LISA FITTKO
(1909-2005)
In 1985, Lisa Fittko`s Mein Weg Über Die Pyrenäen was published in Germany to rave
reviews. The book was translated into
French, English, Spanish and Japanese,
Portuguese and Italian.
It was selected as best political book of the year in
Mein Weg (the American edition, Escape through the Pyrenees,
was translated by David Koblick and published by Northwestern
University Press in 1991) is an autobiographical memoir chiefly devoted to
describing the author's experiences in the wake of the defeat of France in
1940-41. At the time she lived as a
German exile in
Perhaps the key
episode in this first book, certainly the one the most commented upon by
reviewers and historians alike, is the first passage with Walter Benjamin
across the
Following the
success of this first book, called by one journalist ein
"Renner der Exilbiographik",
" the hit of exile biographies",(2) the publisher requested a second
memoir. Solidarität Unerwünscht:
Erinnerungen 1933-1940 " came out seven
years later (Hanser Verlag,
München, 1992)
and was translated as Solidarity and Treason: Resistance and
Exile,1933-1940 by Roselyn Theobald in
collaboration with the author (Evanston, Illinois, Northwestern
University Press, 1993). It provides a pre-history for Mein Weg,
describing Fittko's life in the
***************************
Lisa Fittko was born in 1909 as Elizabeth Ekstein
in Uzgohrod, a small town on the eastern border of the
Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy that became part of the Soviet Union after World
War II and is today part of
Having used up the
family funds on this idealistic project, the Eksteins
moved to
As a member of a
left-wing youth group, Fittko was early
involved in
demonstrations and then in the street fighting which was characteristic for
political life in this period.
As we learn from
her second book, Solidarity and Treason, Fittko
was not only witness but also an active participant in the episodes surrounding
the Nazi take- over on the streets of
She describes her
life in illegality - a no-man's land; she lives behind a candy store - where
she types flyers calling for the fall of the regime while the phonograph player
is set on loud and plays AIDA.
The book deals
with the day-to-day problems involved in living underground. It discusses learning how to behave under
secrecy and the threat of denunciation; risking one's life so that newspaper
editorials and leaflets can be published and distributed. We learn how the young people build a
network; they are spied upon by the
Gestapo, one after another in the group is caught. Some are children of simple working class
families whereas others come from a well-to-do milieu.
Lisa Fittko's parents left immediately upon Hitler's takeover,
but she herself was determined to stay and resist. Although her parents were by no means typical
- they picked up and left everything , saying they could not live in a country
which was conducting an official boycott of the Jews - Fittko's
decision to remain reflects the optimism of the young leftists, who were
convinced they could still persuade the
German masses to oppose the Nazi
take-over. It was only when placed in immediate
danger that she was forced to flee across the Czech border. She was now 24 years old.
In
Lisa Fittko meets her future husband Hans, and after a few
months they are faced with expulsion by the Czech government. Hans had been organizing resistance
activities on the Czech-German border until
this activity became known to German officials who now put pressure on
the Czech government and he was forced to leave. Lisa decided to go with him, thus leaving the
first of the countries which offered her refuge from Nazism.(6)
They now move to
the strategic German-Swiss-French corner of
Once again there
is strong support by individuals and then eventual betrayal by the authorities
when a warrant for Hans´s arrest is honoured by the
Swiss government. Escape is once more
made possible with the aid of friends
and Hans and Lisa are able to slip over the border to
Border resistance activities continue, this
time in
In
Opportunities for
resistance are limited, but Hans Fittko is asked to
write scripts for a Resistance station that broadcasts from
Fittko communicates the
tension, fear and uncertainty of the situation and describes a variety of
reactions on the part of the French population.
There were those who helped and those whom one had to fear. Always one had to take care not to put
well-meaning persons in danger. It was only possible to survive thanks to those
in
With the outbreak
of the war,
As the German
troops began to approach the South of France, the possibility of flight opened up. But it took some courage to take advantage of
the chance to escape from this "camp de concentration". Many feared
finding themselves alone on the outside.
Yet Lisa Fittko and a group of internees dare
to leave and find their way through the chaos of
Fittko details the maze
of red tape and the papers which took on the greatest importance for the
fleeing émigrés, the expired or forged documents, the exit, entry or transit
visas and the consequences of not having working papers or ration cards.
With great
modesty, she describes the resourcefulness necessary in order to pull people
out of the grasp of the Gestapo.
