The reception of Rose Auslander in Germany after the Shoah

Rose Auslander's reception in Germany is characterized by an obsessive interest in the author's biography and in the message of redemption that her work seems to oppose to the sufferings caused by Nazi-Persecution and exile. This interpretation reflects the process of identification and self-exculpation of German readers who use Auslander as a means to appease their own conscience, thus classifying her poetry as partaking in the premodern tradition. Since the late nineties however, there has been a marked change of emphasis: the interpretations of her poetry now take account of the dissonances in her work due to the trauma of Jewish persecution and exile. This new attempt at doing away with harmonisation makes it now partake in the movement to modernity where it in fact belongs.