Kafka’s Last Trial - The New York Times. Of five rows of wooden benches in the courtroom, the first three were occupied by more than a dozen lawyers: two lawyers for the National Library; a representative of the Israeli government office that is responsible for estate hearings; and five court- appointed executors: three representing Esther Hoffe’s will (which the National Library considers irrelevant to the case) and two representing Brod’s estate (which the sisters’ attorneys consider essentially irrelevant to the case). The German Literature Archive in Marbach, which has supposedly offered an undisclosed sum for the papers (said to be worth millions), was also represented by Israeli counsel. Ruth’s lawyer and Eva’s three lawyers rounded out the crowd.
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It’s impressive that the sisters had between them four lawyers, although, to put things in perspective, Josef K. When he informs K. K. asks why anyone should need so many lawyers. The defendant grimly replies, “I need them all.”The events leading up to the hearing that day were set into motion many decades earlier. In Prague in the 1. Brod, a passionate Zionist, began mentioning plans to deposit the Kafka papers in the library of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where his and Kafka’s mutual friend Hugo Bergmann was then librarian and rector. Brod renewed these plans after his emigration to Palestine in 1.
I only remember one practical writing lesson from my three years as an English major: Whenever you can, put the best bits at the end of the sentence. Put the next.
Esther Hoffe. In 1. Hoffe made headlines by auctioning the manuscript of “The Trial” for nearly $2 million; it ended up at the German Literature Archive. Philip Roth characterized this outcome as “yet another lurid Kafkaesque irony” that was being “perpetrated on 2.
Update: I now call this method of mixing the “Rubaud Method” because I learned it from the great baker Gerard Rubaud. He deserves the credit for this technique. All crossword clues in our system starting with the letter E.
Western culture,” observing not only that Kafka was not German but also that his three sisters perished in Nazi death camps. In later years, Hoffe engaged in negotiations to place the Kafka papers — as well as the rest of the Brod estate, which includes Brod’s voluminous diaries and correspondence with countless German- Jewish intellectual luminaries — at the archive in Marbach. Nevertheless, at the time of her death, no transaction had been completed. The bulk of the collection remained divided among an apartment on Spinoza Street in central Tel Aviv and 1.
Tel Aviv and Zurich. It is unclear how much of Brod’s estate is still housed in the Spinoza Street apartment, which is currently inhabited by Eva Hoffe and between 4.
Eva’s neighbors, as well as members of the international scholarly community, have expressed concern regarding the effects of these cats on their surroundings. More than once, municipal authorities have removed some of the animals from the premises, but the missing cats always seem to be replaced.
In 2. 00. 8, when the sisters tried to probate their mother’s will, they were opposed by the National Library. The library contends that Brod left the Kafka papers to Esther Hoffe as an executor rather than as a beneficiary, meaning that, after Hoffe’s death, the papers reverted to the Brod estate. Brod’s will, dated 1. Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Municipal Library in Tel Aviv or another public archive in Israel or abroad.” The Municipal Library in Tel Aviv has renounced any claim to the estate, making the Hebrew University Library — today, the National Library of Israel — the only claimant specifically named by Brod. The National Library’s argument is complicated by Brod’s so- called gift letter of 1. The most crucial and enigmatic document in the case, it appears to give all of the Kafka papers outright, during Brod’s lifetime, to Esther Hoffe. The sisters presented the court with a two- page photocopy of this letter.
The National Library, however, produced a photocopy of a four- page version of the letter, of which the two missing middle pages appear to clarify the limitations of Brod’s gift. When the court ordered a forensic examination, the sisters were unable to produce the original letter. Last year, the court decided to grant the National Library’s request that the papers in the sisters’ possession be inventoried: some evidence suggests that the vaults contain further documentation clarifying Brod’s intentions for the papers. The sisters appealed the decision, maintaining that the state has no right to search private property for documents whose existence can’t be proven beforehand. The hearing I attended was to determine the outcome of their appeal. Photo. Eva Hoffe near her home, which may contain many of Kafka’s remaining papers, in Tel Aviv.
Credit. Natan Dvir/Polaris Eva and Ruth, who fled Nazi- occupied Prague as children, are elusive figures who keep out of the public eye. The fact that they are represented by separate counsel reflects Eva’s greater investment in the case.
While Ruth married and left home, Eva lived with their mother, and with the papers, for 4. Her attorney Oded Hacohen characterizes Eva’s relationship to the manuscripts as “almost biological.” “For her,” he told me, “intruding on those safe- deposits is like a rape.” (When asked whether Eva had used the word “rape” herself, Hacohen looked a bit tired. Many times,” he said.)As long as Esther Hoffe’s will is debated, Eva and Ruth are unable to touch any part of their inheritance, which includes more than $1 million in cash.
According to Hacohen, the money is a Holocaust compensation from the German government. The National Library argues that the sum could just as easily represent the proceeds from the sale of “The Trial,” which the library considers to have been a violation of Brod’s will. Eva, who claims to live in direst poverty, has unsuccessfully petitioned for a partial probate, which would have released the money before a decision was reached about the papers. The hearing I attended brought no good news for the sisters. Their appeal was overruled that day by the district court, and again the next month by the Supreme Court.
In late July, one safe- deposit box in Tel Aviv and all four Zurich vaults were inventoried. Witnesses in Tel Aviv reported seeing Eva run into the bank after the lawyers shouting: “It’s mine! It’s mine!” Eva also somehow turned up at the bank in Zurich but wasn’t allowed into the vault. Five of the safe- deposit boxes in Tel Aviv initially resisted inspection. Some of the keys obtained after strenuous negotiations with Eva turned out not to match the locks. By now, most of the boxes have been opened.
According to the Israeli daily Ha’aretz, the banks have already yielded “a huge amount” of original Kafka material, including notebooks and the manuscript of a previously published short story. The specific contents, including any documents that might illuminate the question of ownership, will be made public once everything has been cataloged — a process estimated to last another month. In the meantime, the world continues to wait. Kafka's life passed almost entirely within the space of a few city blocks in Prague, where he was born in 1. Kafka and Brod met in 1. Charles University, where both were studying law.
Brod was 1. 8 — one year younger than Kafka — but already a literary sensation. According to Brod’s biography of Kafka, the two met at a lecture Brod gave on Schopenhauer, during which Kafka objected to Brod’s characterization of Nietzsche as a fraud. Walking home together afterward, they discussed their favorite writers. Brod praised a passage from the story “Purple Death” in which Gustav Meyrink “compared butterflies to great opened- out books of magic.” Kafka, who took no stock in magic butterflies, countered with a phrase from Hugo von Hoffmansthal: “the smell of damp flags in a hall.” Having uttered these words, he fell into a profound silence that left a great impression on Brod.
For years, Brod had no idea that Kafka also did a bit of writing in his free time. Nonetheless, he began right away to commit Kafka’s utterances to his diary, starting with “Talk comes straight out of his mouth like a walking stick” (an observation about an over- assertive classmate).
In 1. 90. 5, Kafka showed Brod his story “Description of a Struggle.” Brod directly adopted a lifelong mission “to bring Kafka’s works before the public.” (An uncannily perspicacious talent- spotter, Brod also brought early recognition to Jaroslav Hasek and Leos Janacek.) In a Berlin weekly in 1. Brod named a handful of contemporary authors maintaining the “exalted standards” of German literature: Franz Blei, Heinrich Mann, Frank Wedekind, Meyrink and Kafka. The first four were big names of the time; Kafka had yet to publish a single word.