An important part
of Mein Weg
recounts Fittko's work setting up a secret route for
illegally crossing of the Spanish border, thus making it possible for
innumerable endangered refugees to reach neutral Portugal and the ships to the
new world in 1940-41.
By the terms of Article 19 of the armistice
signed by the newly installed French government of Marshal Pétain, foreigners on French soil were to be
"surrendered upon demand" to the Nazi regime.
Instead of fleeing abroad with their
preciously obtained visas, she and her husband - both without passports and he on the Gestapo
wanted list - took on the task of
helping others in danger.
The route, a
former smugglers trail which was used by the Republican General Lister to bring
his defeated troops out of
The first of the
refugees Lisa Fittko accompanied across the Spanish
border was the philosopher Walter Benjamin. The fatal outcome of his crossing is
one reason the detailed and moving story of Benjamin`s
flight across the mountains comes to form the keystone of Lisa Fittko´s book.
She tells of the
physically weakened Benjamin and the briefcase which he indicated was more
valuable to him than his life.(7)
To the young
activist, "the old Benjamin" (he was 48 years old) is seen as a
cavalier from the old school, but totally inept in those qualities of
resourcefulness which were now essential for survival (the ability to "se débrouiller").
Like most of the
German refugees, Benjamin had come to Marseille to find a way out of the trap
which
When he first
knocked on her door in the mountain village he introduced himself:
"Gnädige
Frau," (gracious Madam) he said. "Please forgive the intrusion-I hope
this is not an inopportune time."
“The world is
falling to pieces, I thought, but Benjamin`s courtesy
is unshakable."
"Your honoured
spouse," he continued, "explained to me how I could find you. He said she will take you over the border to
Fittko then describes
how Benjamin, who intimated that he had a weak heart, laid out a singular
strategy for climbing the mountains:
"Benjamin
travelled slowly and steadily; at regular intervals - I think it was ten
minutes - he halted and rested for about a minute. Then he continued on at the same constant
pace. As he told me, he had thought it
out and calculated it during the night: "I can go all the way to the end
using this method. I stop at regular
intervals - I must pause BEFORE I´m exhausted. One
must not completely overspend one´s strength."
What a remarkable
man! I thought. Crystal-clear thinking,
an unfaltering inner strength, and at the same time a hopelessly awkward,
clumsy fellow."
...........
I remember that we
were all in a good mood, and now and then we talked a little. We spoke mainly about problems of the moment:
the slippery path, the warming sun, and how much farther to the border.
Today, when
Benjamin is acknowledged to be one of the most important scholars and critics
of our century, I am occasionally asked: What did he say about the
manuscript? Did he tell you anything at
all about the contents? Did he have
therein a new system of philosophy?
Heavens
above! I had my hands full guiding our
little group upward. Philosophy had to wait until we were over the
mountain. I was busy rescuing some human
beings from the Nazis, and here I was with this odd character, Old Benjamin,
who under no circumstances would let himself be parted from his ballast, the
black leather briefcase. And so, for
better or worse, we had to drag that monstrosity over the mountains."
The tragic end is
well known: The Spanish border guards in Port Bou
informed the escapees that the regulations had once again been altered. Out of fear of being sent back, Benjamin took
his life. His manuscript was never
found.(9)
As can be seen
from the fact that those who were with him and also later refugees succeeded in
making their way through
Directly upon her
return, and long before news of Benjamin's suicide came through, Lisa found a
telegram telling her that she must return to Marseille immediately to renew the
Portuguese visa which was about the only legal document she possessed. Upon arrival, Hans explained that a meeting
had been scheduled that evening with the American, Varian Fry.
Fry in his memoirs,(also recently translated
into German, thanks to the popularity of Fittko's
book)(10) describes how he arrived in
Marseille with money and a list of some 200 people, political fighters,
artists and intellectuals who needed to get out of Hitler`s
Europe and for whom he could get American visas. The task proved to be much more complicated
than he expected.
Fry was the
representative of a group of organizations in
It was Fry's collaborator, Albert Hirschmann, who decided that the Fittko's
might be helpful. He realized that an
effective escape route was necessary. He had most probably heard about the new
route that Fittko and Benjamin had used. Frank Bohn, from the American Federation of
Labour, was also present at the meeting.
The Fittko's urged that an organized system be
worked out with adequate security precautions; that this would require a
permanent person at the border to take people across. It was not at all their intention to play
this role themselves, but at Fry's urging they agreed to delay their own escape
plans and do this for a few weeks. These
weeks stretched into over seven months.
