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Martin Pollack

Martin Pollack

born 1944 in Bad Hall, studied Slavic studies and Eastern European history. He is a translator of Polish literature, journalist, and author. He was foreign correspondent for the magazine Spiegel in Vienna and Warsaw between 1987 and 1998. His work has been highly acclaimed, including the Ehrenpreis des österreichischen Buchhandels für Toleranz in Denken und Handeln (2007) and the Leipziger Buchpreis zur Europäischen Verständigung (2011). He lives in southern Burgenland and Vienna. His most recent publications include: "Der Tote im Bunker. Bericht über meinen Vater" (2004), "Kaiser von Amerika. Die große Flucht aus Galizien" (2010), and "Kontaminierte Landschaften" (2014).
 

Books

Coverabbildung von 'Topography of Remembrance'

Martin Pollack - Topography of Remembrance

"Topografie der Erinnerung" is a collection of the brilliant essayist's most striking speeches and articles. They deal with topics as diverse as the massacre of Reichnitz in the last weeks of the war; so-called "Reibepartien" (scrub groups) where Jews were humiliated and forced to scrub the street; the myth of Galicia; Poland and Ukraine's postwar history; or Pollack's own family's entanglement with the Nazis. His investigations are always astute and critical, they are always aimed at keeping memory alive and against false claims of innocence. Time and again he asks the key question of memory politics: How can and must we deal with these memories today?

Coverabbildung von 'Kontaminierte Landschaften'

Martin Pollack - Tainted Landscapes

The official victims of the 20th century are commemorated in memorials. But how do we remember the thousands of nameless, secretly buried victims – Jews, Roma, anti-communists or partisans? How do we in Central Europe live in landscapes tainted by innumerable hushed up massacres: from Rechnitz in Burgenland to Kocevski Rog in Slovenia and Kurapaty near Minsk? Martin Pollack relentlessly, yet diligently draws a new, more honest map of our continent. It is a map in which memory and honest location replace shameful secrets and anonymous graves.