The last Berliner

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The last Berliner ( original Hebrew title: הברלינאי האחרון) is a novel by the Israeli writer Yoram Kaniuk from 2002. In the form of sketchy and sometimes also fictional diary entries, the novel is devoted to the Israeli author's experiences and conflicts with post-war Germany. The history of the Jews in Germany , the Shoah, and post-war relations between Jews and Germany are repeatedly discussed. According to the author, the book was written for an Israeli as well as a German audience, although the original Hebrew version was not published in Israel until 2004.

Summary

The Philosophers in Heidelberg, together with the University a significant yearning of the Father in Israel

At the invitation of the German Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker in 1985, the Israeli writer Yoram Kaniuk visits Germany for the first time. The author's father, the first director of the Tel Aviv Art Museum , graduated from Heidelberg University in the 1920s and then spent a few years in Berlin . After the National Socialists came to power , however, he was forced to flee to the British Mandate of Palestine together with his pregnant wife . Against this background, the loss of the German language and culture of his father and the impending genocide of the Jews in Europe by the National Socialists, the author finally travels to the land of his ancestors.

Over a period of almost twenty years, the author describes his personal impressions, which lament the loss of German-Jewish culture after 1945, but also deal with the horror of the Shoah and the German post-war responsibilities in West and East Germany. The author writes here, among other things, about his meetings with the two writers Heinrich Böll and Günter Grass , but also provides a critical examination of Marcel Reich-Ranicki and, in general, a large number of encounters with citizens of Germany from different areas of life.

On the other hand, the novel also deals with the Holocaust survivors in Israel. Mainly with his father's melancholy for the ideals of the German Enlightenment, the splendor of the German academies and Humboldt's ideal of education (especially in Heidelberg), the cultural achievements of the Jewish community in the German-speaking area and the betrayal of the Christian Germans towards their fellow Jewish citizens in 1933 In general, however, the difficult fate of the Jeckes and their "integration" in Israel is also repeatedly addressed using exemplary examples .

expenditure