Ruth Klüger

Ruth Klüger (born 30 October 1931) is Professor Emerita of German Studies at the University of California, Irvine[1] and a Holocaust survivor. She is also the author of the bestseller weiter leben: Eine Jugend about her childhood in the Third Reich.[2]

Ruth Klüger at Frankfurt Book Fair 2010

In March 1938, Hitler marched into Vienna. The annexation of Austria by the Third Reich deeply affected Klüger's life: Klüger, who then was only six years old, had to change schools frequently and grew up in an increasingly hostile and antisemitic environment. Her father, who was a Jewish gynaecologist, lost his practitioner's license and was later sent to prison for performing an illegal abortion.[3]

She was born in Vienna. After the Nazi annexation of Austria, she was deported to Theresienstadt concentration camp together with her mother at the age of 11; her father had tried to flee abroad, but was detained and killed. One year later she was transferred to Auschwitz, then to Christianstadt, a subcamp of Gross-Rosen. Following the end of World War II in 1945 she settled in the Bavarian town of Straubing and later studied philosophy and history at the Philosophisch-theologische Hochschule in Regensburg.

In 1947 she emigrated to the United States and studied English literature in New York and German literature at Berkeley. Klüger obtained an M.A. in 1952, and later a Ph.D. in 1967. She worked as a college professor of German literature in Cleveland, Ohio, Kansas, and Virginia, and at Princeton and UC Irvine.

Klüger is a recognized authority on German literature, and especially on Lessing and Kleist. She lives in Irvine, California and in Göttingen.

Her memoir, Still Alive, which focuses primarily on her time in concentration camps, is strongly critical of the museum culture surrounding the Holocaust.[4]

Bibliography
Klüger at the OSU Holocaust Memorial Week with LGBT activist Konrad Juengling (right), 2013

Publications include:

  • weiter leben. Eine Jugend, Göttingen 1992
  • Katastrophen. Über die deutsche Literatur, Göttingen 1993
  • Von hoher und niederer Literatur, Göttingen 1995
  • Knigges Umgang mit Menschen, "Eine Vorlesung", Göttingen 1996
  • Frauen lesen anders, Munich 1996
  • Still Alive: A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered, New York: The Feminist Press, 2001 (English translation of weiter leben. Eine Jugend); issued in Great Britain in 2003 (London: Bloomsbury Publishing) under the title Landscapes of Memory
  • unterwegs verloren. Erinnerungen, Wien, Paul Zsolnay 2008

She has also published under the name Ruth Angress.

Prizes

Klüger has been awarded many prizes, including:

  • Rauriser Literaturpreis (1993)
  • Johann-Jacob-Christoph-von Grimmelshausen-Preis (1993)
  • Niedersachsenpreis (1993)
  • Marie Luise Kaschnitz Prize (1995)
  • Andreas Gryphius Prize, honorary prize (1996)[5]
  • Heinrich-Heine-Medaille (1997)
  • Osterreichischer Staatspreis fur Literaturkruk (1998)
  • Prix de la Shoah (1998)
  • Thomas Mann Prize (1999)
  • Preis der Frankfurter Anthologie (1999)
  • Goethe Medal (2005)
  • Roswitha Prize (2006)
  • Lessing-Preis des Freistaates Sachsen (2007)
  • Hermann-Cohen-Medaille (2008)
  • Ehrenmedaille der Stadt Göttingen (2010)
  • Austrian Danubius Donauland Nonfiction Book Prize (de) (2010), for her life's work[6][7]
  • Theodor-Kramer-Preis (2011)
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gollark: Surely you could just trilaterate the EVIL GPS host.
gollark: You *can* spoof actual GPS signals fairly easily, but nearby people might complain and phones use other ways to get location anyway.
gollark: Then emulate better.
gollark: having actual cartful of phones < many, many emulated smartphones

References
  1. "Department of German: People". UC Irvine School of Humanities. Archived from the original on 2012-02-12. Retrieved 7 February 2012.
  2. Mednick, Jason (March 2009). "A Holocaust Childhood" (review of Still Alive). University of California Irvine. Archived from the original on 10 December 2010. Retrieved 7 February 2012.
  3. Klüger, Ruth (27 November 2006). "Holocaust Survivor Ruth Klüger: "Vienna Reeks of Anti-Semitism"". Spiegel Online (Interview). Interviewed by Martin Doerry. Retrieved 7 February 2012.
  4. Lappin, Elena (14 March 2003). "Saved by a Lie" (review of Landscapes of Memory). The Guardian. Retrieved 14 October 2019.
  5. "Ehrungen und Auszeichnungen", in: Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung: Jahrbuch 1996 (in German). Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 1997. p. 220.
  6. "Ruth Klüger erhält Danubius-Preis für Lebenswerk" (in German). Der Standard (Vienna). 7 October 2011. Retrieved 9 October 2019.
  7. "US writer, academic and Holocaust survivor Ruth Klueger ...", October 25, 2011. Getty Images. Retrieved 9 October 2019.
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