Hans Günther Adler (2 July 1910 – 21 August 1988) was a Czech-English

German-language German (, ) is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family, mainly spoken in Western and Central Europe. It is the majority and official (or co-official) language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. It is a ...

poet and novelist, scholar, and

Holocaust survivor Holocaust survivors are people who survived the Holocaust, defined as the persecution and attempted annihilation of the Jews by Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, its collaborators before and during World War II ...

."The Long View", Ruth Franklin, ''The New Yorker'', January 31, 2011, Books, pp 74-78.

Life

Born in Prague, Bohemia, to Emil and Alice Adler, Hans Günther Adler was a

Jew Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...

, though not devout.H. G. Adler
at Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2002 (subscription required), accessed 12 March 2009 After his graduation in 1935 from

Charles University Charles University (CUNI; , UK; ; ), or historically as the University of Prague (), is the largest university in the Czech Republic. It is one of the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, oldest universities in the world in conti ...

, where he studied music and literature, arts and sciences,Theresienstadt Index
/ref> he worked as a secretary and teacher at the Urania, a pedagogical institute. This also involved him in some radio broadcasting. In 1941 he was sent to a Jewish labour camp where he worked until shortly before his deportation to

Theresienstadt Theresienstadt Ghetto was established by the SS during World War II in the fortress town of Terezín, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia ( German-occupied Czechoslovakia). Theresienstadt served as a waystation to the extermination c ...

with his family on February 8, 1942. Adler was to spend two and a half years in Theresienstadt with his family before being deported to

Auschwitz Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It consisted of Auschw ...

. At Theresienstadt, Adler avoided doing work that might implicate him in the running of the ghetto and did only manual work, such as room duty and building. His wife, who was a medical doctor and chemist, led the medical central bureau. On October 14, 1944, he arrived with his wife and her mother at Auschwitz. Both women were put in the gas chambers that day. Gertrud could have survived, but refused to leave her mother. Adler was to lose his mother and father and sixteen members of his family to

the Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

. On October 28, 1944, Adler was deported to Niederoschel, a subdivision of

Buchenwald Buchenwald (; 'beech forest') was a German Nazi concentration camp established on Ettersberg hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within the Altreich (Old Reich) territori ...

, and in 1945, to Langenstein, another subdivision of Buchenwald. On April 13, 1945, he was free. From July and December of that year he was near Prague, helping Przemysl Pitter to care for children who had survived the war, both Jewish and non-Jewish. From October 1945 until February 1947, Adler worked in the

Jewish Museum in Prague The Jewish Museum in Prague () is a museum of Jewish heritage in the Czech Republic and one of the most visited museums in Prague. Its collection of Judaica is one of the largest in the world, about 40,000 objects, 100,000 books, and a copious a ...

, where he devoted himself chiefly to the building up of the archives about the times of persecution and the Theresienstadt camp. At this time he was also involved in accumulating the documents from the camp, possibly with the intention of bringing them to

Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...

. Although some material was brought to

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

, for the most part this project was not completed. He stopped using the name "Hans Günther" because it was the name of a leading official in the

Central Office for Jewish Emigration in Prague The Central Office for Jewish Emigration in Prague (), reformed in 1942 as the (), was part of the Central Office for Jewish Emigration. References Sources * * * *{{cite journal , last1=Osterloh , first1=Jörg, authorlink=Jörg Osterloh , title=Di ...

. In June 1946 he lost his Сzechoslovakian citizenship because of his German mother tongue. To escape the impending Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia, Adler fled to London in February 1947, where he married a close friend from Prague, the sculptor Bettina Gross, with whom he fathered his only child Jeremy Adler. He then became a freelance writer and scholar and went on to author 26 books on history, sociology and philosophy as well as poetry, and including several autobiographical works, notably nonfiction and fictional works on the Holocaust. Writing in the ''

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and also published digitally that focuses on business and economic Current affairs (news format), current affairs. Based in London, the paper is owned by a Jap ...

'',

Simon Schama Sir Simon Michael Schama ( ; born 13 February 1945) is an English historian and television presenter. He specialises in art history, Dutch history, Jewish history, and French history. He is a professor of history and art history at Columbia Uni ...

says that Adler's work deserves a place beside other twentieth century witnesses of the concentration camps such as

Primo Levi Primo Michele Levi (; 31 July 1919 – 11 April 1987) was a Jewish Italian chemist, partisan, Holocaust survivor and writer. He was the author of several books, collections of short stories, essays, poems and one novel. His best-known works i ...

and

Solzhenitsyn Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn. (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) was a Soviet and Russian author and dissident who helped to raise global awareness of political repression in the Soviet Union, especially the Gulag prison system. He was ...

. Adler's first major work was the study of the ghetto Theresienstadt, ''Theresienstadt 1941-1945. Das Antlitz einer Zwangsgemeinschaft'' (Theresienstadt 1941–1945. The Face of an Enforced Community), first published in 1955 and in an enlarged edition in 1960. The book was an international success. As the first scholarly monograph devoted to a single camp it became one of the foundational works of Holocaust Studies. It is still the most detailed account of any single concentration camp. Adler's first fiction novel was ''

Panorama A panorama (formed from Greek language, Greek πᾶν "all" + ὅραμα "view") is any Obtuse angle, wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography (panoramic photography), film, seismic image ...

