Franz Werfel (1890 -1945)

Franz Werfel was born in Prague in 1890 to a wealthy German-speaking Jewish family. His father was a successful industrialist. Although Werfel was of Jewish origin, religion played only a subordinate role in the family's everyday life; the family was culturally assimilated, western-oriented and rather secular.

Despite this secular background, Judaism remained a prominent theme in Werfel's life, especially on an intellectual and moral level.

Werfel  was part of the literary circle of the Prague Circle, which also included Franz Kafka and Max Brod. His connection to Prague and his early experiences there are an important part of his life and work.

In many of his works, he dealt with questions of guilt, responsibility, ethics and the suffering of innocent people– themes that also draw on the Jewish tradition. Particularly in the context of the First World War, the rising political extremes and National Socialism, Werfel developed a growing awareness of his Jewish identity - not least due to the threat that anti-Semitism posed to him and others.

A significant expression of his ethical-humanist thinking was his novel „The Forty Days of Musa Dagh“ (1933), in which he addressed the genocide of the Armenians. This work is often understood as an act of moral solidarity - with a deep feeling for collective suffering, which can also be fed by his Jewish origins.

Later, in exile from the National Socialists, his Jewish origins also became politically relevant: He had to flee Austria in 1938 and eventually emigrated to the USA, where he died in 1945. The experience of exclusion, persecution and exile is closely interwoven with his Jewishness and contemporary history.