Jean Améry

Also known as Hanns Chaim Mayer, Jean Amery, Hans Mayer

Austrian-born essayist and Holocaust survivor (1912-1978)

Person · Open Library

Born: 31 October 1912
Died: 17 October 1978
Works: 82

Top works

Erich Schmid
Sharl Bovari, rofe-kafri
Über das Altern
Me-ʻever la-ashmah ṿela-kaparah
Winston S. Churchill

via Open Library + Wikidata

Music · MusicBrainz

Type: Person
Gender: Male
Origin: Austria
Active from: 1912-10-31
Active to: 1978-10-17

via MusicBrainz · CC0

Listeners · Last.fm

Listeners: 8

~21 min read

Article

Jean Améry (31 October 1912 – 17 October 1978), born Hans Chaim Maier, was an Austrian-born essayist who wrote about his experiences surviving the Holocaust. His most celebrated work, At the Mind's Limits: Contemplations by a Survivor on Auschwitz and Its Realities (1966), suggests that torture was "the essence" of the Third Reich. Other notable works included On Aging (1968) and On Suicide: A Discourse on Voluntary Death (1976). He adopted the pseudonym Jean Améry after 1945. Améry died by suicide in 1978.

Formerly a philosophy and literature student in Vienna, Améry's participation in organized resistance against the Nazi occupation of Belgium resulted in his detainment and torture by the German Gestapo at Fort Breendonk, and several years of imprisonment in concentration camps. Améry survived internments in Auschwitz and Buchenwald, and was finally liberated at Bergen-Belsen in 1945. After the war he settled in Belgium.