Centenary of Edgar Hilsenrath, Author of Controversial Holocaust Literature

The article marks what would have been the 100th birthday of German-Jewish writer Edgar Hilsenrath (1926-2018). Hilsenrath, a secular Jew born in Leipzig, fled Nazi Germany in 1938 and was later deported to the Moghilew-Podolsk ghetto in occupied Romania in 1941. His most famous work, 'The Nazi and the Barber,' faced rejection by 60 German publishers before being released in 1977 by the small Cologne-based Helmut Braun Verlag. The novel features an SS officer who assumes the identity of a murdered Jewish friend after the war. Hilsenrath's 1950 ghetto novel 'Night,' initially criticized in Germany, is now recognized as a seminal Holocaust literature text. In 1998, he received the Hans-Sahl-Prize in Berlin. Another significant novel, 'The Tale of the Last Thought' (1989), addresses the Armenian genocide. Hilsenrath lived in New York until 1975, working as a waiter, before returning to Germany. He spent his later years in Berlin-Friedenau. His works received international editions but remain largely available only through second-hand markets in Germany. The rights to his oeuvre are currently held by a relative of his last wife, who reportedly promotes a boycott of Israel. The piece includes personal recollections from writer Marko Martin, who served as a laudator for Hilsenrath on multiple occasions.