Mail to the promised land
Post ins Gelobte Land is a short story by Anna Seghers that was written around 1944 and was published in 1947 as part of the collection The excursion of the dead girls and other short stories in Berlin. A year earlier, 4,000 copies of the book had been published in New York.
This Requiem is the story of the Jew Jakob Levi, who was a respected ophthalmologist in Paris before the war. Jacques Levi practiced.
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Jakob Levi was born around 1895 in the small Polish town of L. His mother - the youngest daughter of the Grünbaum family - did not survive the birth. Before she died, she had to watch from a cellar window as her brothers were slain by Cossacks during a pogrom . Nathan Levi, the father of the newborn Jakob, and his son stayed temporarily with the older daughter of the Grünbaums in Vienna and then with a sister of Jakob's maternal grandmother in Katowice . The Odyssey had come to a happy end in Paris. A wealthy brother of Nathan welcomed the surviving Grünbaums in the St. Paul district with open arms. The growing Jacob had gone his way in Paris. After attending the Lycée Charlemagne , the young man was seriously wounded as a French soldier in the Argonne Forest and, to the delight of his father, began studying medicine at the Sorbonne when he returned home .
Nathan had a grief. How was he supposed to be a grandfather? Together with his friend, Löb Mirsky - who had survived the persecution of the Jews in Odessa before 1914 - he had come up with a shoot. Then Mirsky had sent his beautiful, eager to learn, but stubborn daughter - Anna Seghers does not share her first name - also to the Sorbonne. The plan worked. They got married after the exam. Dr. Jacques Levi practices as an ophthalmologist in Paris. Nathan's grandson is born. Grandfather Nathan saved up. Because he wants to spend the evening of his life in a Jerusalem old people's home. Before leaving for the Promised Land , he makes a promise from his son. Jacob has to write to his father regularly.
When Jacob realizes that he will soon succumb to an illness, he hands his wife a bundle of prepared letters and in turn makes a promise from her. The woman is supposed to send one of the letters to Jerusalem at regular intervals. So it happens after Jacob's death much too early. In the first letter Jakob explains why he could not answer the call of the sick father. The patients could not be left in the lurch. In Paris, the widow enjoys the father-in-law's answers, as if death had been outwitted. Your little son is ailing. Nathan Post from Paris is eagerly awaiting. When the eyes stop working, Nathan lets his companions read the letters. The residents of the old people's home take an ever greater interest in the readings.
The doctor's widow flees with her little son from Hitler to southern France, but also sends mail to the mailbox there. She posts a letter in Toulouse and hands the last letter to French friends on their way to Algiers . She cannot make up her mind to go across because of the sick child.
Nathan, who overheard the events in France in Jerusalem, is plagued by remorse. If only he hadn't left the son! Because of his eyesight, he can no longer read. So he can no longer write either. The Nazis are advancing south. It is said that the doctor's widow and her sick son are "being dragged off somewhere". The friends in Algiers have no more letters to send. You find someone to write a letter to Jerusalem. When the counterfeit arrives, the recipient has already died. Nathan's companions, who have longingly awaited the letter, cannot find their usual consolation after reading it.
literature
First editions
- Post to the Promised Land in Anna Seghers: The excursion of the dead girls and other stories (Post to the Promised Land. The shelter . The saboteurs . The end). Aurora Publishing , New York 1946.
- Anna Seghers: The excursion of the dead girls and other stories (Post to the Promised Land. The shelter. The saboteurs. The end). Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1947. 196 pages.
expenditure
- Mail to the promised land. Pp. 203-235 in Anna Seghers: Stories. Library of world literature . Epilogue: Friedrich Albrecht (pp. 593–605) Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1974 (2nd edition).
- Mail to the promised land. P. 112–144 in Anna Seghers: Post to the Promised Land. Stories. Selection of Ursula Emmerich. Illustrations Günther Lück ( Grubetsch . Peasants from Hruschowo . The most beautiful sagas of the robber Woynok . The shelter . Post to the promised land. The excursion of the dead girls. The Argonaut ship . The wedding of Haiti . Crisanta . The Führer. The duel. Tuomas gives her presents Sorsa Peninsula. Legends of the Unearthly . Stone Age ). Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1990 (1st edition), ISBN 3-351-01653-0 .
- Mail to the promised land. S. 173–209 in Anna Seghers: The Most Beautiful Stories. Selected by Christina Salmen. With an afterword by Gunnar Decker ( Jans must die . The Ziegler . The most beautiful sagas of the robber Woynok. Artemis sagas . The shelter. Post to the promised land. The excursion of the dead girls. The Argonaut ship. The Führer ). Structure of the publishing group, Berlin 2008 (1st edition), ISBN 978-3-351-03495-5 (edition used).
- Anna Seghers: Post to the Promised Land . Audio book, 1 CD. MDR culture . Speaker: Rosemarie Fendel . Director: Petra Meyenburg. Verlag Freiburg im Breisgau 2003. ISBN 978-3-89964-010-6 .
Secondary literature
- Erika Haas: “Post to the Promised Land”. A requiem. Argonaut ship. Yearbook of the Anna Seghers Society Berlin and Mainz eV, Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1995, pp. 139–150.
- Eion Bourke: "Mail to the Promised Land". - a Vindication in: Ian Wallace (Ed.): Anna Seghers in Perspective . Rodopi Verlag, Amsterdam 1998, pp. 135-164.
- Sonja Hilzinger: Anna Seghers. With 12 illustrations. Series of Literature Studies. Reclam, Stuttgart 2000, RUB 17623, ISBN 3-15-017623-9 .
- Daniel Hoffmann: 'Post to the Promised Land. A Jewish tale. ' Argonaut ship. Yearbook of the Anna Seghers Society Berlin and Mainz eV, Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg, Vol. 22, 2013, pp. 219–229.
Web links
- October 24, 2001, Christin Bülow, Potsdam: Discussion .