Fittko describes the
scene in the café in Marseille when Hans and Lisa were taken aback when Fry
suggested that they become co-workers for the Committee and spend months
passing refugees across the
Hans turned to
Herman (Albert Hirchmann) and asked “What does he
mean?” “Combien
what?
“Listen a moment,”
said Hermant.
„He doesn´t know you, he scarcely knows who
you are. You can´t
expect him to understand people of the German Resistance. He´s heard that
racketeers are doing a booming business smuggling folks over the border; he doesn´t want to deal with them. But he finds it perfectly all right if you
want to be paid.”
Hans regarded Fry
thoughtfully. “Do you know,” he said,
“that assisting men of military age in illegal border-crossings now rates the
death penalty? And you offer us
money. We would have to be insane
indeed. Do you actually know what an anti-Fascist is? Do you understand the word Überzeugung, conviction?” (12)
It was this
organized system of getting people in peril across the
When rescue
operation on the French-Spanish border were rendered impossible in April, 1941
because the French, following instructions from Germany, banned all non-natives
from the border area, Lisa and Hans Fittko took up
Varian Fry's offer of passage to Cuba.
They arrived in
A series of stories written by Fittko in the last few years deal with some episodes
concerning the eight years of exile in Havana.(13) They convey a difficult period of waiting
and hope of returning "home";
of dismay with corruption and intrigue and yet a certain solidarity
among the émigrés.
The Fittkos had planned to travel from
In 1948 she and
her husband (they were now finally able to legally wed) left their Cuban exile
to go to the
The Fittkos choose
Lisa Fittko first began to write after her retirement. She had been employed all of her life -
working in four languages. In exile - in
Fittko began to write
her memoirs more than forty years after the events. That she was nonetheless
able to capture the suspenseful atmosphere of the times has fascinated many; further, the series of
vignettes have been praised for providing a kind moral challenge to the reader,
who is called upon to reflect on how he or she would have reacted in a similar
situation.
Lisa Fittko first came to
write the story of "old Benjamin" after having visited a niece who
was spending a sabbatical year at
Fittko's writing appeared
at a time when autobiographical accounts of the emigré
experience of people in the resistance and the persecuted were first beginning
to be published in greater numbers. (From 1976 to 1995 the number of
autobiographies appearing in
A new and
important phenomenon which helped to account for the great interest in her work
was the fact that, apart from an
important novelist like Anna Seghers, women were just
beginning to write their own accounts of flight and exile. The women's movement had awakened in many an
interest in the life stories of their own mothers. In addition, the surge of interest in social
history, "Alltagsgeschichte" and oral
history had helped generate a new public
for memoir literature. (Previously many women`s
stories had been absorbed into the mainstream male sagas. Varian Fry, for example, specifically
mentions Johannes Fittko but does not mention Lisa in
his autobiographical volume, Surrender
on Demand.) Of course the
link with Walter Benjamin, whose work was just beginning to become recognized
among the educated public in
Lisa Fittko seems to be speaking to the next generation when she
writes; she includes passages where her niece asks questions about the meaning
of her political experiences. In other
passages she seems to be attempting to awaken
political awareness, working to
put to rest simplistic ideas, for example, the popular thesis that fascism
could only succeed in
Fittko writes about
politics and her writing is political in the deepest sense. She describes the resistance activities of
her friends and comrades as well as the extraordinary conduct that became the
mainstay of everyday existence in the face of adverse circumstances. She writes about the friendships and
solidarity that made political activity and mere survival possible. This also
includes the aid of innumerable honourable bystanders.
Although Lisa Fittko sees herself primarily as a political émigré, she is
also aware of being persecuted for being Jewish. Fittko often draws
the distinction between those who were persecuted for their religion and those
who suffered victimization for their active involvement in fighting racism and
anti-Semitism. In response to an
interviewer's question on this issue, Fittko was
quoted as saying “I often had the impression that many Jewish émigrés regarded
Nazi persecution as something personal:
I lived in another world with my friends who were involved in active
resistance and who saw anti-Semitism and racism, as did I, as a manifestation
of fascism.“(15).
