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Article: Appelfeld's Still Exploring `Jewishness'
- Article from:
- Chicago Sun-Times
- Article date:
- March 20, 1994
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 1994 Chicago Sun-Times. (Hide copyright information)
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NEW YORK Aharon Appelfeld was born in 1932 in a Romanian village
later annexed by the Soviet Union and now part of Moldavia. The
author's parents, assimilated Jews, spoke German. His grandparents
spoke Yiddish, the neighbors mostly Ruthenian or Romanian.
At age 7, Appelfeld was deported to a concentration camp. He
soon escaped, wandered the Ukrainian countryside for three years, and
finished the war both an orphan and a refugee. Since arriving on a
Tel Aviv beach in 1946, he has lived in Israel writing his books in
Hebrew.
Appelfeld neither considers himself a German writer, nor a
Ruthenian, Romanian or Ukrainian writer. It would be incorrect to
call him a Soviet writer, or, more ...