Erich Hackl's "Abschied von Sidonie": Breaking the Silence

Abstract

Erich HackPs Abschied vonSidonie: Breaking the Silence ELINNESJE VESTLI University CollegeOstfold, Norway In his novel Abschied von Sidonie (1989), the Austrian writer and journalist Erich Hackl tells the story of the girl Sidonie Adlersburg. Sidonie, 'geboren auf der Stra?e' [born on the road], is leftas a foundling on the hospital steps in Steyr, and grows up as a beloved foster daughter in the working-class Breirather family in a small Austrian community.1 But the storywith itsnear clich? beginning is not a happy one. Sidonie is of Romani origin, born in 1933. Ten years later she is taken away from her foster parents and transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau under the pretext of a family reunion with her biological mother. A few days after her arrival, she dies. It is years before her foster family is informed about her fate. Their efforts after 1945 to investigate her death are met with silence. The story ofSidonieAdlersburg isdeeply touchingand givesa glimpseof the individual fate of one of the countless anonymous victims of the Third Reich. However, the author never allows the reader to forget that Sidonie's story isnot unique, nor that she belongs to a group who even today have not received the recognition they are entitled to as victims of racial persecution: the Sinti and Roma. Hackl not only deals with the Third Reich, but also expands his time frame to the late 1980s, when he was writing his novel. By reading about Sidonie's fate as well as the efforts to erect a memorial to her after 1945, one not only learns about the past but is also confronted with aspects of contemporary society. In addition to focusing on an important chapter inAustrian and European history, Hackl challenges what may be called 'forgotten memory'.2 1Erich Hackl, AbschiedvonSidonie (Zurich, 1991), p. 7. The novel was firstpublished by Diogenes Verlag in Zurich in 1989. Erich Hackl, Farewell Sidonia, trans, by Edna McCown (London, 1992), p. 1. Page references to these works are henceforth incorporated into themain textusing theabbreviations AS (the German original)and FS (the English translation). 2 This expression is inspired by the phrase 'the forgotten Holocaust' which Christian Bernadac uses to describe the Holocaust of the Sinti and Roma: Christian Bernadac, L'holocauste oubli?. Le massacre des tsiganes (Paris, 1979). ELIN NESJE VESTLI I23 I The history of the Roma in Germany and Austria ? as in most other European countries ? dates back more than six hundred years, as does the persecution of these people. It culminates in theHolocaust, when more than halfa million Roma were killed.3 Nazi race policy was based on the already existing intolerance towards the Roma. It was built upon deep-seated prejudices and legitimized the increasing denial of their human and social rights. Forced sterilization, for example, not uncommon in several European countries, was legitimized through a law passed in 1933 concerning the prevention of racial impurity and congenitally defective offspring. The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 deprived not only theJews of their civil rights, but also theRoma and Sinti. The so-called 'research' of theRacial Hygiene and Population Biology Research Unit, founded by Dr Robert Ritter in 1936, had disastrous consequences for the European Romani population. But unlike the 'Final Solution of the Jewish Question', the similar 'Solution of theGypsy Question' provoked a response innone of the European countries. There was, according toAngus Fraser, 'no hostile public reaction, abroad or at home, of the kind which had made theNazis a littlemore circumspect in their dealings with the Jews, at least in the early days, because of respect for world opinion'.4 In Germany the deportation of Sinti and Roma started as early as the 1930s. InAustria expropriation and forced labour were a reality shortly after the Anschluss in 1938, and deportations began after the German victory over Poland.5 According toHermann Langbein, therewere a great number of Romani women in Ravensbr?ck as early as 1939; in the same year a considerable number died in Buchenwald.6 Although the Roma and Sinti, along with the Jews and other prisoners, were brought to the large concentration camps such as Auschwitz-Birkenau, Ravensbr?ck, Buchen wald, Dachau and Mauthausen, regional camps were also erected exclusively...