Unheimliche

The aim of my contribution is to analyze the concept of “homeland/home” in the literary work of Jean Améry (pseud. of Hans Mayer, 1912-1978), the Austrian writer refuged in Belgium, and survived the concentration camps and the tortures. My contribution moves from the writing „Wieviel Heimat braucht der Mensch/How much home does one man need?“ (1966). At the center of this short and, at the same time, deep writing of Améry is the topic of losing the “homeland /Heimat” for those – the exiled during the Nazism - whom the native land configured itself as an “enemy land” and the mother’s language as a “scoundrel language”. These texts seem to exemplify one of the most interesting reflections about the concept of the Uncanny.