Hans Günther Adler, who wrote as H. G. Adler (July 2, 1910, Prague – 1988, London) was a German-language poet and novelist.[1]
Born in Prague to Emil and Alice Adler, Hans Adler was a Jew, though not devout.[2] After his graduation in 1935 from Charles University, where he studied music and literature, arts and sciences,[2][3][4] he worked as a secretary and teacher, later in Czech radio broadcasting.
In 1941 he was sent to a Jewish workcamp where he worked until his deportation to Theresienstadt with his family on February 8, 1942. Adler was to spend two and a half years in Theresienstadt with his family before being sent to Auschwitz. At Theresienstadt, Adler did only minor work, such as room duty and barrack building. His wife, who was a medical doctor and chemist, led the medical central bureau. On Oct 14, 1944 he arrived with his wife and her mother at Auschwitz.[4]
Both women were put in the gas chambers that day. Adler was to lose his mother and father and sixteen members of his family to the Holocaust.[4][5]
On October 28, 1944, Adler was deported to Niederoschel, a subdivision of Buchenwald, and in 1945, to other subdivisions of Buchenwald. On April 13, 1945 he was free. From July and December of that year he was in Prague, helping Przemysl Pitter create homes for the remnant of Jews.[4]
From October 1945 until February 1947, Adler worked in the Jewish Museum in Prague, where he devoted himself chiefly to the building up of the archives about the times of persecution and the Theresienstadt camp. At this time he was also involved in accumulating the documents from the camp, with the intention of bringing them to Palestine. Although some material was brought to Jerusalem, for the most part this project was not completed.[4]
Adler later went to London, where he met and married a childhood sweetheart with whom he fathered his only child Jeremy Adler.[2][5]
He went on to author 26 books on history, philosophy and poetry, including several autobiographies, nonfiction and fictional works on the Holocaust.[2] His first fiction novel was The Journey, described as "Holocaust modernism" in a 2009 review in the New York Times.[5][6]
He received the Leo Baeck Prize in 1958, the Prix Charles Veillon in 1969 for Panorama; the Buber-Rosenzweig-Medal in 1974 and an honorary Ph.D. from the University of Berlin in 1980. Adler died in London in 1988.[2]