YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 10, ARMENPRESS: September 10, 1890 is the birthdate of Franz Werfel, the Prague-born Jewish poet, dramatist and novelist, whose most acclaimed work, the 1933 “The Forty Days of Musa Dagh,” about the Armenian genocide, was widely read as a warning about the Nazi rise to power and the murderous threat it posed to the Jews. As Armenpress reports, the Israeli “Haaretz” has issued a special article entitled “This Day in Jewish History”, which is devoted to the author’s life and activity.

Werfel was introduced to the Armenian saga by a chance meeting in Damascus, and the result was a best-selling novel about the Turks’ 1915 campaign against the Armenians. He described the book to audiences as telling how “one of the oldest and most venerable peoples of the world has been destroyed, murdered, almost exterminated … .” Not surprisingly, “The Forty Days” was one of the first books consigned to the bonfires by the Nazis.

Franz Werfel died on August 26, 1945, at the age of 54.