Web dialogue: Response of Hanna Komar
How do you see the actions of Topf & Sons?
“I got interested in the history of the place and took note, in order to later do a research and create a piece about is. I finished the poem in the autumn of 2019, as a story about Kurt Prüfer, but later it started resonating with what’s been happening in Belarus after the presidential election on August 9, 2020. So many ‘Kurt Prüfers’, ‘just doing their jobs’ and destroying hundreds thousands people’s lives and not wishing to take responsibility for that. And we wish a fair trial for them, which history proves to come sooner or later.”
Hanna Komar has published two poetry collections: Fear of Heights in Belarusian and the bilingual collection Recycled. Together with Dmitry Strotsev, she was awarded the 2020 Norwegian Authors Union Freedom of Speech Award. “In my writing, I bring up uncomfortable topics, such as generational trauma, domestic violence, the position of women in society. I also prefer real people’s stories to fictional ones and sometimes turn to the documentary genre.”