Kafka dispute continues

Prague is out in the cold as a legal dispute involving secret papers, disputed ownership, a Swiss bank and family rights provide a Kafkaesque backdrop to a legal battle over Franz Kafka's documents.

A panel of lawyers gathered in the vaults of a Swiss bank July 21 to prize open four boxes containing Kafka's letters and unpublished works of fiction.

An Israeli judge had ordered the UBS bank to open the boxes against the wishes of Israeli sisters Eva and Ruth Hoffe, who claim ownership after they were bequeathed them by their mother, Esther.

The contents of the boxes are not scheduled to be released to the public just yet.

Kafka was one of the most enigmatic authors of the 20th century. He died of tuberculosis in 1924 aged 40, and if his own last wishes had been followed, novels such as The Trial and The Castle would never have seen the light of day.

Shortly before his death, Kafka instructed his friend Max Brod, a fellow Czech Jew, to burn all of his papers. Brod disregarded the request and took the manuscripts to Palestine when he fled Prague on the eve of the Nazi invasion. Upon Brod's death in 1968, the papers came into the possession of his secretary and mistress, Esther Hoffe.

Israel claims that due to Kafka's Jewish background, the manuscripts are part of the national heritage and should be accessible to the public. The Jewish National and University Library is suing for ownership.

In the unfolding drama, Kafka's hometown, Prague, has been totally disregarded, despite his sister's daughter, Vera, still calling Prague home.

"We are naturally curious about the content of the manuscripts," said Tomáš Kraus, Secretary of the Federation of Jewish Communities in the Czech Republic. "At this point, it is probably not essential who owns them, and the legal battle may continue for another few years. The important thing is that, hopefully, the texts will be published as soon as possible. After all, the battle is a bit Kafkaesque, isn't it?"

Markéta Mališová, director of the Franz Kafka Center in Prague, believes that Prague is the natural home for Kafka's papers, "as he lived here, wrote here and was influenced by Prague culture."

The Franz Kafka Center, however, is short of funds and realizes it has no realistic chance of getting the papers.

The Hoffe sisters claim the manuscripts are a private family matter. They have already sold a number of papers, including a handwritten manuscript of The Trial, to the German Literature Archive in Marbach. The archive handed over $2 million, the highest price ever paid for a contemporary manuscript.

The papers have aroused avid interest in the literary community, but Kafka enthusiasts will have to wait to find out whether one of the manuscripts is an unseen masterpiece by the author of The Metamorphosis. Eva Hoffe has put a gag order on the contents of the boxes.

The Swiss manuscripts are only a small part of the literary cache. Safety-deposit boxes in Israeli banks were opened earlier this year. Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that when a team of lawyers arrived at the Tel Aviv bank to examine the documents, Eva Hoffe entered the building to prevent the safe from being opened, shouting, "It's mine! It's mine!"

In her deposition to the court, Eva Hoffe claimed that once the boxes were opened and the contents revealed, "They will be disseminated to the public, and in this way, my property, assets, rights, privacy and human dignity will be compromised."

Hoffe's adversaries say that Kafka's interest in Zionism proves his manuscripts belong in Israel. Meir Heller, the lawyer who is representing the library, says Kafka's diaries, which show that the author was learning Hebrew, contain evidence that he hoped to emigrate to Palestine.

"He had a dream of coming to Tel Aviv and opening up a restaurant," Heller said. "He wanted to be a waiter."

Shortly before he died of tuberculosis in a Vienna sanatorium, Kafka wrote instructions to Brod: "Dearest Max, My last request: Everything I leave behind me [is] to be burned unread." Instead, Brod published the novels Amerika, The Trial and The Castle, and Kafka was hailed as one of the most original voices of the 20th century.

The battle for the manuscripts, played out in the Tel Aviv Family Court, began in 2008 after Esther Hoffe's death. The long-winded and surreal bureaucratic wrangle over boxes of unseen papers is a story that the author of The Trial might have appreciated.

Natalia O'Hara can be reached at
features@praguepost.com