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Jiří Weil (1900–1959)

Author of Mendelssohn Is on the Roof

9+ Works 682 Members 19 Reviews 6 Favorited

About the Author

Image credit: Jiří Weil

Works by Jiří Weil

Associated Works

I Never Saw Another Butterfly (1959) — Foreword, some editions; Afterword, some editions — 818 copies

Tagged

Common Knowledge

Canonical name
Weil, Jiří
Birthdate
1900-08-06
Date of death
1959-12-13
Gender
male
Nationality
Czech
Birthplace
Praskolesy, Czechoslovakia
Place of death
Prague, Czechoslovakia
Places of residence
Praskolesy, Czechoslovakia
Prague, Czechoslovakia
Moscow, Russia, USSR
Education
Charles University, Prague
Occupations
novelist
journalist
translator
museum curator
Holocaust survivor
short story writer (show all 7)
editor
Short biography
Jiří Weil was born to a Jewish family in Praskolesy, Bohemia (present-day Czech Republic). In his childhood, the family moved to Prague, where he went to high school. He began writing poetry and fiction as a teenager. He studied Slavic philology and comparative literature at Charles University in Prague, graduating in 1928 with a doctoral dissertation on Gogol and the 18th century English novel. During his student days, Weil had joined the Young Communists. He took a keen interest in Russian literature and Soviet culture. In the 1920s, he translated extensively from Russian literature into the Czech language, bringing works by Boris Pasternak, Marina Tsvetaeva, Vladimir Mayakovsky and others to Czech readers.
In 1933, he went to Moscow to work as a translator for a Soviet publishing house. Two years later, he was suddenly expelled from the Communist Party and exiled to Central Asia for so-called re-education. The circumstances of these events have never been fully explained, but they marked a turning point in his life.

On his return to Prague, Weil published his novel Moscow to the Border (1937), an account of the Stalinist purges and trials. He tried to leave Czechoslovakia to join relatives in the UK prior to Nazi Germany's invasion, but was unable to do so.

During the Nazi occupation, he was assigned to work at the Jewish Museum in Prague. In November 1942, he was summoned for deportation to the concentration camp at Terezín (Theresienstadt), but faked his own suicide and survived the rest of World War II in hiding. Despite the tremendous hardships, Weil continued to write, producing short stories and a historical novel, Makanna, Father of Wonders (1946). His now-classic book Life with a Star (1949) was one of the first Czech novels to deal with the Holocaust and is probably his best-known work. After the war, he worked as an editor, as his writing was disapproved by the Communists who took power in the country. He also resumed work at the Jewish Museum, where he was instrumental in the creation of an exhibition of children's drawings from Terezín, I Never Saw Another Butterfly, and a monument for Jews murdered by Nazis in the Pinkas Synagogue, for which he wrote the prose poem Lament for 77,297 Victims.

In the mid-1950s, Weil was re-admitted to the Writers' Union and allowed to publish. His novel Mendelssohn Is on the Roof appeared posthumously in 1959. Only a handful of his works have been translated into English.

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Reviews

Life with a Star tell the tale of a young Jewish man in Nazi occupied Prague. His inner life and thoughts about himself, his former romance, and his daily tribulations are detailed. One day he has a revelation and his outlook is changed.

This is not a plot driven story. It is a character study where Joseph changes from a pitiable and spineless broken man into a stubborn, confident, and unbreakable man as he decides to defy orders and not show up for "transport" to a camp. It is not an enjoyable read (unsurprisingly given the content), but it kept my attention and interest. I didn't quite feel enough for Joseph to make the novel deeply meaningful to me though. I did appreciate the glimpse of the ability of humanity to endure and survive.… (more)
½
 
