Appelfeld, Ahron

(b. 1932)

   Israeli writer. Appelfeld was born in Czernowitz, Romania. Although he lost all his family, he survived the Holocaust by living among the peasants of the Ukraine. After the liberation, he arrived in Palestine in 1946 where he completed his education. Much of Appelfeld’s fiction is concerned with the dislocation in the Jewish world brought about by the Holocaust. Between 1962 and 1968 he produced twelve volumes of short stories, most of which are set either in the Displaced Persons’ Camps or in Israel after World War II. In general he does not describe the horrors of the concentration camps - he is more concerned with the effects of the disruption. His later work includes the novel Badenheim 1939 (1974) and Tor Hapela’ot (1978) translated as The Age of Wonders (1981). In these he explores the humdrum life of middle-class Jewry in Central Europe before the Nazi invasion and the half-understood threats to its existence. In the second work nothing whatsoever is said of the Holocaust itself and the second part describes the return of the son to his old home after the war has ended.

   Appelfeld was one of the first Israelis to base his writings on the Holocaust experience and his work undoubtedly is an attempt to come to terms with his own feelings as a survivor.