Three Tearless Histories: The Photographer of Auschwitz and Other Stories

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'Powerful inquiries spurred by photos history made flesh, the untold lives of the mostly forgotten.' Kirkus Reviews

'A missionary voice of human dignity.' World Literature Today

Erich Hackl, 2017 recipient of the internationally-recognized Human Rights Award of Upper Austria and winner of multiple literature prizes, brings three little-known and inspiring biographies to light: Gisela Tschofenig's hidden life in the Austrian resistance; a fragmented interview with Wilhelm Brasse, who photographed Auschwitz inmates and saved evidence of Mengele's horrific crimes; and the multi-generational story of the Klagsbrunns, who fled Nazism in Vienna only to find another kind of terror in fascist Brazil.

Reviews

Hackls narrative is masterful and compelling.
Die Welt
The clash of fascism and communism on two continents over half a century, as traced through a few family photographs. Hackl is like an investigating detective pursuing a case where all the principals are long dead and the few who remain may be reluctant to talk. These powerful inquiries spurred by photos are history made flesh, the untold lives of the mostly forgotten.
Kirkus Reviews
Erich Hackl's subjects are all actual events, fates and biographies. Often with considerable research and effort, he digs deep into the histories of people whose destiny very often have to do with Nazism and / or with Judaism. In his new collection of short [non-fiction] stories Three Tearless Histories, two of which are already published in Austria in newspapers and anthologies, Hackl tells of Jewish people and their destinies. [...] These stories get under one's skin.
Winfried Stanzick, buecher.de, 5 stars
Hackls use of emotional triggers related to injustice and redemption are both subtle and commanding. In the same way that we relate to injustice of the oppressed, this author delivers stunning situations in which innocent families and characters are destroyed by an unjust rule of law. Yet the ultimate value of a book like this lies in the authors delivery of life between the lines, beyond the vagaries of a readers sentient ability to comprehend. Here, Hackl elicits his best and most enduring success.
Charles S. Weinblatt, New York Journal of Books
Erich Hackls concise and hauntingly dense works of prose have gained him a huge audience and great success. At the bottom of his efforts are usually some forgotten beings, victims of our centurys cruel history, with their authentic albeit not exactly remembered biographies. Here Hackl, the Austrian author, overly sensitized perhaps because of his own countrys extreme insensitivities, steps in and tries to bring about an act of belated justice and redemption. This obviates the question whether Hackl is a fiction writer or a historian, a lawyer of the small people or a missionary voice of human dignity: he is all of these.
Erich Wolfgang Skwara, World Literature Today
The books of Erich Hackl have now been translated into 25 languages. As a chronicler, he reminds us of the fate of people who were arrested for racial reasons or because of their political convictions, tortured and murdered. Hackl reconstructs the biographies of those who have been erased from history. [...] He takes care to strive for historical accuracy.
Michael Opitz, Deutschlandradio Kultur
Highly recommended a haunting book.
Samuel Moser, Neue Zrcher Zeitung

Author Bio

Erich Hackl is an award-winning Austrian author. He was born in Steyr (Upper Austria) in 1954. He studied German and Hispanic Studies in Salzburg and Malaga and was a lecturer for three years at the Universidad Complutense in Madrid. On his return to Austria, Hackl was a Spanish teacher and a lecturer at the University of Vienna. Since 1983 he has worked as a translator, editor and freelance writer. He has been a regular contributor to the Wiener Tagebuch, editor of the Aurora-Library, a book series of international poetry, and he is a regular contributor to the WochenZeitung in Zrich. He has published numerous Hispanic literature anthologies, and is recipient of over a dozen literature and translation prizes, including the Premio Hidalgo, the Solothurner Literaturpreis, the Literature Prize of the City of Vienna, and the Austrian Prize for Literary Translation. In 2017 Erich Hackl was awarded the Human Rights Award of Upper Austria (Menschenrechtspreis des Landes Obersterreich) for his active anti-fascist contribution to the maintenance of humanity and justice of a humanistic society.