Đorđe Lebović & Judita Šalgo

In one of his interviews, the famous Yugoslav-Jewish writer Danilo Kiš talked about how his mother made the mandatory yellow Star of David for him and his father. At the same time he explained why he was never able to incorporate this scene into his works. And indeed, how does one write about something so horrible?

About the lesser known topic of the Holocaust in the literature of the post-Yugoslav region we will talk on 29 April at 12PM at the Leipzig Book Fair. The event „Die Wagen brauchen sie für andere Dinge“ will be held at Café Europa.

Two examples of this region’s Holocaust literature are Semper idem by Đorđe Lebović and Put u Birobidžan by Judita Šalgo. Here we present for the first time excerpts from these two books in German translation. We would like to thank translators Jelena Dabić and Elvira Veselinović for this great collaboration.

Today we publish Semper idem, Šalgo’s text will be published next Thursday, on 20 April.