Given that Fittko
has lived in the Americas since 1942, she began her autobiographical writing in
English: it was only when she read the
German translation of her first story (the Benjamin story, first published in
the literary magazine in Munich, the Merkur
403, 1982) that she decided that she could do better and returned to the German
of her youth. This meant, incidentally,
that she was quite isolated while writing in the
Although some
reviewers have questioned the authenticity of the dialogues and have expressed
surprise at her ability to recreate the atmosphere of panic and fear after a
forty-year lull, it should be mentioned that historians have praised her sober
retelling of the historical event and have frequently commented on the
reliability of her accounts. This point was made in a conference on exile in
In a recent
interview, Fittko said the writer she most admires
(in style, not in content) is Ernest Hemingway
and in fact one detects a simplicity of expression accompanied by a
journalistic style that recalls some of Hemingway`s
better stories.
Fittko's work is a mixture
of documentary report and description including some dialogue. Gripping and lively, it conveys the
atmosphere of fear, emergency and chaos as well as hope that existed, for
example, in Marseille in 1940-42. It
explores important aspects of the emigration story - of flight, internment and resistance and
raises issues about the meaning of reliability and political cooperation
HONORS AND AWARDS:
In 1986, almost a
half a century after the Nazi regime had taken away her citizenship, Lisa Fittko was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal, First Class, of the
Federal Republic of Germany.(Bundesverdienstkreuz, l.
Klasse, 25.6.1986).
Lisa Fittko wrote a letter to the Bundespresident
Weizäcker, thanking him for the prize but protesting
the lack of public information and recognition of the German resistance
movement as a whole. An English
translation of this letter is included as an afterward in the 1993 English
edition of Solidarity and Treason.
Apart from the
prizes mentioned in footnote one, Fittko was also
granted a fellowship (Stipendium) by the Deutsches Literaturfond e.v.,
In May, 1994, Lisa
Fittko was flown to the Franco-Spanish border at the
crossing point Port Bou in order to be an honoured
guest at the ceremony inaugurating the monument erected by the Israeli
artist-sculptor, Danny Karavan, called "Passagen"
,an "Hommage" to Walter Benjamin. (17).
Books and plays
about the Benjamin story:
Two plays based on
the Benjamin story have appeared, by Christoph Hein
and by Craig Eisendrath and Roberta Spivek.(18) A novel
based on her book by Jay Parini was widely
reviewed.(19)
Two films have
appeared on Lisa Fittko's life (20) and a third
full-length documentary is in the making.(21)
Several other filmmakers have incorporated interviews with Fittko in their documentaries about the époque.(22) Fittko also gave a long interview for the Steven Spielberg Shoah project.(23)
*****************************************************************************
1. The
book has had several German editions: Lisa Fittko, Mein Weg über die Pyrenäen. Erinnerungen 1940/41
(München/Wien:Hanser Verlag, 1985)
Mein Weg über die Pyrenäen. Errinerungen 1940/41. Preface by Frederik Hetman(Ravensburg Taschenbuch: Otto Maier Ravensburg, 1992)
and Mein Weg über die Pyrenäen. Errinerungen 1940/41 (München, DTV: Reihe Hanser, 2004).
The American
edition: Lisa Fittko,
Escape through the Pyrenees, translated by David Koblick
(Northwestern University Press, 1991).
also translated
into French,Le Chemin
des Pyrénées. Souvenirs 1940-41. Trad. Léa Marcou
(Paris, Marin Sel, 1987). A Japanese edition
exists, as well as a Spanish edition, in
which both books are included in one. The Italian version: Lisa Fittko, La via
dei Pirenei (Roma, Manifestolibri, 1999).
Shortly after its
German publication in 1985, Lisa Fittko's first book,
Mein Weg was
named Political Book of the Year. (Das
Politische Buch des Jahres: 14.5.1986 von Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Verleger,
Buchhändler und Bibliotheken in der Friedrich-Ebert Stiftung zum Sachthema
Politische Exilliterature.)
Prix sur la Fondation FIAT-Institut de
France,
Paris, 28.8. 1988, Academie
des Sciences morale et politique.
Mein Weg has been called a "an exemplary case of personal history writing „Musterbeispiel individueller
Geschichtsschreibung" (Veronika Maas: Im Niemandsland der Bedrohung (Rez.
zu Mein Weg) In: Stuttgarter Nachrichten, 9.10.1985.
and "one of
the most important authentic reports of a horrible époque" (Hermann Glaser
in Nürnberger Nachrichten,
27.11.1985.
