Jozef Wittlin

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Józef Wittlin (1936)

Józef Wittlin (born August 17, 1896 in Dmytrow near Radziechów , Galicia (now in Ukraine ), † February 28, 1976 in New York ) was a Polish author and an important expressionist and realistic poet .

Life

Józef Wittlin was born on August 17, 1896 on the Dmytrów estate in Galicia (then part of Austria-Hungary ) as the son of a Jewish landlord. He spent a large part of his youth in Lviv . There he attended high school from 1906 to 1914. Because his father's second wife was German, Józef Wittlin became familiar with the German language and literature at an early age. In 1915 he graduated from high school in Vienna. He was very good friends with Joseph Roth . Both volunteered for the Austrian army in autumn 1916. After his discharge from the army in September 1918, Wittlin began studying in Lemberg and, after dropping out, worked initially as a teacher, later as a publicist for various newspapers, as a dramaturge and as a freelance writer.

In 1922 he moved to Lodz and in 1927 to Warsaw . Since 1924 he was married to Halina Handelsmann, who holds a doctorate in Polish and German . During this time he undertook extensive trips in Europe, which significantly influenced his work. When the Second World War broke out , he was in Paris , from where he was evacuated to Biarritz in May 1940 . From Nice he and his family managed to escape to New York via Spain and Portugal in January 1941 with the help of Hermann Kogle . He stayed there even after the end of the war. From 1952 on he worked for the US Congress- funded Radio Free Europe , which broadcast programs in several languages ​​in the Soviet bloc.

The author, Alma Wittlin , who also emigrated, is Józef's younger sister.

Create

From 1917 he worked on the translation of the Odyssey into Polish. From his friend Joseph Roth he translated, among others, Job , Zipper and his father and Die Kapuzinergruft , by Hermann Hesse the novel Steppenwolf . His main work is the novel The Salt of the Earth (Sól ziemi, 1935), the first part of the unfinished trilogy The Story of the Patient Infantryman .

Works (in German)

literature

  • Renata Makarska: Between the private and the state. The mechanization of man and the excess of freedom in Józef Wittlin's and Andrzej Bobkowski's war narratives, in Between Apocalypse and Everyday Life. War narratives of the 20th and 21st centuries. Ed. Natalia Borissova, Susi K. Frank, Andreas Kraft. Transkript, Bielefeld 2009 ISBN 3837610454 pp. 115-132

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "Z wami czuję się dobrze". Jeryz Giedroyc, Józef Wittlin. Listy 1947-1976 . in: Tygodnik Powszechny , February 4, 2019.

Web links

Commons : Józef Wittlin  - collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Wittlin, Józef
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish writer
DATE OF BIRTH 17th August 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Dmytrow near Radziechów , Galicia
DATE OF DEATH February 28, 1976
Place of death New York City , USA