David Rock

Deals with the life and works of Becker. Ch. 1 (p. 9-20), "Jurek Becker: A Brief Biography", relates that he was born in Łódź ca. 1937. He and his parents were interned in the Łódź ghetto. In 1943 his father was deported to Auschwitz; he and his mother were deported to Ravensbrück and then to Sachsenhausen, where his mother died. He was reunited with his father in 1945 and they settled in East Berlin, where Becker had a complex identity problem. As a dissenter, he escaped to West Berlin in 1979; he died in 1997. Ch. 3 (p. 35-68), "The Power of Fiction: 'Jakob der Lügner'", discusses Becker's first novel (1969) and its use of irony to depict Jews during the Holocaust as ordinary human beings. His non-resisting protagonists contrast with the unrealistic figures in East German anti-fascist literature. Ch. 4 (p. 69-94), "A Jew Who Became a German? Questions of Language and Jewish Identity in the Later Works", deals with the theme of difficulties in communication between father and son survivors in his novels "Der Boxer" (1976) and "Bronsteins Kinder" (1986), and also discusses the ghetto story "Die Mauer".

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