Walter Kaufmann: What a Life!

In connection with the Library’s new exhibition Dunera: Stories of Internment this special screening of the feature documentary Walter Kaufmann: What a Life! will be introduced by Kate Garrett.

The film follows Jewish German–Australian writer Walter Kaufmann (1924–2021), tracing his life through some of the most significant events of the last century: the consequences of National Socialism, the civil rights movement in the USA, the legendary trial against Angela Davis, the Cuban Revolution, the confrontation with Stalinism, the effects of the atomic bombing in Japan, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, the collapse of the GDR, and the return of nationalistic, anti-Semitic currents in Germany.

Kaufmann was born Jizchak Schmeidler in Berlin in 1924, son of a Polish Jewish woman Rachel Schmeidler. He was then adopted by a wealthy German couple from Duisburg at the age of three. While his adoptive parents were eventually murdered in Auschwitz, at the outbreak of the war they managed to secure Kaufmann a place on children’s transport to England. He was later deported from England by the British on the Dunera to Australia, where he spent 19 months in an internment camp.

Kaufmann became an Australian soldier, wedding photographer, seaman and later an award-winning writer. In the mid-1950s he decided to relocate to the GDR, although he kept his Australian passport, which allowed him to travel the world as a journalist and writer. He detailed his experiences in numerous reports and books that were very popular in the GDR. From 1985 to 1993 he was General Secretary of the PEN Centre, and throughout his career was awarded high-ranking awards such as the Fontane Prize, the Heinrich Mann Prize and the Ruhr Area Literature Prize.

Walter Kaufmann died on 15 April 2021, at the age of 97, in Berlin. This film is a rare last opportunity for viewers to get to know the twentieth century from his perspective.

Kate Garrett is a NAATI-accredited German to English translator, who works with both commercial and private clients. She has a particular interest in the translation of documents and poetry from the Second World War. Her translations have appeared in Dunera Lives: A Visual History and Shadowline: The Dunera Diaries of Uwe Radok.

Host or Publisher State Library of New South Wales