Jenseits von Schuld und Sühne. Bewältigungsversuche eines Überwältigten.

Comprises five essays, first presented as radio addresses on the Süddeutscher Rundfunk in March 1966, dealing with Améry's experiences in the Holocaust. Améry was born Hans Mayer in Vienna in 1912, to a Jewish father and a Catholic mother. In 1938, following the "Anschluss", he fled to France (with his Jewish wife) and then to Belgium where he became active in the anti-Nazi resistance from 1940 on. In July 1943 he was arrested by the Gestapo. He was first incarcerated in Breendonk, and then demoted from political prisoner to Jew and sent to Auschwitz-Monowitz, Buchenwald, and Bergen-Belsen. The essays in this book analyze, inter alia, the specific difficulties experienced by intellectuals in the concentration camps, Améry's experiences of torture in Breendonk, the exiled Jews' sense of loss (not just of their home and security, but also their entitlement to a past), the resentment felt by the victims of Nazism towards Germany, and how the experience of persecution shaped Améry's Jewish identity. 2. Aufl. 159 pages 21 cm