After more than 50 years of being kept in the UBS Swiss Bank in Zurich and Israeli Bank in Tel Aviv thousands of manuscripts and drawings by Franz Kafka were taken out from safes. The precious works were revealed after a long legal dispute between their heirs and Israel. According to reports of “Tribune de Genève”, the Swiss safes were opened in order to help in the legal estate procedures.
The argument is based on the unfulfilled will of Franz Kafka declared to his friend and literary executor Max Brod regarding destroying the manuscripts. In 1939 Brod disregarded the writer's will and took the disputed writings and drawings when fleeing the Nazism to Israel. Years later Kafka's friend bequeathed his works to a secretary Ester Hoffe. The unpublished manuscripts were inherited by Hoffe's daughter Eva. The following inheritance was disputed by the Israeli authorities who guard a part of Kafka's works and claim a legitimate rights to all the hidden documents.
The case became known to the public after Ester Hoffe's daughter decided to sell Kafka's unpublished works. As an authorized executor of the author's copyrights, Brod requested that all the disputed papers will be stored at the National Library in Jerusalem. For now, by ordering the Swiss and Tel Aviv safes to be opened the Israeli court will rule out on the legal ownership.
Sources: JTA, The Guardian, BBC
