Gretl Keren Fischer

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The Bohemian native Gretl Keren Fischer (born April 18, 1919 in Olomouc as Gretl Krause ; † November 24, 2013 in Ottawa ) was a Czechoslovak - Canadian writer, playwright, literary critic and university teacher of Jewish descent. Unlike her parents, who were murdered in extermination camps, she escaped the Holocaust and lived in Canada for a long time. She also appeared under the names Gretl Keren Krausová , Gretl Keren Fischerová , Gretl K. Fischer and Gretl Kraus Fischer or appears in the sources.

Life

Gretl Fischer was the daughter of the businessman Arnošt Kraus and his wife Anna Krausová, née Diamant. Even before the arrests and deportations of Olomouc Jews, which took place in 1942 in particular, Gretl Krause traveled to England in 1939, where she lived for twelve years. The parents Arnošt Kraus, b. November 25, 1886, and Anna Krausová, b. July 26, 1891, were then in June 1942 to Theresienstadt and in August 1942 in the extermination camp Maly Trostinez deported and murdered. On August 5, 2016, two stumbling blocks were laid for her parents in Olomouc .

In London, Gretl Krause first worked as a housemaid and saleswoman, and from 1944 to 1951 as an assistant librarian and librarian, among others for the United Nations and the British Transport Commission . In 1951 she moved to Canada, where she lived in Vancouver and later in Ottawa. After working in the office and library, she began studying English literature at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver in 1953, graduating with a BA in 1956 , and was a German lecturer there from 1956 to 1958. After moving to Ottawa, she continued her studies at the local Carleton University and received an MA in 1961. At McGill University (Université McGill) in Montreal, she became a Ph.D. PhD. From 1969 to 1976 she worked as an English teacher at Algonquin College in Ottawa, then until 1979 as a lecturer for English at Carleton University. She was also involved in environmental protection and human rights.

Fischer was the author of several stage plays and was also active as a literary critic and author of essays and short stories. Her keen interest in Judaism was expressed in her study In Search of Jerusalem: Religion and Ethics in the Writings of AM Klein (Montreal 1975).

In the 1970s, Fischer visited Yad Vashem and provided the Holocaust Museum with material on her parents murdered in the Maly Trostinez extermination camp.

She was married to the lawyer Hugo Fischer, who died in 1978.

Works

Gretl Keren Fischer has contributed to several anthologies such as British Columbia Centennial Anthology (1958) and Refugees: An Anthology of Poems and Songs (1988). Her short stories and essays have appeared in magazines such as Queen's Quarterly , Dalhousie Review , Fiddlehead , Edge , Canadian Literature, and others. Before 1999 she published under the name Gretl Kraus Fischer, later mostly as Gretl Keren Fischer.

  • In Search of Jerusalem: Religion and Ethics in the Writings of AM Klein , McGill-Queen's University Press, Montreal 1975 ISBN 0-7735-0227-0
  • Skeptics (trilogy with three one-act plays), Ottawa 1986
  • An Answer for Pierre (Roman), Borealispress, Ottawa 1999 ISBN 978-0-88887-862-5
  • The Ethical Command of the Cosmos: Religious Naturalism as a Reliable Guide Toward a Beneficent Ethic , Borealispress, Nepean , Ontario 2016, ISBN 978-0-88887-649-2

Remarks

  1. ↑ It is about Abraham Moses Klein (1909–1972), see the lemma in the English Wikipedia; the work was published in 1972 as a dissertation under the title AM Klein. Religious philosophy and ethics in his writings accepted at McGill University (full text online ).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Arnošt Kraus , short biography of the portal of the Židovská obec Olomouc (Jewish community of Olomouc), online at: kehila-olomouc.cz / ...
  2. ↑ Anna Krausová , short biography of the portal of the Židovská obec Olomouc (Jewish community of Olomouc), online at: kehila-olomouc.cz / ...
  3. ↑ See the laying dates on the chronicle page of Demnig's website, online at: stolpersteine.eu/
  4. ↑ a b c Fischer, Gretl Keren 1919- (Gretl Kraus Fischer) , biography on the portal encyclopedia.com, online at: encyclopedia.com / ...

See also

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Fischer, Gretl Keren
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Krause, Gretl (maiden name); Krausová, Gretl Keren; Fischerová, Gretl Keren (full name); Fischer, Gretl K .; Fischer, Gretl Kraus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czechoslovak-Canadian writer, playwright, literary critic and university teacher of Jewish origin
DATE OF BIRTH April 18, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Olomouc
DATE OF DEATH November 24, 2013
Place of death Ottawa