Elisabeth Augustin, HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR

languageland

A compilation of 80 poems and some prose by Elisabeth Augustin, Holocaust survivor and writer-in-exile.

The poems are in chronological order, starting with her first published poem, written while she was still a romantic teenager. The selection follows her life through the happy pre-war years, exile, the war, learning to cope with the war trauma, and finally her more introspective old age.

Most of her poems - the emotional, instinctive side of her work - were written in German, while all her later prose - the more intellectually planned work - was in Dutch.

The original German and Dutch poems are shown facing the English translations.

Biography

Elisabeth Augustin was born in 1903 in Berlin. It was a typically German middle class family: a strict but loving father, a somewhat naïve, romantic mother, and Elisabeth the only child.

Elisabeth enjoyed a short spell as an actress until her father put a stop to it. Acting had been her childhood dream, but in her father's view it was not a decent profession for a young lady.

Elisabeth’s youth had been fairly conventional. Primary school, high school and six months at a boarding school: a 'finishing school for ladies'. There she learned little social gems, like: 'When a lady goes visiting, she never takes off her gloves straight away, lest she creates the impression that she wants to show off her rings.'

Early 1926 she got engaged to Felix Augustin, whom she married the same year

She wrote her first novel when she was only 16, followed by hundreds of poems, short stories and - in rapid succession - non-fiction articles for local papers and women's magazines. Her non-fiction work found a steady market, as did those of her poems which were written with the female readership in mind.

Elisabeth had enough confidence in her next novel to submit it, and it was promptly accepted by the German publisher Kiepenheuer. That novel was due for release in 1933. It didn’t happen, just then Hitler and his stooges banned Jewish authors from having their work appear in print.

Initially Elisabeth’s Jewish ancestry had hardly been relevant. But when, in 1933, her Jewish neighbour cut his wrists and bled to death while he was being picked up by the nazis, Elisabeth and Felix realised it was time to escape. Felix travelled ahead to Amsterdam to find a place to live, Elisabeth with her two small children, Niels and Karen, followed.

Elisabeth never looked back. Felix spoke fluent Dutch and helped her translate her banned novel. The Dutch version was published two years later under the title De Uitgestootene.

Elisabeth had become a writer-in-exile.

Three more novels appeared before the war: All four novels were powerful rejections of poor social conditions and racism. Her style was way ahead of her time.

In 1938 Elisabeth’s parents escaped to Amsterdam as well. In vain. Her father, deeply depressed, died of a heart attack in 1942, and her mother was killed in the extermination camp Sobibor the following year. Even her very elderly grandfather had been killed in a concentration camp, in Auschwitz.

From an idyllic youth Elisabeth had been dumped into a nightmare existence. Her final novel, Labyrint was an effort to come to terms with it. Labyrint - and thirty years later her German translation Auswege - is an almost surrealistic and extremely powerful work that is still as relevant today as it was then.

Life became a hectic pattern of writing short stories, poems, stage plays and radio plays. She did however translate much of her prose into German, and eventually most was published in Germany.

Elisabeth’s daughter Karen and her son-in-law Leo Cappèl had emigrated to New Zealand in 1959. Elisabeth visited Karen and Leo for an eight months period. She was fascinated by the New Zealand culture, literature and history, so she returned for a second stay a few years later. The English version of her epic poem The unfinished life of Malcolm X was published in New Zealand.

After she returned to Amsterdam Elisabeth’s productive literary life continued uninterrupted until about two years before her death in 2001.

From the translator.

Two years before her death Elisabeth had an idea for yet another play, but didn’t feel she had the strength to finish it. Instead she told me about it, told me the theme and a possible plot.

‘Could you write it on my behalf?’ she asked me. ‘I don’t feel up to it any more.’

To be honest, I didn’t feel I could do justice to her idea, not then, and not yet. Maybe one day. Meanwhile we have a large number of her still unpublished poems. Should we let them get lost and forgotten? Or should I translate some of them so people not familiar with Elisabeth’s work can read them too?

One of her poems starts with

why then
nightingale
did you receive a voice
if you don’t sing?

I like and admire Elisabeth’s work, and - to my surprise - she liked and admired mine. She trusted me enough to ask me to write her last play. I have a voice, let me sing her songs.

Making a selection from the many hundreds of Elisabeth’s poems and translating them into English has been a major undertaking. Often emotional, always rewarding. Although I have tried to remain true to Elisabeth's original work, this is not a literal translation.

I trust my choice of Elisabeth's poems shows her journey through life, both in subject matter and in style.

Leo Cappèl
Whangarei

Today my little daughter
pulled a feather from her pillow
tickled my ear
my mouth my neck.
In the silence of our home
only the cheerful chuckles and squeals
of my little daughter
filled the room with joyful sounds

1931

I now wear your dress
the silk that enclosed you
sometimes strokes my hand
then       in my loneliness
I feel the bond
that held us enclosed

25 July 1945

I have been looking for my soul
find her I could not
maybe she has gone a-roaming
maybe she is in my poem

25 April 1996

languageland   NZ $45.--
Schoolhouse Press,
98 B Paramount Pde, Tikipunga,
Whangarei 0112
NEW ZEALAND

ISBN 978-0-9864610-6-4