On June 20th, the exhibition “Stefan Zweig ” a European from Austria” opened at the Jewish National and University Library of Jerusalem. It was organized by the municipality of Salzburg, Austria where Zweig had resided for many years and has been shown in various cities in Europe since 1995.
The Jerusalem exhibit which was coordinated by Rafael Weiser, a director of the Jewish National and University Library’s department of manuscripts will be open until July 15.
Stefan Zweig, an Austrian Jewish writer, was one of the most widely read and translated authors. Born in 1881 in Vienna, he lived most of his life in Austria. In 1934, on account of the worsening political situation in Austria he left for Great Britain.
In 1940 he went to New York and from there he embarked on a lecture tour through South America. The following year he moved from the U.S. to Brazil settling in Petropolis, near Rio de Janeiro. On February 25, 1942, deeply disturbed over the Nazi domination of Europe, Zweig, together with his second wife, the former Lotte Altmann, (she was, if I am not mistaken a relative or descendant of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch) committed suicide in Petropolis.
Stefan Zweig who travelled widely wrote poetry, dramas essays, stories, biographies and novels. He advocated the idea of the spiritual unity of Europe lecturing on the subject, not only in German but also in English, French and Italian. Famous authors as well as artists, composers, actors and scholars were welcome guests in his hospitable home in Salzburg.
Zweig’s books, like those of the other German-Jewish authors were burned in Nazi Germany.
Before writing about the exhibition, something must be said about the Jewish dimension of Zweig’s personality.
As a young man, Zweig was an ardent admirer of Theodor Herzl as an author. Twenty-five years after the death of the founder of political Zionism he was to write of him (in “King of the Jews,” published in Theodor Herzl: A Memorial, edited by Meyer W. Weisgal, NY, 1929): “I had read all his essays ever since I had been able to read at all; they served to educate me and filled me with admiration for his culture. Even today — for early impressions are deep and ineradicable– I remember almost every one of his feuilletons as distinctly as the first poems of Rilke and Hofmannsthal which I used to read in school. To me, his authority was the highest, his judgment fundamental and absolute.”
He met Herzl for the first time at the beginning of 1901 when he visited the feuilleton editor of the Neue Freie Press to submit a short piece of prose. After reading it Herzl said, I am happy to tell you that this fine piece is selected for the feuilleton of the Neue Freie Press.” Recalling this episode in his autobiography, The World of Yesterday, Zweig describes his feelings at the time.
It was as if Napoleon had pinned the Knight’s Cross of the Legion of Honor upon a young sergeant on the battlefield.”
In subsequent meeting, Herzl tried to win over the young writer to become active for the Zionist cause. He did not succeed.
Zweig did attend Zionist meetings. Even at that time he recognized the significance of political Zionism, not only with regard to it great humanitarian aims but also as an instrument for the spiritual rebirth of the Jewish People.
In 1903 he wrote his his introduction to E. M. Lilien, Sein Werk (about the Jewish graphic artist, Ephraim Moses Lilien, Berlin Leipzig, 1903) the following about Zionism: “There is no need nowadays to explain what Zionism stands for. It is not a new idea. It has abided with the homeless nation for thousands of years. It has raised its silvery voice of promise from amidst songs enveloped in sorrow. It has glowed as the most inward and secret wish in the prayers of the devout whose last desire was to lay to rest their dying heads on the lost mother-earth of Jerusalem. Zionism which had found in the powerful, arousing personality of Dr. Herzl the shaper of its programs, is only the standard around which all these desires gather; it is a rallying call to the thousands to band together. It has made Judaism conscious of itself; it has aroused its dormant artistic values; it has kindled in thousands of eyes which had been gazing desperately into the dark, a hope of great and real possibilities.”
Zweig also felt obligated to assist Herzl, who had championed and launched him in the Neue Freie Presse, one of the most influential dailies in Europe– in his Zionist activities. Yet he did not join the movement. However, it was probably due to the influence of Herzl that Zweig began to contribute to Die Welt, the central organ of the Zionist organization. In the same year in which he began contributing to the Neue Freie Presse, Zweig also published two poems and one story in Die Welt.
To be continued
July 2, 1999
(Continued from last week)
There is more to the Jewish aspect of Stefan Zweig’s personality.
Towards the end of 1933, fearing that he would not be able to remain in Austria as a result of political developments in Central Europe, Zweig wrote the following letter to Dr. Hugo Bergman, who was then the director of the Jewish National and University Library in Jerusalem.
