Hans Keilson

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Hans Keilson at the award ceremony of the Moses Mendelssohn Medal on May 10, 2007 in Potsdam

Hans Alex Keilson (born December 12, 1909 in Bad Freienwalde an der Oder ; † May 31, 2011 in Hilversum ) was a German - Dutch doctor , psychoanalyst and German-speaking writer .

Life

Hans Keilson, born in 1909, grew up in Bad Freienwalde as the son of a Jewish textile merchant. As a student he sang Bach cantatas in the Protestant church . He later lived and worked in Berlin and published his first ( autobiographical ) novel Das Leben geht weiter in 1933 , which was banned by the Nazis before printing and was not published again until fifty years later. Keilson studied medicine in Berlin from 1928 to 1934 and performed as a jazz trumpeter in his spare time. In 1934, immediately after his medical state examination, he was banned from publication and practice. Keilson then worked as an educator and sports teacher in various Jewish schools: at the Weissensee orphanage, at the Caputh school home near Potsdam and at the Theodor Herzl School in Berlin.

Because the Nazis persecuted him as a writer, musician and Jew and also because of the professional bans for Jewish doctors , he emigrated to the Netherlands in 1936. Despite the changed living and working conditions, he was able to continue his training and set up a counseling practice for young people. After the German invasion of the Netherlands in 1940, Keilson went underground as a member of the Dutch resistance . As a doctor and psychoanalyst, he took great care of Jewish children who had been brought to safety by their parents in Dutch families before they were deported. During this time he must also have come into contact with Wolfgang Frommel , who hid himself and two young people in the house at Herengracht 401 in Amsterdam. “A difficult situation arose when a mentally disturbed Jewish youth, Torry Goldstern, behaved so bizarre that he put his host family (and himself) in danger. The Dutch resistance considered having him killed because he posed too high a security risk. As Marita Keilson tells the story in her interview with WV, Hans Keilson made sure that Torry Goldstern could first go to a psychiatric institution and then, after he was recognized as a Jew, to Frommel's underground group called Castrum Peregrini in the house on the Herengracht . "

Keilson's first poems and the first 50 pages of his novel The Death of the Adversary , which was published in 1959, were written during the time in the resistance . His parents were murdered in Auschwitz concentration camp . After the liberation of the Netherlands from the German occupation , Hans Keilson returned to his profession as a doctor. He treated severely traumatized Jewish orphans and, together with other survivors, founded “Le Ezrat Ha Jeled” (To the Help of the Child) , an organization to care for Jewish orphans. Since his German degree was not recognized, he resumed studying medicine, which he completed as a specialist in psychiatry in the 1960s. In 1979 he received his doctorate with the study Sequential Traumatization in Children , an innovative contribution to psychoanalytic trauma research. He worked as a psychoanalyst in his own practice.

At the same time, Keilson worked as a writer; From 1985 to 1988 he was President of the PEN Center for German-Language Authors Abroad , and from 2006 he was an honorary member there. In 1996 he received the Franz Rosenzweig visiting professorship at the University of Kassel and in 1999 was accepted as a corresponding member of the German Academy for Language and Poetry . The University of Bremen awarded him an honorary doctorate. In 2005 his collected writings were published in a two-volume edition. In 2008 a comprehensive study of his life and work was published in the journal for psychoanalytic theory and practice . In 2011 two of his books were reissued by Fischer Verlag; at the same time his autobiographical memoirs appeared. There is my house . His diary 1944 was published posthumously in 2014 .

Hans Keilson lived and worked in Bussum in the Netherlands near Amsterdam since 1936 . He was married to the literary historian Marita Keilson-Lauritz (* 1935), whom he had met in Castrum Peregrini : “I lived and worked for a few years in the Centaurian Castrum Peregrini on Amsterdam's Herengracht. It was there that I met Hans Keilson, born in 1909, with whom I have lived for more than four decades since 1970. "

Hans Keilson died on May 31, 2011 at the age of 101.

Awards (selection)

Works (selection)

literature

Audio

Web links

From Keilson

About Keilson

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hans Keilson has died. In: NZZ Online . May 31, 2011, accessed June 1, 2011.
  2. ↑ Trace of Fire - The Book Burning 1933 - Part 1 of 5 at Arte , where Hans Keilson comments on his situation at the time.
  3. ^ Roland Kaufhold: "Literature is the memory of mankind": The Jewish psychoanalyst, writer and educator Hans Keilson
  4. ↑ Roland Kaufhold: "No more traces in the chimney of the air - speechless sky". On the death of Hans Keilson (December 12, 1909 - May 31, 2011)
  5. ↑ Torry Goldstern's Story from Claus Bock 's War Memoir. "One difficult situation arose when a mentally disturbed Jewish teenager in hiding, Torry Goldstern, began acting so bizarrely that he put his host family (and himself) at risk. The Dutch Resistance was considering having him killed, as too much of a security risk. As Marita Keilson tells the story in in her interview with WV, Hans Keilson arranged for Torry Goldstern go first into a mental institution, and then, when he was discovered to be a Jew, to stay with Frommel's underground group, called Castrum Peregrini, in the house on the Herengracht. ”Claus Bock also reports on this story in his book Untergetaucht unter Freunde. A report on Amsterdam 1942-1945
  6. ^ Biography in the exile archive.
  7. ^ Marita Keilson-Lauritz: Kentaurenliebe. Sideways of love for men in the 20th century. Essays 1995 to 2010 , Männerschwarm Verlag, Hamburg, 2013, ISBN 978-3-86300-138-4 , p. 10
  8. ↑ ORF Ö1: People Images: Conversation with Hans Keilson: Design: Michael Schornstheimer, first broadcast November 26, 1995, repetition January 25, 2009.
personal data
SURNAME Keilson, Hans
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Keilson, Hans Alex (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Dutch doctor and psychoanalyst and German-speaking writer
DATE OF BIRTH December 12, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Bad Freienwalde (Oder)
DATE OF DEATH May 31, 2011
Place of death Hilversum