Die Poetik des Gedenkens. Zu den autobiographischen Romanen H.G. Adlers by Thomas Krämer (review)

This volume is a welcome addition to the growing body of scholarship devoted to attaining a better understanding of one of the most incisive yet often overlooked writers of the post-1945 period in German literature. H.G. Adler (1910-1988), a German-speaking Jew from Prague, was for many years chiefly known for his extensive study of the Theresienstadt ghetto, Theresienstadt 1941-1945. Das Antlitz einer Zwangsgemeinschaft (1955). The product of almost inconceivable experience—Adler survived both Theresienstadt and Auschwitz—this monumental sociological work, which was supplemented over time by a number of shorter studies, became the focus of interest in Adler at the expense of his equally substantial literary oeuvre that includes novels, short stories, and poetry. This imbalance is now being redressed with renewed interest in his literary output. The recent publication of his Gesammelte Gedichte (Kohl and Hocheneder 2010) and the translation into English of his novel Die Reise (Filkins 2008) underline this. Taking note of this context, the current volume seeks to bridge the gap between the two aspects of Adler's work. Krämer's study, which was presented as his doctoral thesis, builds on the growing corpus of Adler scholarship and in so doing, provides detailed analysis of the close correlation between the sociological and literary aspects of Adler's work. In his study, Krämer draws together for the first time in detail Adler's three autobiographical novels, Panorama, Die Reise, and Die unsichtbare Wand. The texts are approached not only as literary works but also as attempts to memorialise and retrospectively negotiate the impact of such traumatic experience on the individual from the perspective and with the insight of a survivor.

The volume offers a detailed exploration of concepts of memory and identity, highlighting the dual approach of scholarship and literature in the struggle of the individual to stabilise their own understanding of past experience in the context of the broader sweep of history through what Krämer refers to as a "Poetik der Erinnerung." The author discusses at some length the role of Adler's study of Theresienstadt in the context of his work before going on to analyse in depth the role of memory and identity in the three major novels, each discussed systematically in terms of their structure and content as a "Modell des Gedenkens." Krämer argues that the texts are conceived of as "Erinnerungstexte," their aim in part to render "den Prozess des Erinnerns selbst zum Darstellungsgegenstand" (256). This process is not, Krämer argues, limited to a negotiation with the past but also contributes to a process of "Gegenwartsorientierung." This allows him to make the following assertion: "[D]as literarische Werk und dabei insbesondere die autobiographischen Romane tragen meines Erachtens vorrangig den Charakter therapeutischer Identitätsarbeit, die der Neuverortung des Selbst dienen [sic]" (257). The validity of this stance is well argued and will doubtless help to shape future readings of Adler's work. Overall, Krämer's analysis is thorough and insightful. Adler's longer prose works are complex and demanding of the reader but this study successfully elucidates the core issues and throws new light on Adler's approach to bearing witness to the horror of both individual and collective experience of the Shoah.