Max Czollek

His paternal grandfather was a German Jew who survived several concentration camps, lived in exile in China for several years, and then returned to East Germany in the late 1940s.

[6] Since 2014 he has teamed up with the novelist Deniz Utlu [de] to organize the literature series "Gegenwartsbewältigung"[note 1] at the Maxim Gorki Theater (Studio Я).

[10] In his column in the newspaper Die Zeit, Biller compared Czollek to Benjamin Wilkomirski, a Swiss writer who had confabulated his alleged Jewish origins.

[11] In reaction, the author Sasha Marianna Salzmann defended Czollek in the FAZ highlighting that questions of patrilinearity have long been a part of an inner-jewish plurality.

[12] Likewise, the journalist Ofer Waldman defended Czollek in Deutschlandfunk Kultur and called the attacks a religiously veiled political confrontation.