Celan Death

            The horrors of the Holocaust still resonate in society today. While many of the survivors are no longer alive, the events continue to echo throughout society through the works that came from the horror and anguish caused by Nazi Germany. Paul Celan’s poems, such as “Deathfugue” and “Aspen Tree,” explore the fear and loss he suffered during his time in a forced labor camp.

            In “Deathhfugue,” Celan writes about “an SS commander [who] forced prisoners to play” dance music “during marches and executions” (Puchner 1468). As the prisoners are forced to dig the commander whistles and leers over them as the demonic form of death:

                        He shots play death more sweetly this Death is a master from Deutschland

                        he shouts scrape your strings darker you’ll rise up as smoke to the sky

you’ll then have a grave in the clouds where you won’t lie too cramped (Celan 22-24)

He continues his description of Death’s power in line 26: “we drink you at midday Death is a master aus Deutschland,” signifying the finality and cruelty that comes from not just Death but from Germany. The actions of the Nazis are as infinite and irrevocable as death itself.

            “Aspen Tree” also investigates the finality of death albeit in a different tone; the poem “laments the death of the poet’s mother,” but instead of simply stating she has died, Celan compares her to “inanimate objects” and notes what his mother misses in death. He compares his mother’s hair, which “never turned white,” to the leaves of the Aspen tree that “glance white into the dark” (Celan 2, 1). He ends the poem simply with the statement “My gently mother cannot return” (10). The ringing constant of the poem centers on his mother’s absence caused by a brief act of violence.

            Both poems focus on the permanence of death. Not only is death itself a permanent state but the effects it has on those left behind. The deaths discussed in Celan’s poems were senseless and violent and would continue to echo long after the war.

Works Cited

Celan, Paul. “Deathfugue.” Trans. John Felstiner. 1650 To the Present. Ed. Martin Puchner. Shorter 3^rd ed. New York: Norton, 2013. 1469-1470. Print. Vol. 2 of The Norton Anthology of World Literature. 2 vols.

---. “Aspen Tree.” Trans. John Felstiner. 1650 To the Present. Ed. Martin Puchner. Shorter 3^rd ed. New York: Norton, 2013. 1470. Print. Vol. 2 of The Norton Anthology of World Literature. 2 vols.

Puchner, Martin. “Paul Celan.” 1650 To the Present. Ed. Puchner. Shorter 3^rd ed. New York: Norton, 2013. 1467-1469. Print. Vol. 2 of The Norton Anthology of World Literature. 2 vols.