very few depictions of Nazi concentration camps, in either literature or the cinema, during World War II. In 1947 Seghers was awarded the Georg Büchner-Prize for this novel. Seghers's best-known short story, the title of her collection in The Outing of the Dead Girls (1946), was written in Mexico. It was partially autobiographical, drawn from her reminiscence and reimagining of a pre-World War I class excursion on the Rhine river. She explores the actions of the protagonist's classmates in light of their decisions and ultimate fates during both world wars. In describing them, the German countryside, and her hometown Mainz, which was soon destroyed in the second war, Seghers expresses lost innocence and ponders the senseless injustices of war. She shows there is no escape from such loss, whether or not one sympathized with the NSDAP. Other notable Seghers novels include Sagen von Artemis (1938) and The Ship of the Argonauts (1953), both based on myths. In 1947, Seghers returned to Germany, settling in West Berlin, an enclave within the Soviet-controlled East Germany. She joined the Socialist Unity Party of Germany in the zone occupied by the Soviets. That year she was also awarded the Georg Büchner Prize for her novel Transit, written in German, and published in English in 1944. In 1950, she moved to East Berlin, where she co-founded the Academy of the Arts of the GDR, and became a member of the World Peace Council. Her radio play The Trial of Joan of Arc at Rouen, 1431 was adapted to the stage by Bertolt Brecht. It was written in collaboration with Benno Besson and premiered at the Berliner Ensemble in November 1952, in a production directed by Besson (his first important production with the Ensemble), with Käthe Reichel as Joan. Honors and awards In 1951, Seghers received the first National Prize of the GDR and the Stalin Peace Prize. She received an honorary doctorate from the University of Jena in 1959. Seghers was nominated for the 1967 Nobel Prize in Literature by the German Academy of Arts. In 1981, she was made an honorary citizen of her native town Mainz. She died in Berlin on 1 June 1983 and is buried there. Representation in other media The Seventh Cross (1944) was adapted in English from her 1942 novel of the same name and released by MGM, starring Spencer Tracy. Anna Seghers is mentioned in the German ostalgie