![]() “Hoffe, however, did not fulfill these wishes, and even began to undertake extensive commercial activities, selling a number of Kafka manuscripts and letters,” Litt recalled in frustration. One of Brod’s wishes, however, was that Hoffe would transfer the documents to a public institution, naming the National Library in Jerusalem as the preferred destination. Brod charged his secretary, Esther Hoffe, with preserving his archive, which included his and Kafka’s writings and thousands of additional documents. Brod stored the documents in a safe in the basement of the Schocken Library in Tel Aviv, until he ultimately decided to safeguard his precious correspondence in a vault in Switzerland in the late ’50s. Stefan Litt, humanities curator at the National Library, recounted how the then-director refused the request, because he was preoccupied with his own materials in case a war broke out. He turned to the National Library to shelter the documents. By the ’50s, following the Suez Crisis, Brod was preoccupied with finding safer storage of the documents, as the fame of his late friend had already reached the heights Brod had foreseen the first time he set eyes on his manuscripts. As the Nazis took over Prague in 1939, Brod fled to Palestine with his wife, taking the entirety of his friend’s collection with him, part of which he had already edited and published, storing it in his house in Tel Aviv. Kafka had entrusted all of his manuscripts and writings to his friend, with clear instructions to burn everything, including unpublished manuscripts of masterpieces such as The Metamorphosis and Letter to His Father. The saga to recover Kafka’s manuscripts began back in 1968, upon Brod’s death. Over the years, it became clear that Brod was more than the guardian and publisher of his friend’s works – Brod was the confidant, the encourager and the constant companion of the man who today is considered one of the most significant and controversial writers of the 20th century. They became inseparable already from their early years together and embarked on journeys throughout the continent. NOTE! Consider delaying until first div on pageĮven though they both lived in Prague for most of their lives, they exchanged hundreds of letters, up to two weeks before Kafka’s death. If (slot) slot.addService(googletag.pubads()) (function (a, d, o, r, i, c, u, p, w, m) Beyond the trial: Investigating Kafka in Jerusalem - Israel News - The Jerusalem Post
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