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Erich Hackl | Die Hochzeit von Auschwitz | English Title: Wedding at Auschwitz<br>192 Pages

Hardcover
192 Pages
Published in Sept. 2002

ISBN 978-3-257-06324-0

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Erich Hackl
Die Hochzeit von Auschwitz

English Title: Wedding at Auschwitz

The story of the Austrian Rudi Friemel and the Spaniard Marga Ferrer who met during the Spanish Civil War, who were repeatedly separated by events and who were finally able to legalise their union under the most impossible conditions: Rudi has been a prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp since 1942, and in 1944 Marga is able to visit him for one day in the death camp in order to marry him. A glimmer of hope or a cruel piece of cynicism on the part of the dictators? In any case, an incredible occurrence that means a lot not only to the bride and groom. It is to have its consequence for Auschwitz. A moving book about hope and despair, the defeats of half a century. A book in which the emphasis is on both love and trust – to the limits of human endurance.

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»›The Wedding in Auschwitz‹ tells an extraordinary true story, but it is the manner of its telling that makes it such an exceptional book. Hackl has given himself entirely to the subject, and embedded his own art within the record.«Times Literary Supplement

»This is a sophisticated, exhausting, provocative book. Hackl’s dauntingly forensic flair has again proven how well he interprets known facts and then thoughtfully places them within the arena of behaviour.«The Irish Times

»Hackl never showed us a perfect world in his books. One only has to remember his best-known books ›Farewell to Sidonia‹, the story of a gipsy girl kidnapped from loving foster parents by Nazis and brought to Auschwitz, where she died. But his book ›Wedding at Auschwitz‹ is the toughest subject he has given his readers to date, and probably his most ambitious project as a writer so far.«Die Welt

»Hackl's novel is a puzzle of different voices: survivors of Auschwitz, veterans of the Spanish Civil War, policemen, anonymous voices, documents and letters, but also the voices of Norbert, Rudi's son from his first marriage, Marga's sister Marina, their common son, friends and relatives. The fragments are woven to a fabric that convincingly tells the story of a great love during times of war. ›Wedding at Auschwitz‹ is a complex and demanding book, and it is probably Hackl's darkest and saddest work to date.«Berliner Zeitung

»Again one of these stories one hardly belives to be possible, and which, it seems, only Erich Hackl manages to unearth, who treads the fine line between literature and literary-historical journalism (...) A strange little book, shocking and moving, yet tender and kind at the same time.«Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

»This quietly moving book demonstrates once again why Erich Hackl is unique. It is not due to, as he is often patronisingly reproached, a leftwing nostalgia towards the era of the Spanish Civil War and the antifascist movement, but his respect for suffering individuals who cling to their choice of saying 'no' even - or because - they get drawn into a maelstrom of violence.«Literaturen

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