We find it problematic to commemorate the work of these two figures without critically assessing their respective roles in National Socialism. This highlights, once again, the incomplete process of coming to terms with the National Socialism past in our society.
Writing also took place in the concentration camps. Numerous writers managed – despite the ban – to record their experiences in diaries and poems.
One of these poets was Uri Orlev, several of whose poems we have published in German and Polish in the poetry collection ‘Gibt es noch Hoffnung’ (‘Is There Still Hope?’), and who later gained fame as an author of children’s and young adult books. Even better known is Anne Frank, who expressed in her diary the wish to become a famous writer.
We would be delighted if you were to use Poets’ Rose Day as an opportunity to also remember the writers who were subjected to persecution under National Socialism. You are welcome to lay roses at the graves in the Bergen-Belsen Memorial.
The bilingual poetry collection “Is There Still Hope?”, like Anne Frank’s diary, is available in our bookshop.