Miklós Radnóti

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Miklós Radnóti (May 5, 1909 – November 6-10, 1944) was a Hungarian writer from Budapest who fell victim to the Holocaust. It is quite ironic that in his last years, while he was being violently expulsed from Hungarian society (because he was a Jew), he identified himself more and more as a Hungarian through his poems. In his poetry, avantgarde and expressionist impressions mingle with a new classical style, a good example being his eclogues. His romantic love poetry is notable as well.

In the early forties, he was conscripted by the Hungarian Army, but being a Jew, he was assigned to a weaponless support battalion in the Ukrainian front. In May of 1944, the defeated hungarians retreated and Radnóti's labor battalion was assigned to the Bor, Serbia copper mines. In August of 1944, as consequence of Tito's advance, Radnóti's group of 3200 Hungarian Jews was force-marched to Central Hungary, which very few reached alive. Radnóti was fated not to be among them. Throughout these last months of his life, he continued to write poems in a little notebook he kept with him. According to witnesses, in early November of 1944, Radnóti was severily beaten with an "abroncs" (the outer iron strip protecting wooden cart wheels) by a drunken militiaman, who had been tormenting him for "scribbling". Too weak to continue, he was shot into a mass grave in the village of Abda in Northwestern Hungary. Eighteen months later, his body was unearthed and in the front pocket of his overcoat the small notebook of his final poems was discovered. These final poems are lyrical and poignant and represent some of the few works of literature composed during the Holocaust that survived.

A documentary about the life of Miklós Radnóti will be released by M30A Films in 2006.

[edit] External links

• English translations of some poems, with other quotes and bio
• Book of poems in English published by Sheep Meadow Press
• English translations of poems by Miklós Radnóti, with a bio and comments on his work by critics and his translators