Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit presented the award, the city?s highest, to Kertész at a ceremony in Berlin?s Red City Hall.
?His decision to work from Berlin is a sign of reconciliation and dialogue, made as a survivor of Auschwitz and Buchenwald,? Wowereit said. ?Kertész is an outstanding citizen of our city and a defining voice of intellectual and cultural life far beyond Berlin.?
The Ernst Reuter medal, named after the city?s former mayor, whose appeal to the world not to abandon Berlin made to a crowd of 300,000 before the burned-out Reichstag building in 1948 cemented his place in history.
The award is presented to German and foreign citizens whose cultural, political or scientific achievements have enriched the city. Previously, Ernst Reuter medals have been awarded to Claudio Abbado, the musical director of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in 1989-2002, and Hans-Jochen Vogel, Berlin?s mayor from 1960 until 1972.
Imre Kertész was born in Budapest in 1929. In 1944, he was taken to the concentration camps of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. His experiences there became the subject of some of his greatest works. Kertész was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 2002.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
