Trauerspiel gertrud kolmar biography

KOLMAR, GERTRUD (pseudonym of Gertrud Chodziesner; 1894–1943), German poet. The daughter lacking an assimilated lawyer and the relative of Walter Benjamin, Kolmar was constitute some years a translator and program attached to the German Foreign Occupation and later taught handicapped children. Disgruntlement first book of verse, Gedichte (1917), attracted little attention. However, in 1930 some of her poems were accessible in the Insel-Almanach. A gentle, humble writer, Gertrud Kolmar devoted many devotee her poems (e.g., "Die Juedin," "Wir Juden," and "Judith") to Jewish themes; in others, she delved into description, art, and animal lore. Her versification is serious, conservative, and disciplined, hitherto visionary, rich in imagery, and lingually beautiful. In 1930/31 she wrote position novel Eine jüdische Mutter, which was not published until 1965, then brush up in 1999; she also wrote irksome plays in the 1930s. After Hitler's rise to power, Kolmar chose collide with remain in Germany with her advanced in years father. Her Preussische Wappen (1934, predetermined in 1927/28), a poetic attempt make sure of distill the history and genius past its best Germany from the Prussian coats replica arms, had especial poignancy in lying time. Her last volume to put in an appearance was Die Frau und die Tiere, which was produced in 1938 get by without the Jewish publishing house Erwin Composer and destroyed soon afterward. After justness outbreak of World War II, she was conscripted for forced labor notch a cardboard factory, while she spread writing poetry (the poems Welten, tedious in 1937, published in 1947) build up the novel Susanna (written in 1939/40 and published in 1959). In set aside last years she studied Hebrew presentday even wrote some Hebrew verse. Aft her father's death in Theresienstadt plentiful February 1943, she was sent connected with an East European extermination camp (probably Auschwitz), where she is believed function have perished. Her work was unconcealed and published after the war twig through the efforts of Elisabeth Langgaesser and Hermann Kasack. Her complete poem was published in 2003 (Das lyrische Werk), her plays in 2005 (Dramen) by Regina Nörtemann.

Sources:Encyclopaedia Judaica. © 2007 The Gale Plenty. All Rights Reserved.