Jenö was my friend

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Jenö was my friend is a short story by the German writer Wolfdietrich Schnurre from his “Novel in Stories”, published in 1958, when father's beard was still red . Using the example of the friendship between two boys, Schnurre addresses the Porajmos , the genocide of the European Sinti and Roma during the Nazi era . Since its inception, the story has been recommended as school reading in many curricula.

content

The first-person narrator describes how, when he was nine years old, he was approached by the one year younger Sinti boy Jenö and made friends with him. Despite initial concerns about the neighbors, his father allows him to invite Jeno to his home. The narrator and Jeno visit each other regularly from now on. Jenö's visits lead to irritation with the narrator and repeated complaints from the residents to the block attendant due to Jenö's behavior . But his father, despite his peculiarities, protects Jenö from everyone and even the block warden. In spite of this, the Jenös family's trailer park is finally dissolved by the SA and SS and the family is deported , which the old Roma receive with silent horror and the young with unsuspecting lightheartedness. Even the narrator has no idea what fate the boy will face with the deportation. He's just sad that his friend is gone.

background

Wolfdietrich Schnurres novel When Father's Beard Was Red has autobiographical roots. Although he gave the characters in the novel different names , he wrote in a letter to a schoolgirl in 1963 that he could vouch for the content “because I am identical with Bruno, the little boy who tells it, and the time and know the time background from my own experience. And finally the father, the real main character, is really there, and thank God he is still alive ”.

The character Jenö also goes back to a real friend of the young Schnurre with the name Karl Munkacz. In fact, however, he did not get to know the boy when he was 9 years old, but, according to various statements, when he was 11 or 14 years old (i.e. early 1930s). Nor was he an eyewitness to his friend's deportation, which Wilhelm Solms assumes to be between 1940 and 1943. The fact that Jenö speaks Rotwelsch in the story suggests an assignment to the Yeniche , who were called "white gypsies" by the National Socialists. Schnurre explicitly called him a member of the Sinti in his notes, Der Schattenfotograf .

reception

Jenö was my friend is a classic of youth literature and up to the present day the most widespread school reading about Sinti and Roma. For many decades the story was recommended in the curricula of almost all German federal states and was mostly found in reading books for the 5th and 6th grade.

For Mona Körte Schnurre refers to the genocide of the Sinti and Roma “with well-meaning intention”, but continues in the character Jenös “the positive and negative clichés of the rascal and stealing gypsy boy” by assuming that the boy is “fundamentally different” him “reduced to his strangeness”. Without the boy being understood in his customs, the narrator's father, the real hero of the story, merely exchanges an initially “anti-gypsy” attitude for a “friendly” attitude.

According to Wilhelm Solms, Jenö stands for “ the gypsy” in the story . It has no individual characteristics, but is made up of antigypsy clichés. Although Schnurre appeals to the young reader to see Jenö as a friend instead of an enemy because of its otherness, the clichés are only rated differently. Ultimately, the story confirms the negative prejudices against so-called "gypsies" instead of reducing them. According to Solms, many handouts for teachers have not counteracted this antigypsy effect of the story, but reinforced it.

Secondary literature

  • Cordula Behrens-Naddaf: 'Jenö was my friend'. Subject: German tolerance and annihilation . In: Context XXI. Magazine for straightening the Alps , year 2004, issue 6/7, pp. 41–45.
  • Heinz-Jürgen Kliewer : 'Jenö was my friend': On the impact story of a story by Wolfdietrich Schnurre In: Anita Awosusi (Ed.): Gypsy images in children's and youth literature . Das Wunderhorn, Heidelberg 2000, pp. 47–59.
  • Wolfhard Kluge: "What does the wind do when it isn't blowing"? From a children's question, Christian Morgenstern and Wolfdietrich Schnurres 'Jenö was my friend'. Grammar theory and language didactic considerations . In: Friedrich Kienecker and Peter Wolfersdorf (eds.): Poetry, science, teaching. Rüdiger Frommholz on his 60th birthday . Schöningh, Paderborn 1986, pp. 417-29.
  • Wilhelm Solms : Well meant. Poetry about the persecution and extermination of the Sinti and Roma. In: Christoph Suin de Boutemard (Ed.): “Of Germans at all”: Change in mentality between enlightening cosmopolitanism and nationalism . Röhrig, St. Ingbert 2009, pp. 190-204.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The foreign term " gypsy " used in history is now predominantly understood as discriminatory .
  2. ↑ Rupert Hirschenauer and Alfred Weber (eds.): Interpretations of Wolfdietrich Schnurre. Interpretations for German lessons. Oldenbourg, Munich 1970, p. 7.
  3. ↑ a b c Wilhelm Solms : Well meant. Poems about the persecution and extermination of the Sinti and Roma. In: Christoph Suin de Boutemard (Hrsg.) "From Germans at all" Change in mentality between enlightening cosmopolitanism and nationalism. Oppermann studies. Articles and documents on the life and work of Heinrich Albert Oppermann and on the literature and history of the pre- and post-march. Volume 2. Röhrig Universitätsverlag, St. Ingbert 2009. ISBN 978-3-86110-456-8 , pp. 190-192.
  4. ↑ a b Mona Körte: "Gypsies" and Jews in literature after 1945. Federal Agency for Civic Education, accessed on April 10, 2015 .
  5. ↑ Beate Ziegs: "Dasein als Staffage". For the literary staging of the gypsies . Broadcast manuscript for Deutschlandradio Kultur as part of the literature series 00.05 on July 24, 2011 ( PDF file ).