Jean Améry

Who was Jean Améry?

Jean Améry, born Hanns Chaim Mayer, was an Austrian essayist whose work was often informed by his experiences during World War II. Formerly a philosophy and literature student in Vienna, Améry's participation in organized resistance against the Nazi occupation of Belgium resulted in his detainment and torture by the Gestapo, and several years of imprisonment in concentration camps.

Améry survived internments in Auschwitz and Buchenwald, and was finally liberated at Bergen-Belsen in 1945. His most celebrated work, At the Mind's Limits: Contemplations by a Survivor on Auschwitz and Its Realities, suggests that torture was "the essence" of the Third Reich. Other notable works included On Aging and On Suicide: A Discourse on Voluntary Death.

Améry committed suicide by taking an overdose of sleeping pills in 1978.