Aharon Appelfeld (also spelled Aron Appelfeld) was born in 1932 in Czernowitz, the capital of Bukovina, a largely German-speaking region of central Europe that was under Romanian rule. His hometown was a commercial and intellectual center, including highly assimilated Jews, who spoke German and identified with German culture. In 1941, two years after the outbreak of World War II, Bukovina was caught up in Germany’s invasion of Russia and the Bukovinan Jews were rounded up for deportation. Like many others, Appelfeld’s mother was shot on the spot; the boy and his father were separated and imprisoned in the concentration and labor camps. Appelfeld escaped, lived on farms and in villages of the Ukraine for a few years, then joined the Russian army as a kitchen boy and made his way to Italy. From there, at age 14, he boarded a ship of Jewish refugees bound for Palestine. Appelfeld settled in Palestine in 1946 and reunited with his father there after the state of Israel was established. From 1950-52 Appelfeld served in the Israeli army, and he served repeatedly in the Arab-Israeli wars. At the Hebrew University Appelfeld studied under a number of Jewish intellectuals who, like him, had escaped from central Europe and whose works became highly influential on his own works.
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