Wander, Fred 1917-2006 (Fritz Rosenblatt)

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Wander, Fred 1917-2006 (Fritz Rosenblatt)

PERSONAL:

Born January 5, 1917, in Vienna, Austria; died July 10, 2006, in Vienna, Austria; married Maxie Wander, 1956 (died, November 20, 1977); married Suzanne Wiedekind, 1983.

CAREER:

Writer.

WRITINGS:

Korsika noch nicht entdeckt, Neues Leben (Berlin, Germany), 1958.

Doppeltes antlitz, Volk und Welt (Berlin, Germany), 1966.

Der siebente brunnen: erzählung, Aufbau (Berlin, Germany), 1971, English translation published as The Seventh Well, International (New York, NY), 1976, and as The Seventh Well, translated by Michael Hofmann, W.W. Norton & Co. (New York, NY), 2008.

Holland auf den ersten blick, Brockhaus (Leipzig, Germany), 1972.

Ein zimmer in Paris: erzählung, Aufbau (Berlin, Germany), 1975.

Provenzalische reise, F.A. Brockhaus (Leipzig, Germany), 1978.

Zwei stücke: josua lässt grüssen: der bungalow, Aufbau (Berlin, Germany), 1979.

(Editor) Maxie Wander, Tagebücher und briefe, Buchverlag Der Morgen (Berlin, Germany), 1980.

Der siebente brunnen: erzählung, afterword by Christa Wolf, Luchterhand Literaturverlag (Darmstadt, Germany), 1985.

(Editor) Maxie Wander, Leben wär' eine prima alternative: tagebuchaufzeichnungen und briefe, Luchterhand Literaturverlag (Frankfurt, Germany), 1989.

(Editor and author of foreword) Maxie Wander, Ein leben ist nicht genug: tagebuchaufzeichnungen und briefe, Luchterhand (Frankfurt, Germany), 1990.

Hotel Baalbek: roman, Aufbau (Berlin, Germany), 1991.

Das gute leben: erinnerungen, Hanser (Munich, Germany), 1996.

SIDELIGHTS:

Fred Wander was an Austrian writer. Born in Vienna, Austria, on January 5, 1917, as Fritz Rosenblatt, Wander fled his homeland as the Nazis invaded in 1938 during World War II. Initially seeking refuge in France, he was deported and put in concentration camps in Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Wander survived the brutal conditions at the camp and lived in East Germany for over two decades before returning to Austria in 1983. He died in his homeland in 2006 after a fruitful career as a writer.

In an obituary in the Jerusalem Post, the periodical recorded that Wander frequently spoke of himself as a unique type of writer, stating: "I see myself as a storyteller, who talks about the people he met." Wander, who lived to be eighty-nine years old, met a number of people in his life, duly represented in his repertory of published books. He published his first book, Korsika noch nicht entdeckt, in 1958. His second book, Doppeltes antlitz, was published eight years later in 1966.

Wander continued publishing books throughout the 1970s, including Holland auf den ersten blick in 1972, Ein zimmer in Paris: erzählung in 1975, Provenzalische reise, in 1978, and Zwei stücke: josua lässt grüssen: der bungalow, in 1979.

In 1980 he edited and published his first wife's work, Tagebücher und briefe. He continued editing and publishing her work with Leben wär' eine prima alternative: tagebuchaufzeichnungen und briefe in 1989 and Ein leben ist nicht genug: tagebuchaufzeichnungen und briefe in 1990. Wander also published Der siebente brunnen: erzählung in 1985 with an afterword by Christa Wolf. In 1991 he published Hotel Baalbek: roman and Das gute leben: erinnerungen in 1996.

Wander's most successful and widely published book is Der siebente brunnen, which he first published in 1971. The book was translated into English in 1976 and published as The Seventh Well. The novel was eventually published in a number of languages and was translated by Michael Hofmann in its 2008 reprint by W.W. Norton & Company. Wander used his experience at a number of concentration and internment camps during World War II to construct the basis of this novel, which highlights the miserable lives that passed time or expired during their incarceration. Wander does, however, show that some in the camp fought hard to prevent their spirit from being broken, sharing their hope with others who had the will to listen.

John Lloyd, reviewing the book on the BookBag Web site, remarked that "more work was needed from the publishers in making all the Jewish elements clearer for the lay audience." Lloyd was critical of the writing as well, noting that "the narrator is just unapproachable—he is merely a survivor, reporting things in a broken style that crosses the bridge from artistically and poetically obscured to willfully hard to engage in too often." Carole Angier, writing in the Literary Review, found that Wander "writes in an allusive, almost poetic style (beautifully rendered in this translation), more concerned to render subtle thoughts than simple facts of place and time. As a result we often don't know where we are, or how to read this terrible story. That is too high a price to pay."

A contributor to Publishers Weekly had a different opinion, arguing that "this is a worthy addition to Shoah literature." Steve Pollak, writing in the Jewish Literary Review, also summarized that "Wander deserves a place on your bookshelf alongside the works of Primo Levi, Elie Wiesel, and Paul Celan." Writing in the Guardian, Ian Thomson noted that "of all the accounts I have read of survival in the Nazi lager—Jewish and non-Jewish, some of them drearily propagandist—few approach Wander's for the quality of its writing or its civilised mission to bear witness. The book's limpid, clean-cut narrative creates an extraordinary sense of communion and intimacy with the reader." Thomson dubbed the book "a work of art."