Aharon Appelfeld in conversation with Michael March

Aharon Appelfeld was born in Czernovitz, Bukovina (now Ukrajina) in1932. In 1941 he was deported to a concentration camp in Transnistria(Ukraine) and was separated from his father (his mother was killed atthe beginning of the war). In 1944 he was liberated by Russian army. In1946 he emigrated to Israel (then Palestine). Up to now he haspublished twenty books that include: novels, short stories and essays.His work has been widely translated and has won many national andinternational awards.

He describes himself as "a small, old Jew with glasses" with a voicethat has the tenderness and wisdom of the Torah. His prose has a rareclarity, a profound delicacy bled to the sadness of life.

We met over lunch in London, hunched over visions of "small Jewswalking in the streets of New York - self-critical Jews, devoured byideas, but alive". Primo Levi wrote: "Among us, the writer survivors,Aharon Appelfeld's voice has a unique, unmistakeable tone, eloquentthrough reticence." When we left, he wrote: "For a new friend, Aharon".

Michael March: When Moses went to the mountain, what did he really say?

Aharon Appelfeld: I havenever thought about that. I have never dealt with such mythologicalfigures as Moses. For me it is enough to have Bartfuss, who is walkingfrom café to café. He is my hero. I find myself more at home, moreclose to people who lived their lives, their small lives, their sadnessand their small happiness - not among people who are statues like Moses.

MM: How should a stranger read your work?

AP: As a saga of Jewishsadness - long, Jewish sadness that had different variations. And I amtrying to pick up the last chapters.

MM: What is the origin of this sadness?

AP: It comes out of a strongfeeling that it is difficult to change the world - it's difficult tochange yourself, it's difficult to change your surroundings - it'sdifficult to change the world. And therefore - the sadness. Jews arevery critical people, highly critical. And if you are critical, firstof all with yourself, it saddens you. I am speaking about a kind ofsensitive Jew - the people who were living in Europe, who absorbedEurope and who tried to change Europe. They became communists to changeEurope, they became liberals to change Europe - and finally were killed.

MM: Trace your sadness.

AP: I was born into a veryJewish, highly assimilated family - in a town named Czernovitz that waspart of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. My first language was German. SoGerman was not only culture, it was a religion which was highlyappreciated. I still remember as a child going to Berlin or Prague. Itwas a kind of pilgrimage - it was not like going to temple. We sawourselves as citizens of Europe - not only equal citizens, but probablywe wished to be better citizens. And suddenly came the Germans and putus into the ghetto and then to a labour camp and then to aconcentration camp. And they said to you: it doesn't matter what youthink, or what you feel, or what you believe - the blood in your veinscondemns you to death.

This is the baggage, the cultural baggage that I brought with me toIsrael. I came to Israel when I was fourteen years old, and I broughtwith me the experience of an eighty-five year old. I went through allthe camps, through all the hidings being involved with all kinds ofpeople. And it was difficult to express. To find the proper words forit. To speak in an honest way, in a proper way - not too high and nottoo low.

MM: What brought you to write in Hebrew?

AP: I left my home when Iwas eight years old. So my education was first grade - this is myformal education, I finished one grade. And then came the camps and allwhat happened to me. So Hebrew became my first written language. Itbecame my language, my adopted language if you wish. And I started towrite mainly because I came alone to Israel as an orphan and paperbecame my friend.

MM: I first discovered you in ‘Badenheim 1939’.

AP: It was not calledBadenheim, it had another name. I remember as a child my parents and Iwere always looking for a non-Jewish pension, a non-Jewish resort. Andwe always found ourselves with the same people. Every year the sameirony. We wanted to escape the noisy Jews, and we always foundourselves among them. This is the emotional basis of the book:wonderful people, middle-class Jews who thought themselves European -who cheated themselves by believing that no one knew they were Jewish.They were sure that Jewishness doesn't mean anything to thesurroundings. This was a self-deception, a great self-deception which Iwanted to explore.

MM: You explore in a most delicate manner, an almost Japanese manner, for self-deception is terrifying.