'' (1968). Another novel was ''

The Journey The Journey may refer to: Film * ''The Journey'' (1942 film), or ''El viaje'', an Argentine film * ''The Journey'' (1959 film), an American drama starring Deborah Kerr, Yul Brynner, and Jason Robards about the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 * ' ...

'', described as "Holocaust modernism" in a 2009 review in the New York Times.Book Review: H. G. Adler's ''Journey''
Richard Lourie, ''The New York Times'' Three of Adler's novels, ''The Journey'', ''Panorama'' and ''The Wall'', have been translated into English by

Peter Filkins Peter Filkins is an American poet and literary translator. Filkins graduated from Williams College with a Bachelor of Arts and from Columbia University with a Master of Fine Arts degree. His poetry collections include the forthcoming ''Water / Musi ...

. An English translation of his monograph about Theresienstadt was published in 2017.Theresienstadt 1941–1945: The Face of a Coerced Community
(catalog record). United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved 2019-12-24.

Prizes

He received the Leo Baeck Prize in 1958, the Prix Charles Veillon in 1969 for

; the

Buber-Rosenzweig-Medal The Buber-Rosenzweig-Medaille is an annual prize awarded since 1968 by the Deutscher Koordinierungsrat der Gesellschaften für Christlich-Jüdische Zusammenarbeit (DKR; German Coordinating Council of Societies for Christian-Jewish Cooperation) to in ...

in 1974 and an honorary Ph.D. from the Pedagogical University of Berlin in 1980. Adler died in London, England in 1988.

Awards

* Leo Baeck Prize (1958) * Charles Veillon Prize (Lausanne, 1969) *

Buber-Rosenzweig Medal The Buber-Rosenzweig-Medaille is an annual prize awarded since 1968 by the Deutscher Koordinierungsrat der Gesellschaften für Christlich-Jüdische Zusammenarbeit (DKR; German Coordinating Council of Societies for Christian-Jewish Cooperation) to in ...

(Berlin, 1974) * Corresponding member of the

Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts Bavarian is the adjective form of the German state of Bavaria, and refers to people of ancestry from Bavaria. Bavarian may also refer to: * Bavarii, a Germanic tribe * Bavarians, a nation and ethnographic group of Germans * Bavarian, Iran, a villag ...

(1979) * Honorary Doctor of the

Pedagogical University of Berlin Pedagogy (), most commonly understood as the approach to teaching, is the theory and practice of learning, and how this process influences, and is influenced by, the social, political, and psychological development of learners. Pedagogy, taken a ...

(1980) * Cross of the

Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany The Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (, or , BVO) is the highest state decoration, federal decoration of the Federal Republic of Germany. It may be awarded for any field of endeavor. It was created by the first List of president ...

(1985) *

Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art The Austrian Decoration for Science and Art () is a state decoration of the Republic of Austria and forms part of the Austrian national honours system. History The "Austrian Decoration for Science and Art" was established by the National Co ...

(1985)

Works

* ''Theresienstadt. 1941–1945. Das Antlitz einer Zwangsgemeinschaft, Geschichte Soziologie Psychologie.'' Tübingen: Mohr, 1955. (''Theresienstadt: Das Antlitz einer Zwangsgemeinschaft.'' Göttingen, Edition:reprint vom Wallstein Verlag, 926 Seiten. 2005. ) *''Die verheimlichte Wahrheit. Theresienstädter Dokumente'', 1958 *''Der Kampf gegen die „Endlösung der Judenfrage“'', 1958 *''Die Juden in Deutschland. Von der Aufklärung bis zum Nationalsozialismus'', 1960 *''Unser Georg und andere Erzählungen'', 1961 *''Eine Reise'', Roman, Bibliotheca christiana, Bonn 1962; mit einem Nachwort von Jeremy Adler, Aufbau Taschenbuch Verlag, Berlin, 2002, *''Der Fürst des Segens'', 1964 *''Die Erfahrung der Ohnmacht'', 1964 *''Sodoms Untergang'', Bagatellen, 1965 *''Kontraste und Variationen'', Essays, 1969 *''Ereignisse'', Kleine Erzählungen und Novellen, 1969 *''Der verwaltete Mensch: Studien zur Deportation der Juden aus Deutschland'', Mohr-Verlag, Tübingen, 1974, *''Fenster'', Gedichte, 1974 *''Viele Jahreszeiten'', Gedichte, 1975 *''Die Freiheit des Menschen'', Essays, 1976 *''Spuren und Pfeiler'', Gedichte, 1978 *''Transsubstantations'', Gedichte, 1978 *''Zeiten auf der Spur'', Gedichte, 1978 *''Blicke'', Gedichte, 1979 *''Stimme und Zuruf'', Gedichte, 1980 *''Panorama. Roman in 10 Bildern'', Piper-Verlag, 1988, *''Der Wahrheit verpflichtet. Interviews, Gedichte, Essays'' Hrsg. von Jeremy Adler, Bleicher-Verlag, Gerlingen, 1998, *''Nach der Befreiung'', Ausgewahlte Essays zur Geschichte und Soziologie, Hrsg. von Peter Filkins, Konstanz University Press, 2013, *''Theresienstadt, 1941-1945 : the face of a coerced community / H.G. Adler; translated by Belinda Cooper; general editor, Amy Loewenhaar-Blauweiss; with an afterword by Jeremy Adler''; New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2017

References

External links