Todtnauberg

Paul Celan (1920 in Cernauti, Romania - 1970 in Paris) was a poet and translator. Paul Antschel was born into a Jewish family in Romania, but as a writer used the pseudonym "Paul Celan," becoming one of the major German-languuage poets after World War II. Celans parents were deported by the Nazis in 1942 to a death camp in Transnistria (area between Moldvia and Ukraine). His Father died of thyphoid, his mother was shot. The deportation and the death of his parents left deep marks in Paul Celan. From 1942-1943 he was imprisoned in work camps and had to work in road construction in southern Moldavia. After the liberation by the Red Army, Celan went back to Czernowitz and finally settled in Paris in 1948. In 1969 he travelled to Jerusalem, only fwe months before his death. Circumstances and true date of his death are not really known but it is believed that he drowned himself in the Seine River in April 1970. His body was found near Coubevoie, ten kilometres downstream in the Seine. He was buried on May 12th 1970 in Paris. Todtnauberg (Paul Celan) Arnika, Augentrost, der Trunk aus dem Brunnen mit dem Sternwürfel drauf, in der Hütte, (= Hut in English) die in das Buch - wessen Namen nahms auf vor dem meinen? - die in dies Buch geschriebene Zeile von einer Hoffnung heute, auf eines Denkenden kommendes Wort im Herzen, Waldwasen, uneingeebnet Orchis und Orchis, einzeln, Krudes, später, im Fahren, deutlich, der uns fährt, der Mensch der's mit anhört, die halb- beschrittenen Knüppel- pfade im Hochmoor, Feuchtes, viel. -------------------------------------------- Arnica, eyebright, the draft from the well with the star-die on top, in the Hütte written in the book - whose name did it record before mine? - in this book the line about a hope, today, for a thinker's word to come, in the heart, forest sward, unleveled, orchis and orchis, singly, crudeness, later, while driving, clearly, he who drives us, the man, he who also hears it, the half- trod log- trails on the highmoor, humidity, much. Celan: "Todtnauberg" (translated by Pierre Joris) Used by permission of the translator