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"So Spielen Wir Auf Dem Friedhof" | Ilse Aichinger's "Die Grossere Hoffnung" and "The Holocaust Through the Eyes of a Child"

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University of Montana ScholarWorks at University of Montana Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers Graduate School 2002 "So spielen wir auf dem Friedhof" | Ilse Aichinger's "Die grossere Hoffnung" and "The Holocaust through the eyes of a child" Emily P. Sepp The University of Montana Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Sepp, Emily P., ""So spielen wir auf dem Friedhof" | Ilse Aichinger's "Die grossere Hoffnung" and "The Holocaust through the eyes of a child"" (2002). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 1447. https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/1447 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at ScholarWorks at University of Montana. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at University of Montana. For more information, please contact [email protected]. M aureen and iMüke Mmspmm i#BAm The University of Montana Permission is granted by the author to reproduce this material in its entirety, provided that this material is used for scholarly purposes and is properly cited in published works and reports. **Please check "Yes" or "No" and provide signature ** Yes, I grant permission No, I do not grant permission Author's Signature: Date: HflU^ 2^0 Any copying for commercial purposes or financial gain may be undertaken only with the author's explicit consent. 8/98 „...so spielen wir auf dem Friedhof': Use Aichinger's Die grossere Hoffnung the Holocaust through the Eyes of a Child by Emily P. Sepp B.A. The University of Montana, 1999 presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts The University of Montana 2002 Approved By: Chairperson Chairperson Dean, Graduate School ^ - I ‘-j Date UMI Number: EP35667 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMT EHMMtntenPUbtoHna UMI EP35667 Published by ProQuest LLC (2012). Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code ProQuest ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106 -1346 Sepp, Emily, M.A., May 2002 German Language and Literature „...so spielen wir auf dem Friedhof*: Use Aichinger's Die grossere Hoffnungan^ the Holocaust through the Eyes of a Child (193 pp.) Directors: Geraid Fetz Elizabeth Ametsbichier In this thesis I undertake an examination of the Holocaust experience from the perspective of the child, both In fiction and in factual historical accounts. I introduce the problematics of dealing with the subject of the Holocaust and its implications for the field of German studies, I also present background on the haif-Jewish Austrian writer lise Alchinger, whose only novel. Die grôssere Hoffhung, is the centerpiece of my thesis. This particular novel singles out the child's experience in the Holocaust and, in doing so, illustrates its tragedy with incredible poignancy. The body of the thesis examines this novel and its main character, Ellen, against the backdrop of first-hand historical accounts of those who experienced the Holocaust as children - including both famous accounts (such as those of Anne Frank and Eiie Wiesel) and those perhaps less well-known (such as Ruth Klüger, Elisabeth Welt Trahan and Alicia Appleman-Jurman). I discuss the particular "Otherness" of Jewish children under Nazi domination, and in doing so highlight both the tragedy and the strange advantage of that "outsider view." I then turn to the reality of the child's world in the Holocaust, both in the daily experiences and feelings of Aichinger's Ellen and in the words of child survivors of that era. I relate Ellen's story to those of several survivors who themselves lived that horror, whether in cities, in hiding, in the ghettos or even in the camps. In the final phase of this thesis, I turn to a discussion of ways in which children in the Holocaust undertook resistance to their subjugation and annihilation - whether physically, through fantasy and play, through education or through language itself. I place particular emphasis on the acts of resistance, great and small, undertaken by Ellen and the Jewish children in Die grossere Hoffnung, and on the life-affirming stories of the children of Theresienstadt, Warsaw, todz and even Auschwitz. While these accounts fill the human soul with outrage and sadness, their brightness against the backdrop of the darkness of the Holocaust highlights a "'grossere Hoffnung' - a greater hope that transcends even overwhelming evil and thus, however softly, defies it. 11 Preface The Holocaust is one of the most tragic and morally significant events of the twentieth century, acting as a sort of watershed of conscience. In the years since, the civilized world has been obsessed with attempting to explain it, to comprehend it, and to come to terms not only with its horror, but also with its implications for civilization and the human spirit. The calculated murder of millions of innocent people is a catastrophe so unfathomable that the statistics can often obscure the human face of this tragedy. Perhaps one of the most poignant ways of looking at that human face is to consider the Holocaust through the eyes of its children. It is ethically impossible - in fact, undesirable - to impose a rank of worth on the victims of the Holocaust: the loss of each life, whether old or young, Jewish or Gentile, is its own tragedy. However, perhaps the murder of over two million Jewish children under the age of twelve is particularly tragic - not only because of the ultimate powerlessness of the children to save themselves, but also because of the potential and possibility of that entire generation that was all but snuffed out. In mourning the death of those children, and in seeing the culture of hate through the eyes of those who grew up in its shadow, we can gain a new perspective on the Holocaust and find a compelling argument for the commitment to vigilance and tolerance for the sake of coming generations. Ill The Austrian writer Use Aichinger drew from her own experiences as a MischUng (a person of "mixed race") under Nazi rule when writing her first and only novel, Die grossere Hoffnung (1948)\ She tells the story of Jewish children growing up in wartime Vienna and of how these children created an imaginary world around themselves - one based not on the harsh and insurmountable realities imposed on them by the edicts of the Third Reich, but on "ûfe grossere Hoffnung"^ - the "greater hope" in the existence of goodness, in spite of ail the incomprehensible horror that closes in around them. Aichinger focuses particularly on a young girl, Ellen, who finds herself an outsider on many levels. First, she is half Jewish in a society that has declared in its madness that Jewish ancestry was cause for death. Second, she is an outsider among the outcast Jewish children with whom she wants so much to identify; Eiien is not Jewish "enough" for these children to whom virtually every normal ritual of childhood has been denied. Third, as children, Ellen and her young friends are outsiders in an adult world that had robbed them of the vitally Important opportunity to freely explore themselves and create their own destinies. In telling the story of Ellen (which is, in many ways, her own story). Use Aichinger gives her readers an illuminating and touching perspective on childhood, play and innocence in the face of hatred and death. ‘ Use Aichinger (born 1921) owes her literary fame primarily to her short stories, among them her 1952 story Spiegeigeschichte, which was awarded that year's first prize by theGruppe 47, a groundbreaking group of German-language writers that dominated and defined German- ianguage literature in the post-war era. Aichinger's works of fiction have earned her numerous other awards, including the Georg-Trakl-Preis{lSlS), the Petrarca-Preis {19^2), the Franz-Kafka- Ane/ÿ (1983), theGroBer Literaturpreis der Bayrischen Akademie{1991) and the GroBer IV My exploration of Die grossere Hoffnung m\\ be Interwoven with true-life stories of children who lived under the circumstances depicted in Aichinger's novel. The ways in which children in the Holocaust managed to find ways of expressing their thoughts and feelings, act out their childhood emotions, and even to play and create in the shadow of death are almost breathtakingly remarkable. They constitute, in their own way, resistance to insurmountable darkness. Yet, in the face of an evil its victims knew they could not physically overcome, children of the Holocaust still grew up, learned about the world around them and about themselves, and simply in asserting their existence fought against the fate to which they had been condemned. For a child to sit on a park bench, to go to school or to ride on a carousel would, in a sane world, be taken for granted as normal. However, in a society that denied Jewish children even the most basic of human needs, such acts that clung to life - however fleetingly - represented courage and defiance. Even in the constant presence of death, the bittersweet voices of these children rise up against their fate, if only by the tenacity of their hope: Wenn ihr uns verboten habt, im Stadtpark zu spielen, so spielen wir auf dem Friedhof.
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