Das Schwere wird verschwinden wasedited by leading bohemist Peter Demetz who also penned the book’s afterword. Professor Demetz personally knew the poet born into a famous family of industrialists. Hans Werner Kolben, who wrote part of his oeuvre in a Terezín (Theresienstadt) concentration camp, is among the last few German speaking Jewish authors from Prague. His arrest and untimely death forestalled the development of his artistic talent. For more information, go to the publisher’s website.
About the author
Hans Werner Kolben was born in 1922 in Ústí nad Labem into a famous Czech industrialist family. He was arrested as a denunciant following his refusal to wear the Jewish badge and subsequently deported to Terezín concentration camp on August 10, 1942. There, he wrote around twenty poems which were recovered by his mother. On September 28, 1944 Kolben was transferred to Auschwitz. He died of camp-fever at the age of twenty-three in the concentration camp Kaufering.
