“Europe at War 1939-44”

Internationale Poesie aus dem Frauen-Konzentrationslager Ravensbrück. 


[“Europe at War 1939-44”, International Poetry from the Women’s Concentration Camp at Ravensbrück]

published by Constanze Jaiser and Jacob David Pampuch.

 

Facsimile of a handwritten manuscript from the concentration camp by Vera Hozáková and Vlasta Kladivová, (companion volume and audio CD featuring survivors’ voices), Berlin: Metropol Verlag 2009 (2nd edition), ISBN 978-3936411614.



"This publication is a significant achievement by the two editors. The European, even international, context of the prisoners in a concentration camp appears here in microcosm, as it were. They have successfully linked a unique written document from the camp with contemporary oral witnesses. The publishers have also developed a dramatic reading of the camp poetry accompanied by Flamenco guitar music, which acts as a forward-looking, creative intermediary, with which the survivors involved in the project can identify, unanimously and emphatically."
(Dr Insa Eschebach, Director of the Ravensbrück Memorial)


"This unique project is the realisation of an idea by guitarist Jacob David Pampuch: to record the poems written in Ravensbrück on CD, with a musical accompaniment. The Ravensbrück survivors themselves ‘bring the written texts to life’ in their mother tongues. The fact that 17 women could be found to make recordings in 11 languages underlines that this was also a significant undertaking for those affected.


Given the dwindling number of survivors who are able to share their experiences in person, the poems can give us insight into individual experiences of incarceration. The voices, both read and heard, guarantee that the individuals, whose experiences of suffering, fears and longings are expressed in the texts and illustrations, will not be forgotten."
 (Prof Dr Sigrid Jacobeit, former director of the Ravensbrück Memorial, 2006)

Anja Tuckermann: "Nun sind die Augen frei". Gemeinsam leiden, gemeinsam Erinnern. Zum 60. Jahrestag der Befreiung des KZ Ravensbrück  [“Now My Eyes Are Free”.  Suffering Together, Remembering Together. On the 60th Anniversary of the Liberation of Ravensbrück], a report on the 60th anniversary of liberation, when the publication was ceremonially presented to Vera Hozáková and other survivors, can be read at Freitag, 22.4.2005.


Audio sample Mp3 voices of international survivors (Hörbeispiel Mp3 Stimmen Überlebender international)

Flyer on the publication (Flyer zur Publikation)