AP: No question of it. Thereis reality, a very strong reality, and you are denying it, you aredenying it permanently and saying it doesn't exist at all. This is verypainful. Because Jews, at the beginning of the book at the end of theThirties, were on the way to being integrated into Europe. This was themain trend - assimilation was the main trend, not nationalism.

MM: This seems to parallel our self-deception of a united Europe.

AP: Self-deception is very humane. In the Thirties it became a Jewish phenomena. Now in the Nineties it's a universal phenomena.

MM: Can be a united Europe?

AP: I don't think there canbe a united Europe because national feelings remain very strong. Whynot pluralism? I would like a peaceful pluralism. But an artificialunion is meaningless.

MM: What were your feelings when you returned to Europe?

AP: I have never returned toEurope. England is not the continent. I have never been to Germany,though my books are published in Germany. I've never been in Austriabecause it was difficult to face people who spoke my intimate language- German. Though I don't speak German, I still have the voice of myparents.

MM: What about coming to the Writers' Festival in Prague?

AP: Prague is different. Youknow, I used to come with my parents to Prague when I was child.Prague, Vienna, Berlin were the capitals of my parents, and I rememberthe streets in a very childish way as I was only five or six. But as Iwas the only son, they took me. Prague remains in my imaginationsimilar, though not so elegant, as the town where I was born. So Ishould feel myself at home. Actually, I knew all of Kafka's friends whoemigrated to Israel, a number who studied with him, I knew all of themin Israel. Because I was crazy about Kafka and I was looking for everyperson who could give me something about his life.

MM: Why Kafka?

AP: When I became a writerand became conscious of my writing, I felt I could not write speech aswritten before. You cannot write about the holocaust in a realistic way- you cannot speak about it in social terms, or economic terms, orpolitical terms. You have to speak in a different language. And Kafkawas the first who pointed in this direction. Kafka saved my writing.

MM: How was Kafka remembered by his close friends?

AP: They remember him as a humourist. This sad person, his sadness was so profound, all of them remember him as a humourist.

MM: As a stand-up comedian?

AP: As a person whose everychapter, every story read to them, was full of laughter, full ofhumour. Humour was the key word. And this was very interesting for mebecause when I read Kafka I felt the irony, but I had no felt that thiscould arise from deep laughter, from deep joy. None of them spoke aboutKafka as a terrifying person who is conquered by demons.

MM: Did they see Kafka as a ladies-man, as a lady-killer?

AP: A lady-killer - all ofthem treated him as a person who has been beloved by many women. Hecould not cope with them. He was actually too weak for them. Writingwas his essence. I would not separate his diaries, I would not separatehis letters. In very few people are creative work and actual work soclose. Every paragraph in his diaries is actually a small masterpiece.

MM: I sense your attachment to Beckett, the duality of Kafka and Beckett.

AP: Of course. Kafka brought a Jewish tradition, Beckett an ascetic tradition.

MM: And both brought laughter in a tin drum

AP: From Beckett Iunderstood that the unspoken is more important than the spoken - thatthe silence between words is one of the most important things. He wasindirectly one of my teachers.

MM: Precisely the quality of a poet - who lends a physical-spiritual space between words and sentences. Beckett was very much a poet

AP: Beckett was a poet - relating to words and people. He created figures on a stage - a metaphysical arena.

MM: How would you stage your work?

AP: I see myself as aEuropean, Jewish writer. And I am following the path of Kafka and BrunoSchulz, and in some way, Werfel, or with people who were affliated withthem. These are my roots, my spiritual roots. And I am very proud thatmy German is very similar to Kafka's - that we spoke the same German athome.

MM: Yet in Israel you are seen as a Jewish writer, a writer who has felt a certain discomfort in the past.

AP: I suffered with pride. Iam very proud of this European, Jewish legacy that failed. It didn'tfail in literature, but it failed in ideology.

MM: What about the new ideology of blond, blue-eyed Jews?

AP: When I came to Israel,it was a very ideological country - with socialist, communisttendencies. Now, thank God, it's better. Now there is room for a personlike me - who is coming from a Jewish European tradition, who stillthinks that the Jewish European tradition was the peak of Jewishhistory in modern times.