Siebente Brunnen

by Fred Wander

An Austrian Jew and photojournalist who was interned at 20 different Nazi camps between 1939 and 1945, Wander (1917-2006) first published this loosely structured novel in East Germany in 1970. Spare, haunting anecdotes memorialize Jews who died senseless, undignified deaths in Nazi concentration camps. The book is much more than a catalogue of horrors and of courage, as Wanders's narrator struggles to find the language to describe what he has seen.