There was once a small, small boy who on an early morning, without his parent’s knowing, snuck out, jumped on a garbage truck and made Södertälje his city. This young boy, son of two Auschwitz survivors, grew up to be one of our most important intellectuals.

In Göran Rosenberg’s prolific career he has worked as a journalist, television presenter, emphatic interviewer, innovative foreign correspondent, filmmaker, chief editor, columnist and essayist in a range of Swedish and international publications. And last but not least, he is also the author of several books on topics including American politics, the state of Israel and journalism.

He has been awarded for his work with the prestigious Stora Journalistpriset, Publicistklubbens Pris and the August Prize for A Brief Stop on the Road from Auschwitz (2012), the book about his father where the memorable scene with the boy and the garbage truck is taken from.

After the publication of A Brief Stop on the Road from Auschwitz Rosenberg declared that he was unsure if he was able to write anything else. Despite this, he has recently published Rabbi Marcus Ehrenpreis obesvared kärlek (2021), a biography of a figure who was, at the time, central to discourses on Judaism’s challenges and future. Between the years 1914 and 1948, Ehrenpreis was chief rabbi in Stockholm.

It is a historiography of an idea, with themes that resonate today: identity, exile, the idea of a Jewish “home”, and more universal ideas about nationality, belonging, minorities, dehumanization and the power of language in constructing attitudes.

It is a reappraisal of a historically divisive figure in the time of the Holocaust, a thinker whose ideas have had bearing far beyond his time.  

Rosenberg will be in conversation with journalist Mikael Olsson Al Safandi about this and much else.

Language: Swedish
Friday 25 March 18.30
Uppsala City Theater