Licentia poetarum
ABCD

Frankfurt/Main - Der Verlag Schöffling & Co. in Frankfurt am Main hat im Jahr 2010 eine kommentierte Neuübersetzung des Buches von Rudolf Vrba (geb. Walter Rosenberg) : I cannot forgive [Ich kann nicht vergeben] herausgebracht. 

ABCD

Vrbas Zeugnis wurde von dem

israelischen Historiker Yehuda Bauer als ein Dokument ganz besonderer Art bezeichnet: Es enthielte Berichte, die unmöglich wahr sein können und andere, die aus zweiter Hand stammen und mit der Realität ebenfalls nicht viel zu tun hätten. In den amtlichen kanadischen Protokollen des Prozesses gegen Ernst Zündel aus dem Jahr 1985 ist zu lesen, dass Vrba selbst sein Buch als künstlerischen Versuch, nicht als Dokumentation, sondern als poetische Literatur einstufte. Als Dichter sei ihm dies erlaubt nach der Devise 'licentia poetarum', auf gut Deutsch, nach seinem Recht zu fabulieren .

RUDOLF VRBA's TESTIMONY IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF TORONTO (January 1985) BETWEEN HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN and ERNST ZUNDEL BEFORE: The Honourable Judge H. R. Locke and a Jury - CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR CHRISTIE. Vrba insisted that 2.5 million people were gassed while he was in Auschwitz (June 30, 1942 to April 10, 1944), of which he personally counted 1.765 million.

Q. You say 1.7 million people were gassed in Auschwitz, and that is truth?

A. 1.7 million -- 1,760,000 plus, in the time of my being there, because many others were killed when I wasn't there, but I wasn't an eye witness and I have no right to talk about that.

Q. You say 1.75 --

A. 1.765, according to my count.

Q. Of people gassed while you were there

A. Yes.

Q. I suggest, also, that you falsified to some extent as well, because throughout the book you referred to someone by the name of Rudolf Vrba, and you attribute the name Vrba to the conversations, and Rudi, meaning you, and in fact, there was nobody by that name in the camp, sir. Is that right?

A. That is perfectly so, but I would take a great objection against your word "falsify", because I would say, then, that the artist drawn my moustache in a different way has falsified something. This is not a document, but literature, and literature has been meant mainly for young people and it would be for young people a considerable confusion to explain to them all the methods of clandestine work and how it came that the names have to be changed.

In other words, I used my licence of a poet, it is called licensia poetarium [sic], to put in the book only those facts and events which will enable a young person to understand the general situation.

Weitere Infos: