Todtnauberg. A poem after Auschwitz. Heidegger and Paul Celan

Abstract

For all we know Heidegger had relationship with National-Socialism in the thirties, when the boom began what was called Third Reich. It´s also know that after the defeat of Germany in the II World War, Heidegger remained silent about the Holocaust. Paul Celan, jewish poet who suffered in Nazi concentration camps, had a series of meetings and disagreements with the thinker of Freiburg. Celan hope thar Heidegger give a word of forgiveness, a word that would combine Heidegger's philosophical greatness with "humanitarian" greatness. But Heidegger, as mentioned, remained silent. The question we want take the thread of these meetings and disagreements between Heidegger and Celan is whether it's possible think Auschwitz, if it's a necesary task or the horror of the concentratión camp is to be left to the voice of the poet, because it´s possible that the poetry expresses better what happened. Or, if instead, after Auschwitz shoul only be silence, silence as one in which Heidegger remained. Auschwitz represents the culmination of Modernity, a tech modernity, where there isn't place for poetry. But after Auschwitz there is poetry, as Celan poetry, so we would ask ourselves whether we have a new modernity or we are in other time, the time of silence after Auschwitz.