Hans Keilson

Born in Germany in 1909, Hans Keilson finished medical school just as laws against Jewish doctors came into force. He published his first novel in 1933. It was the last novel that the German publisher Fischer Verlag were allowed to publish by a Jewish writer. By 1934 the novel was banned. His editor warned him to get out of the country and Keilson emigrated to the Netherlands in 1936. In mid 1943 Keilson went into hiding, began to write The Death of the Adversary and joined the Dutch...See more

Born in Germany in 1909, Hans Keilson finished medical school just as laws against Jewish doctors came into force. He published his first novel in 1933. It was the last novel that the German publisher Fischer Verlag were allowed to publish by a Jewish writer. By 1934 the novel was banned. His editor warned him to get out of the country and Keilson emigrated to the Netherlands in 1936. In mid 1943 Keilson went into hiding, began to write The Death of the Adversary and joined the Dutch Resistance. His parents were killed in Auschwitz. After the war, as a psychiatrist in the Netherlands Keilson pioneered the treatment of war trauma in children. In 2008 he received the Die Welt Literature Prize. Hans Keilson has recently celebrated his 101st birthday. See less