Magnify the divine mystery and the holiness of mankind.
Preface to Das Lied Von Bernadette [The Song of Bernadette] (1941)
Zwischen zu früh und zu spät, liegt immer nur ein Augenblick.
Between too early and too late, there is never more than a moment.
Der sicherste Reichtum ist die Armut an Bedürfnissen.
The safest wealth is the poverty of needs.
For those who believe, no explanation is necessary; for those who do not believe, no explanation is possible.
As quoted in Philippine Studies (1953) by Ateneo de Manila, p. 269; also in Everest : The Mountaineering History (2000) by Walt Unsworth, p. 100
Happiness is ... the grace of being permitted to unfold ... all the spiritual powers planted within us.
As quoted in Journey to New Beginnings : Finding Peace Within (2006) by Debbie Ziemann, p. 167
Franz Werfel was an
AustrianAustrians are a nation and ethnic group, consisting of the population of the Republic of Austria and its historical predecessor states who share a common Austrian culture and Austrian descent....
-
BohemianA Bohemian is a resident of the former Kingdom of Bohemia, either in a narrow sense as the region of Bohemia proper or in a wider meaning as the whole country, now known as the Czech Republic. The word "Bohemian" was used to denote the Czech people as well as the Czech language before the word...
novelA novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
ist,
playwrightA playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
, and
poetPoetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
.
Biography
Born in
PraguePrague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
(then part of the
Austro-Hungarian EmpireAustria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
), Werfel was the first of three children of a wealthy manufacturer of gloves and leather goods. His mother, Albine Kussi, was the daughter of a mill owner. His two sisters were Hanna (born 1896) and Marianne Amalie (born 1899). He was a contemporary and colleague of
Franz KafkaFranz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...
,
Max BrodMax Brod was a German-speaking Czech Jewish, later Israeli, author, composer, and journalist. Although he was a prolific writer in his own right, he is most famous as the friend and biographer of Franz Kafka...
,
Martin BuberMartin Buber was an Austrian-born Jewish philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a form of religious existentialism centered on the distinction between the I-Thou relationship and the I-It relationship....
, and other
JewThe Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
ish intellectuals who flourished in the first decades of the 20th century. He served in the
Austro-Hungarian ArmyThe Austro-Hungarian Army was the ground force of the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy from 1867 to 1918. It was composed of three parts: the joint army , the Austrian Landwehr , and the Hungarian Honvédség .In the wake of fighting between the...
on the
Russian frontThe Eastern Front was a theatre of war during World War I in Central and, primarily, Eastern Europe. The term is in contrast to the Western Front. Despite the geographical separation, the events in the two theatres strongly influenced each other...
and in the press office in Vienna, where he met and fell in love with Alma Mahler.
In 1920
AlmaAlma Maria Mahler Gropius Werfel was a Viennese-born socialite well known in her youth for her beauty and vivacity. She became the wife, successively, of composer Gustav Mahler, architect Walter Gropius, and novelist Franz Werfel, as well as the consort of several other prominent men...
, widow of
Gustav MahlerGustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...
, divorced
architectAn architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...
Walter GropiusWalter Adolph Georg Gropius was a German architect and founder of the Bauhaus School who, along with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modern architecture....
in order to be with Werfel by whom she had had a son, Martin, who was born prematurely, and who soon died; they finally married in 1929. Werfel was already an established author, having assumed a leading place in German letters as an expressionist playwright.
A journey in 1929 to the Middle East and encountering starving refugees inspired his novel
The Forty Days of Musa DaghThe Forty Days of Musa Dagh is a 1933 novel by Austrian-Jewish author Franz Werfel based on the defense of a small community of Armenians living in the Musa Dagh of the Ottoman Empire in 1915 during the height of the Armenian Genocide. The book was originally published as Die Vierzig Tage des Musa...
which drew world attention to the
Armenian GenocideThe Armenian Genocide—also known as the Armenian Holocaust, the Armenian Massacres and, by Armenians, as the Great Crime—refers to the deliberate and systematic destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during and just after World War I...
at the hands of the
TurksTurkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
. Werfel lectured on this subject across Germany. The Nazi newspaper
Das Schwarze Corps denounced him as a propagandist of "alleged Turkish horrors perpetrated against the Armenians." The same newspaper, suggesting a link between the Armenian and the later Jewish genocide, condemned "American's Armenian Jews for promoting in the U.S.A. the sale of Werfel's book."
Werfel left
AustriaAustria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
after the
AnschlussThe Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....
in 1938 and went to
FranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. After the German invasion and occupation of France during
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, and the deportation of French Jews to the
NaziNazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
concentration camps, Werfel had to flee again. With the assistance of
Varian FryVarian Mackey Fry was an American journalist. Fry ran a rescue network in Vichy France that helped approximately 2,000 to 4,000 anti-Nazi and Jewish refugees to escape Nazi Germany and the Holocaust.-Early life:...
and the Emergency Rescue Committee in
MarseilleMarseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...
, he and his wife narrowly escaped the Nazi regime and traveled to the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
While in France, Werfel made a visit to the shrine of the
Our Lady of LourdesOur Lady of Lourdes is the name used to refer to the Marian apparition said to have appeared before various individuals on separate occasions around Lourdes, France...
at
LourdesLourdes is a commune in the Hautes-Pyrénées department in the Midi-Pyrénées region in south-western France.Lourdes is a small market town lying in the foothills of the Pyrenees, famous for the Marian apparitions of Our Lady of Lourdes occurred in 1858 to Bernadette Soubirous...
, where he found spiritual solace. He also received much help and kindness from the Catholic orders that staffed the shrine. He vowed to write about the experience and, safe in America, he published
The Song of BernadetteThe Song of Bernadette is a 1942 novel that tells the story of Saint Bernadette Soubirous, who, from February to July 1858 in Lourdes, France, reported eighteen visions of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The novel was written by Franz Werfel and was published in 1942...
in 1941.
In southern
CaliforniaCalifornia is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, Werfel wrote his final play,
Jacobowsky and the Colonel (
Jacobowsky und der Oberst) which was made into the 1958 film
Me and the ColonelMe and the Colonel is a 1958 film based on the play "Jacobowsky und der Oberst" by Franz Werfel. It was directed by Peter Glenville and stars Danny Kaye, Curd Jürgens and Akim Tamiroff....
starring
Danny KayeDanny Kaye was a celebrated American actor, singer, dancer, and comedian...
;
Giselher KlebeGiselher Wolfgang Klebe was a German composer. He composed more than 140 works, among them 14 operas, 8 symphonies, 15 solo concerts, chamber music, piano works, and sacred music.-Biography:...
's
operaOpera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
Jacobowsky und der OberstJacobowsky und der Oberst, Op. 49, is an opera in four acts by Giselher Klebe who also wrote the libretto based on the 1944 play of the same name by Franz Werfel....
(1965) is also based on this play. Before his death, he completed the first draft of his last novel
Star of the Unborn (
Stern der Ungeborenen), which was published posthumously in 1946.
Franz Werfel died in
Los AngelesLos Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
in 1945 and was interred there in the Rosedale Cemetery. However, his body was returned in 1975 to
ViennaVienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
for reburial in the
ZentralfriedhofThe Zentralfriedhof is one of the largest cemeteries in the world, largest by number of interred in Europe and most famous cemetery among Vienna's nearly 50 cemeteries.-Name and location:...
.
External links