Anabasis

Lucca, August 1944: soldiers with dogs scour the vineyards where Rudolf Borchardt, who has been living in Italy for decades, hides with his family. Now they are searching for him, as a Jew and as the father of three sons fit for military service – and they find him. This is the start of the »anabasis« of the Borchardt family. For days they travel northwards in an open van, destination unknown. The military policeman accompanying them listens to the conversations between parents and children – and lets them go when they reach Innsbruck...

Rudolf Borchardt's autobiographical report, published for the first time, is a panorama of destruction, deportation and despair. The volume is completed by notes from the diary of his daughter Corona who, in the summer of 1944, witnessed the battles for Florence, by an account of Borchardt's son Cornelius of the arrest and deportation of the family and events leading up to his father's death on January 10, 1945, and by a detailed chronicle of Borchardt's life in the war years, compiled by Gerhard Schuster, with numerous illustrations.

Also available: The first volume of commentary accompanying Rudolf Borchardt's collected letters. Compiled by the Rudolf-Borchardt-Archive under the supervision of Gerhard Schuster, this volume focuses on the correspondence with Hofmannsthal.