The Passenger
On Auschwitz, Her Book, and Weinberg’s Opera
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
Zofia Posmysz survived Auschwitz. She worked through her experiences in the concentration camps in the novella The Passenger. The book appeared in 1962 and served Mieczysław Weinberg as the source material for the opera of the same name. For reasons of ideology, it was taboo in the Soviet Union and in Poland. Now it is to have its premiere. Zofia Posmysz considers this very fortunate. She looks back at the time in the concentration camps, depicts the way to the book and to the opera, recalls the taciturn Weinberg, and argues against a competition of victims between Jews and Poles. Auschwitz is a trauma for humanity.
(Osteuropa 7/2010, pp. 147–156)