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Ingeborg Bachmann was born in Klagenfurt, Austria, in 1926. Although her family was Protestant, she went to a Catholic school where she was taught by Ursuline nuns. Bachmann was part of the generation of German-speaking writers forced to confront the problematic nature of writing about and depicting the catastrophe that was the genocide. How can one express “it”? How can one write about Auschwitz and the post-Auschwitz period in the very language of those who created Auschwitz? Excerpts from Bachmann’s diary, written in 1945 when she was 19 years old, were recently published. The entries, in particular her description of meeting a British Jewish soldier in the 8th British army, show that she was perfectly aware of the disaster. From 1946 to 1950, Bachmann studied philosophy in Vienna. It was then that she began honing her views and thoughts on the disaster for which her country bore responsibility. There she began reading the work of the Vienna Circle writers, many of whom had already died or left the country.