Anselm Kiefer is a German painter and sculptor. He studied with Peter Dreher and Horst Antes at the end of the 1960s. His works incorporate materials such as straw, ash, clay, lead, and shellac. The poems of Paul Celan have played a role in developing Kiefer's themes of German history and the horrors of the Holocaust, as have the spiritual concepts of Kabbalah.

Paul Celan, born Paul Antschel, was a Romanian-born French poet, Holocaust survivor, and literary translator. Due to his many radical poetic and linguistic innovations, Celan regarded as one of the most important figures in German-language literature of the post-World War II era and a poet whose verse has an immortal place in the literary pantheon. His poetry is characterized by a complicated and cryptic style that deviates from poetic conventions.