Letter to Gershom Scholem

Peter Szondi, literary scholar and philologist, was born in Budapest, the son of psychiatrist Leopold Szondi. Szondi attended high school in Budapest until the German invasion in 1944. He and his family were saved as part of the Kasztner exchange group, spending a number of months in Bergen-Belsen before reaching Switzerland in December 1944. Szondi wrote his doctoral thesis on the theory of modern drama at Zurich University. He later became professor of general and comparative literary studies at the Freie Universität Berlin. Szondi committed suicide in October 1971, leaving in manuscript his volume about poet Paul Celan, published posthumously.