Walter Benjamin Collection

Walter Benjamin Collection.

כותרת בעברית: אוסף ולטר בנימין.

Collection of Walter Benjamin.

ARC. 4* 1598, Walter Benjamin Collection, Archives Department, National Library of Israel, Jerusalem

Walter Benjamin Collection

Fonds Record

Copies/עותקים: File 31 also in microfim A520. File 57 also in microfilm A507. Most of the collection has been scanned and is on DVD number 43 in the archives department, with a list.A documentary movie by Judith Wechsler is available on DVD no D60.

Berlin 1892-Portbou 1940. Philosopher, literary critic, essayist and translator. He was associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory and was also greatly inspired by the Marxism of Bertolt Brecht and Jewish mysticism as presented by Gershom Scholem. He studied in Freiburg, Berlin, Munich and Berne. Till 1933 lived in Germany. When the Nazis came to power, he went to the Balearic Isles and then to Paris. In 1940 he obtained a visa to the United States, but failed to reach Portugal through Spain, on his way to the United States. He took his own life on September 27, 1940 at Portbou, a border town in the Pyrenees, Catalonia, after the group of Jewish refugees he joined was intercepted by the Spanish Police, that threatened to send them back to France.

The material in the archive was collected by Gershom Scholem. In 1984, after his death, the collection was deposited at the National Library by Fania Scholem, his widow.

The archive is in German.

990026200960205171