Jürgen Habermas in his speech upon receiving the Geschwister Scholl Prize of 1987, called Fittko`s
book "a life story worthy of the White Rose conspiracy group." "Es gibt gewisse Bücher, auch heute
noch, hinter denen eine der Weißen Rose würdige Lebensgeschichte steht. Lisa Fittkos
Erinnerungen sind von dieser Art."(Jürgen Habermas,
EINE ART SCHADENSABWICKLUNG (Surkamp, Frankfurt a.M., 1987) p. 14.9
In 2001, referring
to a monument which was erected to Hans and Lisa Fittko
in Banyuls, initiated and financed by Georg Reuthner, the Prasident of Germany, Johannes Rau said: the time has come
for honouring the German resistance-and not only in a French village.”
“Es ist an der Zeit, daß
sich nicht nur ein französisches Dorf des deutschen Widerstands erinnert“ („ here exist unsung
heroes who have saved others,
who have placed their lives
in danger - Hans and Lisa Fittko
have done this.“) „Es
gibt diese unbesungenen Helden, die Menschen gerettet haben, die haben sich
selber aufs Spiel gesetzt, und Hans und Lisa Fittko
haben das getan. Wir tragen die Last
leichter, wenn wir auch an diese
Menschen erinnern, ohne damit die Gräueltaten
beiseite zu schieben, die andere begangen haben.“
(2) Mittag, Gabriele, "Nur nicht drängeln zu den
Engeln," Rez. zu Fittko, Mein Weg (1985)
in TAZ (Berlin) 7.5.1992.
she calls the book ein "Renner der
Exilbiographik".
(3) Solidarität unerwünscht. Meine Flucht durch Europa.
Erinnerungen 1933-1940 Hanser Verlag (München/Wien, 1992)
Solidarität unerwünscht. Meine Flucht durch
Europa. Erinnerungen 1933-1940
(Frankurt a.M.:Fisher
Taschenbuch Verlag, 1994).
Solidarity and
Treason: Resistance and Exile, 1933-1940 Transl. by Roxlyn Theobald in collaboration with the author(Northwestern University Press: Evanston, 1993).
Paperback printing,
Northwestern University Press:
Lisa Fittko died March 12 in Chicago at the
age of 95.
(4) Die Waage:Eine Wiener
Wochenschrift 1916-1919 (Redaktion, E.K.Stein, Margaretenstr. 60, Wien).
(5) The Youth
Movement in
(6) Johannes Fittko (1902-1960) was active in left wing circles and
published as a journalist, for example in Franz Pfemferts
Die Aktion.
Shortly after the
Nazi takeover of power, anyone who was considered an “intellectual initiator of
a capital crime” was subject to the death penalty. When in
Johannes Fittko was awarded the Yad Vashem Medal for the Just among the Peoples for his
resistance activities. Lisa Fittko accepted this
reward in honor
of those non-Jews who helped to save Jews and participated in resistance to the
Holocaust for her husband in July, 2000.
Varian Fry had been the first American to be honoured by this reward a
few years earlier. In the acceptance
ceremony Warren Christopher, Secretary of State at the time, used the occasion
to apologize for the lukewarm attitude of the State Department towards Fry and
other Americans who tried to help the refugees.
(7) It is now
thought that it might have contained Benjamins last
manuscript, a copy of which was preserved in
p. 1194.
(8) Mein Weg (1991) p. 103 ff.
(9) See Gershom
Scholem`s note and the “remarks of the editor: background
history“ (Zeugnisse zur Entstehungsgeschichte” in
Walter Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, edited by Rolf Tiedemann and Hermann Schweppenhauser, with Theodor W.
Adorno and Gershom Scholem
(Frankfort/M. Suhrkamp, 1985) Bd. V/2, edited by Rolf Tiedemann, p.
1081-1205, especially p. 1194.
(10) On Fry and
Emergency Rescue Committee see articles in this Lexicon by Wolfgang D. Elfe, “Das Emergency Rescue Committee,” in Deutsche Exilliteratur seit
1933. Bd. I: Kalifornien, edited by john
M. Spalek and Joseph Strelka
(Bern/München, Franke,
1976), pp 2114-219.
Anne Klein "Conscience, Conflict and
Politics. The Rescue of Political Refugees from
Andy Marino, A
Quiet American: The Secret War of Varian Fry (New York, 1999, ST. Martin's
Press) Significant is the dedication to
Varian Fry`s book Surrender on Demand
(Random House, New York, 1945), German translation by Jan Hans and Anja Lazarowicz, Auslieferung auf Verlangen:
Die Rettung deutscher Emigranten in Marseille 1940-41 edited by and
annotated by Wolfgang D. Elfe und Jan Hans (Hanser Verlag, München, 1986) which reads "Für
Anna Caples und Paul Hagen, die den Anstoß gegeben haben." (for Anna Caples and
Paul Hagen, who initiated it all.) Paul
Hagen is one of Karl Frank's many pseudonyms, and Anna Caples
was his American wife.
