation, though, I realized that most of my
memories have nothing to do with the country itself but with the ties to my family and
my best friend Gabi, as well as the language we communicate in best, German. The
Heimat I knew growing up does not exist anymore – how can it? Looking back, it really
never existed the way I saw it as a child. Coming from a family of displaced parents and
grandparents of various denominational orientations, I never learned to grow
geographical and religious roots but family ties, instead. Those family ties to my German
and American families, my love for German literature and language, my life in America,
the English language, rooted me into a life where geographical locations do not matter
188
much anymore. Wherever we go, we go home: to either Germany or America – to the
English language or the German. We are at home in both. Vansant entitles her last essay
in Reclaiming Heimat: Trauma and Mourning in Memoirs by Jewish Austrian Reémigrés,
“Heimat: A Family Affair,” in which Franziska Tausig finds her Heimat in Austria again
in spite of her experience during the rise of national socialism (146). She quotes Tausig:
“I would have had to die of suffocation if I had gone to Autralia, America, or anywhere
else, because my son returned to Vienna. I would have sure succumbed to eternal
homesickness” (ibid 148). “Thus, for Tausig, family translates into Austrian Heimat”
(ibid 148). Tausig found her Heimat in Autria again, Honigmann in Strasbourg, Else
Lasker-Schüler and Sachs in their work, their German language and, ultimately, as their
late work implies, in the hope to be reunited with their families in Heaven. Heimat
means family ties.
Change your opinion,
keep to your principles;
Change your leaves,
keep intact your roots.
-
Victor Hugo
189
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