On November 23, 1920, Paul Antschel was born in Czernowitz, Romania, which at that time was the easternmost province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He was the only son of Leo and Friederike Antschel, a Jewish couple. After high school he studied medicine briefly in Tours, France, and returned to Czernowitz in 1939, where he studied romance languages and literature. In 1940, the Soviet Union annexed his hometown, and the following year the Germans invaded. His parents were deported in 1942 to a concentration camp, where his father died of disease and his mother was executed by a shot to the back of the head. Celan later wrote many poems that seem to refer to his mother; he only mentions his father once in all his work.

Antschel was not deported, though he was sent to a forced labor camp. In 1943, he returned to Czernowitz, which had been captured and occupied by...