(11) see ft.10
above for the details on Varian Fry's book.
(12) Do you
understand the word Überzeugung,
conviction?” Mein Weg, 1991 English edition,
p.119.
(13) Stories
written in the last few years include: “Charlie und Lola,” SS Colonial,” “Tiscornia” “Prenatal” “The Wedding” “Brigadier” “Adria” “Nikolo” “Le Grand Rabin”
“Die Blaue Donau”.
(14) Ursula Seeber-Weyrer,
"Autobiografisches Schreiben über das Exil heute: Lisa Fittko
und andere Beispiele," in Anne Saint Sauveur-Henn
(edit.), Zweimal verjagt. Die deutschsprachige
Emigration und er Fluchtweg Frankreich-Lateinamrika
1933-1945 (Berlin, Metropol, 1998).
(15)See Dorothea Dornhof, "Nur nicht stillschweigen müssen zu
den Verbrechen seines Landes"
Gespräch mit Lisa Fittko, Chicago, 14,
Dezember 1992" 229-238, citation from p. 231, in FRAUEN UND EXIL: EXIL FORSCHUNG: EIN
INTERNATIONALES JAHRBUCH BAND II; Herausgegeben im Auftrag der Gesellschaft
für Exilforschung (Edition text + kritik, München,
1993).
(16) This point was made
in a conference on exile in
Paris in 1997 by
Patrik von zur Mühlen (Zweimal verjagt. Die deutschsprachige Emigration und er
Fluchtweg Frankreich-Latein Amerika 1933-1945 (Berlin, Metropol,
1998).
(17) The project,
costing 980,000 DM, was originally to have been sponsored by the German
Bundestag. However, in
1992 the
project was called off on the grounds that
"es sei nicht zu verantworten "eine Million in einen abgelgenen Ort mit sehr geringem Nutzwert" zu stecken.
(It
is irresponsible to put a million in a far-off place with little use.)
In the face of
this refusal, the Bundesländer, the Catalone government and the communities of Banyuls sur mer
and Portbou, along with private sponsors, managed to
mount the project themselves, under the organization of the Arbeitskreis
selbständiger Kulturinstitute
(AsKI).
The ceremony took
place in Portbou May 15, 1994.
At the cemetery
above the sea, the memorial for Benjamin, created by Danny Karavan,
was inaugurated. Those who had made it possible, Hans Eichel
from Hessen and Erwin Teufel from Baden-Würtemmberg were there, together with the president of
Catalonia Jordi Poujol i Soley.
Without making any
dramatic changes in the landscape, Karavan gathered
created a monument using several themes symbolizing the hopelessness and yet
calm of Benjamin's situation - an olive tree, a fence over the bay and the
whirl of white water at the foot of the cliff.
At the bottom of a
narrow staircase made of grey-red rusted steel a glass panel - preventing one
from falling into the sea- is engraved with the following words from Benjamin's
writings: "Schwerer ist
es, das Gedächnis der Namenlosen zu ehren als
das der Berühmten. Dem Gedächtnis der Namenlosen ist die historische Konstruktion geweiht." ("It is more
arduous to honour the memory of the nameless than that of the renowned. Historical construction is devoted to the
memory of the nameless.")(WB, Gesammelte
Schriften, I,S. 1231).
(18) Hein, Christoph, Passage: Ein Kammerspiel in drei Akten
(Berlin,1988).
Craig Eisendrath and Roberta Spivek, The
Angel of History" (unpublished ms., 1988).
(19)Parini, Jay, "Benjamin`s
Crossing: A Novel" (New York, 1997).
(20)Das letzte Visum Passage unbekannt (Varian
Fry und das Emergency Rescue Committe). Ein Film von
Karin Alles. Hessicher Rundfunk, 1987.
Wir, sagten wir, wir
ergeben uns nicht.... Constanze Zahn,(
Lisa Fittko, Katrin Seybold, Director;
Catherine Stodolsky, Co-Author (München, 2000).
(21) An excellent
recent film is Resisting Paradise: a film by Barbara Hammer (2003).
(22)"Interview
with Lisa Fittko,” Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation January, 1999.
m