Shammai Golan

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Shammai Golan ( Hebrew שמאי גולן; born April 5, 1933 in Pultusk ; died December 10, 2017 ) was an Israeli writer.

life and work

Shammai Golan was born in 1933 in Pultusk, a Polish city ​​about 60 km north of Warsaw. During the Second World War , he lived first in areas occupied by Nazi Germany and then in the Soviet Union in Siberia . As a child he had bad experiences and was often confronted with death. After the death of his parents, he was placed in an orphanage and illegally emigrated to the League of Nations territory of Palestine in 1947 . Upon arrival, he was taken to a DP camp in Cyprus. When he returned, he lived as a teenager on Kibbutz Ramat HaKovesh. Then he studied literature and history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem . In Argentina, he taught Hebrew in Jewish schools for two years . He learned Spanish and was then cultural attaché at the Israeli embassy in Mexico and Moscow. He was chairman of the Israeli Writers' Organization for several terms.

Golan wrote books for adults as well as books for young people. He has published novels, short stories and essays. Some of his works have been adapted for radio or theater.

When he first tried to write, he did not want to write about the Shoah , but rather about his new life in the newly founded state of Israel, about the kibbutz, Israeli society and the army. But he didn't succeed, and so he realized that he had to write about the difficult years of his childhood during the Nazi era and in the Soviet Union in order to be free for other topics. One of the memories that hurt was watching the Germans beat and humiliate his father. Golan said: “It made me feel humiliated and at the mercy of myself and even felt hatred of my father. A child doesn't understand why the big father doesn't defend himself. ”Based on his experiences, his first three books were created as a trilogy of novels. The location of the first book is Poland and the Soviet Union during World War II. The second book accompanies a group of young Jewish people on their way to Palestine. The third book takes place in the mandate of Palestine and the newly founded state of Israel, but here too the main character Uri Peled comes from Eastern Europe and is strongly influenced by the experiences during the Nazi regime. Following this trilogy, Golan wrote a series of short stories about the Shoah.

Individual works

Golan's first book Be-Ashmoret Acharona (Hebrew) was published in 1966. The main character is Haimek, who lived with his family in Warsaw at the age of seven when the Germans occupied Poland in 1939. The family fled across the Russian border and was sent to a labor camp in Siberia . After the Soviet Union entered World War II, the camp inmates were released and the family moved on to Tashkent in the Uzbek SSR . After the death of his father, Haimek is taken to an orphanage and at the end of the war begins his journey to Palestine. - Golan calls this book his most important. Many events are very similar to Golan's own life story, for example that the sick father dies on the street. Still, Golan does not refer to the book as autobiographical. Since he could not remember his childhood in detail, it was the attempted reconstruction as an adult about what he saw and felt as a child.

The book for young people, Treasure Comes (Hebrew Ashamim ) is the second part of the trilogy and the only book by Golan that has been translated into German. After the end of World War II, a group of young Jewish people set out for Palestine. The book deals with the feelings of these emotionally broken people, their fear, their slow acceptance of the loss of their loved ones and their renewed interest in life. They are contrasted with the mentally healthy and vigorous kibbutznik Amnon.

Awards

  • 1963: Barash Prize
  • 1965: ACUM Prize for Children's Literature
  • 1972: Ramat Gan Prize
  • 1976: Agnon Prize
  • 1979: Wallenrod Prize
  • 1982 and 2004: Tel Aviv Foundation Award
  • 1991: Prime Minister's Prize
  • 2007: Zionist Federation Award

Works in German translation

  • Honey is coming . Translated from the Hebrew by Mirjam Pressler , Omnibus Verlag, Munich 1999

literature

  • Shammai Golan , in: Mirjam Morad (Ed.): Encounter with children's and youth literature from Israel . Catalog for the event week and exhibition. (ZIRKULAR special number 39, June 1994), Documentation Center for Newer Austrian Literature in the Literaturhaus , Vienna 1994, ISBN 3-900467-39-0 , pp. 61–63.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Information on Shammai Golan in the database of the Bibliothèque nationale de France , accessed on April 16, 2018.
  2. ↑ a b c d Encounter with children's and youth literature from Israel , 1994, p. 61
  3. ↑ a b c d Shammai Golan at ITHL
  4. ↑ Shammai Golan at Library of Ohio State University
  5. ^ The Last Watch at ITHL
  6. ↑ Encounter with children's and youth literature from Israel , 1994, p. 62
  7. ↑ Encounter with children's and youth literature from Israel , 1994, p. 63
  8. ↑ Guilty at ITHL
personal data
SURNAME Golan, Shammai
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gôlān, Šammāy
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Israeli writer
DATE OF BIRTH April 5, 1933
PLACE OF BIRTH Pultusk
DATE OF DEATH December 10, 2017