Hans Werner piston

Hans Werner Kolben (born May 5, 1922 in Aussig an der Elbe; died February 1945 in the Kaufering subcamp ) was a German-speaking Czechoslovakian poet.

Life

Hans Werner Kolben grew up in a Protestant, assimilated, Jewish-Bohemian family that belonged to the German-speaking Prague culture. His grandfather, the inventor and Edison's assistant Emil Kolben , founded the family business Českomoravská Kolben Daněk (Bohemian-Moravian Piston Daněk Works) in 1896 , which manufactured machines (locomotives, etc.) and its Škoda works in Pilsen or Bat'a-Schuh made Czechoslovak industry famous from Zlín.

During the German occupation, the piston family was increasingly exposed to severe repression; Hans Werner was able to finish school, his brother Heinz was expelled from grammar school as a Jew. During this time he made friends with the later Germanist and author Peter Demetz . In the spring of 1942 he was reported by a former classmate with ties to the SS for not wearing the yellow " Jewish star ", arrested in the tram and taken to the Theresienstadt ghetto on August 10, 1942 . He had already started poetry in Prague and did not give up in Theresienstadt. On September 28, 1944, Hans Werner Kolben was transferred to Auschwitz and from there for forced labor in the Kaufering concentration camp in Upper Bavaria, a subcamp of the Dachau concentration camp , where he died of typhus in February 1945.

His mother, a bacteriologist who survived the Theresienstadt ghetto, was able to save some of his poems from Prague and Theresienstadt. They appeared in 2011 in a volume of poetry edited by Peter Demetz with an afterword, which Heinz Kolben, who survived the Auschwitz IV concentration camp ( Blechhammer in Upper Silesia) and moved from the ČSSR to Munich in 1968, added memories of his brother. In his writings and lectures, HG Adler had already pointed out the importance of the poems by Hans Werner Kolben, which he included in the poetry of the Prague School .

literature

Hans Werner Kolben , in: Jürgen Serke : Bohemian villages. Wanderings through a deserted literary landscape . Vienna: Paul Zsolnay, 1987 ISBN 3-552-03926-0 , p. 450

Web links

Individual evidence

^ Andreas Wiedemann: The piston family: A family of industrialists in the vortex of time. Radio Praha, February 24, 2007, accessed on January 4, 2018 .
↑ Annette Kraus: “Always one step ahead” - Monument for Emil Kolben in Prague unveiled. Radio Praha, accessed January 4, 2018 .
↑ Marco Zimmermann: "Hide and seek and open secret" - Prof. Demetz on his childhood friend, the poet HW Kolben. Radio Praha, October 8, 2011, accessed on January 4, 2018 (German).
↑ Hans Werner Kolben: Difficulty will disappear, poems from Prague and Theresienstadt . Ed .: Peter Demetz. Coll'Arco Arco-Verlag, Wuppertal 2011, ISBN 978-3-938375-39-6 .
↑ HGAdler: The seal of the Prague School, An Essay firsthand 100th birthday on 2 July 2010 . Coll'Arco Arco-Verlag, Wuppertal 2010, ISBN 978-3-938375-36-5 .

personal data
SURNAME	Piston, Hans Werner
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Czechoslovak German-speaking poet
DATE OF BIRTH	May 5, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH	Aussig
DATE OF DEATH	February 1945
Place of death	Kaufering subcamp

[1] Andreas Wiedemann: The piston family: A family of industrialists in the vortex of time. Radio Praha, February 24, 2007, accessed on January 4, 2018 .

[2] Annette Kraus: “Always one step ahead” - Monument for Emil Kolben in Prague unveiled. Radio Praha, accessed January 4, 2018 .

[3] Marco Zimmermann: "Hide and seek and open secret" - Prof. Demetz on his childhood friend, the poet HW Kolben. Radio Praha, October 8, 2011, accessed on January 4, 2018 (German).

[4] Hans Werner Kolben: Difficulty will disappear, poems from Prague and Theresienstadt . Ed .: Peter Demetz. Coll'Arco Arco-Verlag, Wuppertal 2011, ISBN 978-3-938375-39-6 .

[5] HGAdler: The seal of the Prague School, An Essay firsthand 100th birthday on 2 July 2010 . Coll'Arco Arco-Verlag, Wuppertal 2010, ISBN 978-3-938375-36-5 .