“Dear Doktor,
“Please treat this letter with the utmost confidentiality. I would not like a word of this to reach others. I do not know whether I will be able, given the circumstances, to maintain my home in Austrian. But even more than by material concerns, I am troubled by certain personal matters, such as my private correspondence. I have selected the most important letters… which are significant for our times: Hauptmann, Rolland (several hundred letters), Vorhaeren, Einstein… Freud, Maeterlinck, Herzl, Rathenau, Richard Strauss, Joyce, Gorki, Thomas Mann and others. I am prepared to send all these to the Library in Jerusalem. The condition, that no one be allowed to see the collection until ten years after my death. Each bundle will remain closed and sealed, and I will be entitled to receive a copy of any letter at any times… It seems to me, without undue pride, that the collection includes correspondence with the most interesting people of our times and would be an asset to your library, our library…”
Early in 1934 the collection reached the Jewish National and University Library When opened many years later, the box contained 1383 items: 1359 letters and postcards and 24 telegrams.
In 1936, the Anglo Jewish writer, Joseph Leftwich published, “What will Happen to the Jews?” in which he advocated, in face of the mounting persecution in Europe, that Jewish organizations, in addition to promoting Jewish immigration to Palestine, seek to settle Jews in other undeveloped and sparsely populated countries which were in need of additional people in order to develop and prosper.
Stefan Zweig who was then residing in England wrote a preface in the book, expressing his complete agreement with Leftwich’s views. Zweig also wrote that it was imperative for the 16 million Jews to set up one united body “which will autonomously and responsibly represent their interests before the world.”
Zweig’s writings include some which are based on Biblical motifs, as well as two stories with Jews as the main characters and two stories of outspoken Jewish content. One of the latter is Der Begrubene Leuchtern (the buried candelabrum).
Published in 1937, it is the story of the Jews’ search for the captured Menorah of the Temple in order to redeem it from the hands of the gentiles. The Menorah had been carried from Jerusalem to Rome, from there to Carthage and thence to Byzantium. Emperor Justinian ordered it to be sent to Jerusalem to adorn a church which had been established by his wife, Theodora. But his wish was not to be. A Jewish goldsmith in the emperor’s service produced a duplicate of the holy candelabrum. It was this copy which was sent to Jerusalem where it was eventually destroyed by the invading Persians.
The original Menorah was handed by the Jewish goldsmith to Benjamin Marnefesh, a Jew of Rome who in his youth had beheld the Menorah in his hometown. Benjamin brought the Menorah to the Land of Israel and secretly buried it there. The final sentences of the story reads:
“Like all G-d’s mysteries, it rests in the darkness through the ages. Nor can anyone know whether it will remain there forever, hidden away and lost to its people, who still know no peace in their wanderings through the lands of the gentiles, or whether at long last, someone will dig up the Menorah on the day when the Jews come into their own once more. Only then will the seven branched candelabrum radiate its gentle light in the Temple of Peace.”
One of Stefan Zweig’s last books, his autobiography, The World of Yesterday, include several pages in which he discusses the plight of German Jewry and the sad fate of the refugees, many of whom he had met in London.
“I will never forget the sight I once beheld in a London travel bureau,” Zweig writes. “The place was filled with refugees, almost all of them Jews, everyone of them waiting to go anywhere – merely to another country, anywhere, into the arctic ice or the scorching sands of the Sahara, only away, only on their transit visas having expired, they had to go on with wife and child to new stars, to a world with a new language, to folks they did now know and who did not want to accept them.”
Stefan Zweig writes that the tragedy of the persecuted modern Jews was much greater than that of their martyred forefathers.
“Their forefathers and ancestors of medieval times knew at least what they suffered for — for their belief for their Law,” Zweig writes. “Thrown on the pyre, they pressed the Scripture that was holy to them against their breast, and because of their inner fire they were less sensitive to the murderous flames. Driven from land to land, there still remained for them a last home, their home is G-d, from which no earthly power, no emperor, no king, no inquisition could expel them.”
The modern Jew, however, who lived detached from the commandments of his faith and strove to become integrated, with the people among whom he lived, didn’t know what he was persecuted for!
****
Stefan Zweig and his wife were given a state funeral by the Brazilian government. Their tombstones in the cemetery in Petropolis must have been prepared by members of the Brazilian Jewish community. Engraved on them are the names of Zweig, and his wife, both in Latin and in Hebrew letters, as well as the common and the Hebrew dates of their death.
(Conclusion next week)
The Jewish Press, Friday, July 9, 1999
Continued from last week
The festive opening of the Jerusalem exhibition was presided by Prof. Dr. Sara Japhet, the director of the Jewish National and University Library. In her address, she stressed Zweig’s special connection with the library. In his letter to Dr. Hugo Bergman, offering to donate his correspondence, Zweig had referred to it as “our library.”
Dr. Japhet’s address was followed by speeches by Prof. Menahem Magidor, the president of the Hebrew University, H.E. Wolfgang Paul, Austria’s ambassador in Israel — who spoke in Hebrew and in English, Dr. Joseph Dechant, former mayor of Salzburg, who told the audience that back in 1992 the Salzburg municipality had organized an international Zweig congress as well as a large Zweig exposition; Professor Jacob Hessing, head of the German language and Literature Department at the Hebrew University and Ehud Olmert, Mayor of Jerusalem.
