Paul Celan

Paul Celan was the most frequently used pseudonym of Paul Antschel (the pseudonym adopts an anagram of his surname in Romanian, Ancel) (November 23, 1920 – approximately April 20, 1970), who is considered one of the few major poets of the post-World War II era. He was born in Romania, lived in Austria and later in France, and wrote in German. In additional to the composition of his poetry, he was an extremely active translator, translating literature from Romanian, French, Portuguese, Russian, and English into German.

Family and roots

His family was Orthodox Jewish. His father, Leo, was a Zionist who advocated his son's education in Hebrew at Safah Ivriah, an institution previously convinced of the wisdom of assimilation into Austrian culture which favourably received Chaim Weizmann of the World Zionist Organization in 1927. His mother, Fritzi, was an avid reader of German literature who insisted that such German was the language of the house. After his Bar Mitzvah in 1933, Paul abandoned Zionism to some extent and terminated his formal Hebrew education, becoming active for a while in Jewish Socialist organizations and supported the Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War. His aunt Minna, who lived with his family in Czernowitz, emigrated to Palestine in 1934. His earliest known poem, titled "Mother's Day 1938" was a sentimental if earnest profession of love.

Related Topics:
Zionist - Hebrew - Chaim Weizmann - World Zionist Organization - German literature - Bar Mitzvah - Zionism - Republican - Spanish Civil War - Palestine

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