Submerged
The short story Untergetaucht von Elisabeth Langgässer , published in 1947 in “Der Torso”, is about a woman who tells her friend how she hid a Jewish woman at home years ago to protect her from the Gestapo .
content
The short story by Elisabeth Langgässer is about moral courage during and after the Nazi era . A first-person narrator listens to a conversation between two women at the train station and learns that one of the two women hid a Jewish woman from the Nazis without any noteworthy personal commitment . A hateful relationship has developed between the Jew and her helper, but the hiding place has been maintained. However, when the police appeared, the Jewess surrendered without incriminating the helper or her husband. The helper is particularly appreciative of the fact that the Jew covered the parrot with a blanket in good time in order to prevent it from arousing suspicion in the police by naming her. The helper finally tells the person she was talking to that the parrot was killed when the Russians marched in. At this point, the listening first-person narrator joins the conversation and regrets that the helper's husband, the parrot, lost his only exonerating witness in the denazification process .
Interpretative approach
At the beginning of the short story, the story of one woman only makes it vaguely clear what it is about. Only gradually does the whole story come to light, with the end being anticipated from the beginning. The plot is told by a man, the first-person narrator, who overhears the two women who are telling the story. So the story is conveyed through a third person. The story is about National Socialism and hostility to Jews. At first, the woman is friendly towards the Jew and takes her in out of a willingness to help, but perhaps also out of a sense of duty because she was a schoolmate. Later, however, this behavior changes to a mutual hatred, which is due to the fact that the woman thinks that one can distinguish Jews from other people. When Elsie then claims that the woman also looks like a Jew, hatred develops between the two women. In this way, the author depicts the unjust, discriminatory treatment towards the Jews. As she herself suffered from the Nazis and the persecution of the Jews, she brings her own experiences to the short story. At the end of the story, the Jewish woman surrenders to the Gestapo and thus covers her protectors. This will save them and prevent them from going to court. The author wants to show that the Jews are not sneaky and wrong, as it was a common prejudice in the times of National Socialism, but normal people who also have a right to humane treatment. In addition, it shows that the Jewish woman surrenders voluntarily and thus saves the woman and her husband, that she is morally far superior to the woman. The husband of the wife is now threatened with conviction after the Second World War because he was a civil servant. However, he could be exonerated because he has taken in a Jewish woman. But he can no longer prove it, as Elsie was taken away by the Gestapo and the parrot cannot "testify" to this either.
main emphasis
The focus of the short story "Untergetaucht" by Elisabeth Langgässer is on the persecution of the Jews . Langgässer herself was “ half-Jewish ” and lived during the Gestapo and experienced the bad times of the Second World War up close. With the short story she wants to make it clear to people that Jews are completely normal people and often also have better character traits than other people. Thus she takes all Jews and herself under protection. The unfounded hatred of the Jews is shown in the short story, but also the realization that not all Jews are bad, but that they can be trusted.