Thanks were expressed to the Austrian Embassy in Israel, the City of Salzburg, Austrian Airlines and Mr. Michael Strauss, a prominent Israeli businessman who sponsored the exhibition.
The exhibition displays printed works of Zweig as well as notes and other writings in his own hand. The latter include the text of the speech he delivered at Sigmund Freud’s funeral in London in September, 1939.
There are also a multitude of photographs showing Zweig’s parents, his older brother Alfred; Friderike, his first wife; his second wife Lotte; Zweig at work and at leisure, traveling to various countries and in the company of different personalities; the house in which he was born and places where he resided including his spacious villa in Salzburg. There is a gallery of pictures of famous writers, friends and colleagues of Zweig.
Of great interest are a number of documents and personal papers. There are inter alia, his birth certificate, issued by the Jewish community of Vienna, a report card of the elementary school in Vienna where he attended, his Ex Libris, drawn by the Jewish artist Ephraim Moses Lillien, who was a friend of Zweig, a bank check from the Salzburg period, a pass to the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, where he did research, the registration of his marriage to Lotte Altman in Bath, England, in September 1939, and a copy of some pages of Zweig’s British passport.
There are also cast lists of the premieres of Zweig’s drama Das Haus am Meer (“The House at the Sea”) in Vienna’s Burgtheater in October 1912, and of his pacifistic play Jeremias (Jeremiah) in Zurich’s Stadttheater in February 1918.
Items reflecting Zweig’s persecution by the Nazis include the order of the head of the police of Leipzig in September 1936, relating to the confiscation of copies of Zweig’s works and a picture of Zweig in Der Stuermer (August 23, 1940) describing him as one who “contributed to the Judaization and corruption of German art.”
Among the exhibits in the last section of the exposition, there is a photograph taken of his and his wife’s funeral in Petropolis, as well as a copy of his handwritten words of leave taking on the eve of his suicide, as it was reproduced in a Brazilian newspaper.
***
This is not the first Stefan Zweig exhibition held at the Jewish National and University Library.
Towards the end of 1981, on the occasion of the centenary of Zweig’s birth, an exhibit about the author was organized by the Library.
In the foreword to the exhibition catalog we are informed of Zweig’s friendship with the late Abraham Schwadron, and Zweig’s donation of his correspondence to the Library.
Abraham Schwadron was a nephew of Rabbi Sholem Mordecai Schwadron the great Galician rabbinic authority, known in the Torah world as the Maharsham.
Schwadron, who studied philosophy and chemistry at the University of Vienna, had been since his youth an avid collector of autographs and portraits of Jewish personalities. Zweig collected autographs of famous writers, composers and artists. The two men became good friends, exchanging books and views on the situation of the Jews.
During World War I Zweig wrote to Schwadron: “For me the glory and greatness of the Jewish people is to become the only people with a spiritual home, an eternal Jerusalem…. instead of striving for the Real Palestine”
This was not the view of Schwadron, who was an ardent Zionist. He settled in Palestine and in 1927 presented his collection– which then consisted of 3000 autographs and 2000 portraits– to the Jewish National and University Library. Schwadron who changed his name to Sharon, served as curator of the autograph and portrait department of the Library until his death in 1957.
In 1933, Stefan Zweig decided, as related in our last article, to donate his correspondence to the Jewish National and University Library.
The 1981 exhibit was divided into several sections: “Stefan Zweig in Hebrew” and “Zweig in Yiddish,” featured Hebrew and Yiddish translations, respectively of Zweig’s works. Other sections showed works by Zweig with Jewish or biblical motifs, writings by Zweig about his meetings with Herzl, and obituaries on Zweig which appeared in Jewish newspapers and periodicals in Palestine. Displayed among the photographs in the section “The End of the Road” was a picture of the tomb of Stefan and Lotte Zweig in Petropolis, Brazil.
One section presented 18 items from the Zweig archives of the Library. They included letters to Zweig by Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Walter Rathenau, Arthur Schnitzler, Israel Zangwill and others.
The 1981 exhibition was organized by the late Reuben Klingsberg of the Department of Manuscripts and Archives of the Library with the assistance of the Department’s staff. They also compiled the exhibition catalog.
“Until now almost nothing was known to the public about Stefan Zweig’s warm and sympathetic attitude towards the Jewish National and University Library,” the 1981 catalog states. “This exposition shed light on this special aspect in Stefan Zweig’s biography and explains the existence of the Zweig Collection in Jerusalem.”
Over the years, the original Zweig Collection in Jerusalem has grown considerably thanks to donations from various quarters. The number of the items in the collection is now double those that were given by Zweig to the Library.
The Jewish Press, Friday, July 16, 1999