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technodiabla | 9 other reviews | Dec 22, 2023 |
Ez nem Hrabal Prágája, akkor már inkább Kafkáé, de leginkább Weilé. A cseh író teljesen unortodox módon közelíti meg a holokausztregény témáját: csendesen elmondott, hivalkodástól mentes könyve nem magáról a soáról, hanem a várakozásról szól, amíg a transzportok elindulnak. Az Élet csillaggal nem az arcunkba tolt borzalom könyve, hanem a banalitásé, hogy az ember csak tesz-vesz, próbál túlélni, beszerezni a kenyérsarkot vagy elvillamosozni a hitközségbe (már ha le nem löki a kalauz félúton), ahol szorongva várja, aznap az ő nevét olvassák-e fel. És közben igyekszik fenntartani magában a reményt, hogy nincs még veszve minden. Ez a helyzet adja meg a regény hellyel-közzel kafkai abszurditását, de ebben a regényben az abszurd maga a történelmi valóság, a náci rendeletek képtelen hálója, amit mintha csak azért szövegeznének meg, hogy létükben alázzák meg a zsidókat, a groteszk pedig az, hogy elbeszélőnk, Roubíček ilyen körülmények között is megkísérli életben tartani a hétköznapiságot. Túlélésének záloga nem is annyira fizikai testével kapcsolatos, mint inkább a lélekkel: nem a kalóriák táplálják, inkább macskájával, vagy egykori szerelmével, Ruzenkával folytatott (képzelt) beszélgetések. Ezek kötik még az élethez, de paradox módon egyben ezek akadályozzák meg abban, hogy ellépjen a neki rendelt Végzet elől.

Az Élet csillaggal halk és keserű könyv. Különösen keserű az ítélet, amit az áldozatokról mond, akik Weil szerint képtelenek arra, hogy méltóvá váljanak a mártíromságra. Ami, azt hiszem, valahol természetes, hiszen nem saját tetteik és döntéseik alapján választották ki őket a szenvedésre, hanem mások tettei és mások döntései (kvázi a vak véletlen) jelölték meg őket. Roubíčeknek közülük kell kiemelkednie valamiképp ahhoz, hogy ebben a tőről metszett fejlődésregényben antihősből igazi hőssé nemesedjen. Isten látja lelkem, én nagyon szurkoltam neki.
… (more)
 
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Kuszma | Jul 2, 2022 |
Hallucinante beschrijving van de jodenvervolging
 
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RudyHeye | 9 other reviews | Jun 8, 2017 |
This is an unusual Holocaust novel, written by a Czech Jew who survived by faking his own death in 1942 and living in hiding for the rest of the war. It doesn't mention the words Jews, Nazi or Germans, but adopts an other-worldly anonymous atmosphere that gets the message of oppression across very effectively (a literary device also employed by Arthur Koestler in Darkness at Noon and Arrival and Departure). The central character Josef Roubicek's life becomes more and more limited as restrictions on Jews' work, life, and movement become ever stricter, contrasted with the lives of plenty and (relative) luxury being enjoyed by the non-Jewish population. Roubicek survives when around him fellow Jews are being rounded up and sent away to the "fortress town" or transported to the East. This is a depressing and sombre novel, not only because of the intrinsic subject matter, but also because of the writing style, including Roubicek's internal dilemma about whether to bother continuing the struggle to survive or rather to surrender himself to his fate, and the ending is rather ambiguous - though one assumes Roubicek will survive in the same way as did the real author, as this has been hinted at earlier in conversations with the only named non-Jewish character, Josef Materna.… (more)
 
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john257hopper | 9 other reviews | Jan 26, 2015 |

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Associated Authors

Kees Mercks Translator, Afterword
Philip Roth Foreword, Afterword, Preface
Marie Winn Translator
Eckhard Thiele Translator
Gustav Just Translator
Roslyn Schloss Translator
Rita Klímová Translator

Statistics

Works
9
Also by
1
Members
682
Popularity
#37,083
Rating
½ 4.3
Reviews
19
ISBNs
51
Languages
9
Favorited
6

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