GERMANY/FILE: Memorial service is held for Polish-born German literary critic and survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto, Marcel Reich-Ranicki, who died last week at the age of 93

Record ID: 859280

  • Title: GERMANY/FILE: Memorial service is held for Polish-born German literary critic and survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto, Marcel Reich-Ranicki, who died last week at the age of 93
  • Date: 26th September 2013
  • Summary: CANDLES
  • Embargoed: 11th October 2013 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Germany
  • City:
  • Country: Germany
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVAQT0QVJ3UCTJCBCZZ9EUUS11G
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  • Story Text: Polish-born Marcel Reich-Ranicki, Germany's best-known literary critic and a survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto, was remembered at a memorial service on Thursday (September 26) in Frankfurt, after he died a week ago on Wednesday (September 18) aged 93.
    German president Joachim Gauck was among the about 200 guests who paid their respects to Reich-Ranicki at the Frankfurt main cemetery.
    Reich-Ranicki, a Jew born in Poland in 1920, almost perished at the Nazis' hands in World War Two but went on to become one of the leading advocates of German literature and culture during his long post-war career as a journalist, writer and critic.
    He became a revered figure in his adopted country, hosting a popular literary talk show on television from 1988 to 2002 and dishing out sometimes withering verdicts on other writers.
    Frank Schirrmacher of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, where Reich-Ranicki had been literary critic for many years, tweeted the news of his death and triggered an immediate flood of condolences from around the German-speaking world over the passing of a man widely known as "the pope of literature".
    German entertainment personality Thomas Gottschalk bid farewell to Reich-Ranicki with these words: "Marcel, you had thousand reasons to hate this country after what it has done to you. But nothing could take away your love for its music and literature, and nothing but nothing could keep you from passing on that love to us, the descendant of your enemies."
    In his best-selling autobiography "My Life", Reich-Ranicki recounted his move to Berlin shortly before the Nazis' rise to power, his family's subsequent deportation back to Poland and their experience of being forced to live in the Warsaw Ghetto.
    The memoir explores the tension between his life-long love of German literature, music and philosophy and the horrors of 20th century German history.
    His parents died in the Treblinka death camp but he survived to join the Polish resistance and became a communist. Disillusioned with communist Poland, he later emigrated to West Germany where he flourished as a literary critic.
    Reich-Ranicki was famed for saying what he thought and did not spare even acclaimed authors such as Nobel Laureate Gnter Grass when he felt harsh words were merited.
    Australian-born British broadcaster and writer Clive James, who tried to make Reich-Ranicki better known in the English-speaking world, wrote that the German loved him for being their "raging bull who has always refused to be a sacred cow".
    For October a public memorial service is planned at Frankfurt's church Paulskirche. A private funeral for Reich-Ranicki will be held in a couple of weeks time.
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