Thaisa Frank: How Do You Write About the Holocaust?

Thaisa Frank: How Do You Write About the Holocaust?
UC Berkeley Extension - Magnes Museum
Author and longtime UC Berkeley Extension writing instructor Thaisa Frank reads from her 2010 novel, Heidegger’s Glasses, picked up for translation by 10 countries. Reconstructing the landscape of Nazi Germany, Heidegger’s Glasses fictionalizes the Third Reich’s obsession with the occult, which has led it to create the Compound of Scribes. The Scribes’ mission is to answer letters written to the dead, preventing the deceased from pestering psychics for answers and inadvertently exposing the Final Solution. As Germany falls apart, a letter arrives from eminent philosopher Martin Heidegger to his optometrist and friend, a man now lost at the Auschwitz concentration camp. The presence of Heidegger’s words sparks a series of events that threaten the safety and well-being of the Scribes. Frank also discusses the role of diaries and record keeping during World War II, which shaped the writing of this novel.