Nelly Sachs

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Nelly Sachs, (10 December 1891, Berlin – 12 May 1970, Stockholm) was a German poet and dramatist who was transformed by the Nazi experience from a dilettante into a poignant spokesperson for the grief and yearnings of her fellow Jews. Her best-known play is Eli: Ein Mysterienspiel vom Leiden Israels (1950); other works include the poems Zeichen im Sand (1962) and "Verzauberung (1970), and the collections of poetry "In den Wohnungen des Todes" (1947), "Flucht und Verwandlung" (1959), "Fahrt ins Staublose" (1961), and "Suche nach Lebenden" (1971).

Born in Schöneberg, Berlin in 1891, she fled to Sweden in 1940. She was a friend of Selma Lagerlöf and Hilde Domin. In 1961 she became the inaugural winner of the Nelly Sachs Prize, a literary prize awarded biennially by the city of Dortmund, and named in her honour. When, with Shmuel Yosef Agnon, she was awarded the 1966 Nobel Prize for Literature, she observed that Agnon represented Israel whereas "I represent the tragedy of the Jewish people." In the context of the Shoah, her deep friendship with "brother" poet Paul Celan is often noted today.

Following her death in 1970, Nelly Sachs was interred in the Norra begravningsplatsen in Stockholm.

A memorial plaque commemorates her birthplace, Maaßenstraße 12, in Schöneberg, Berlin; where there is also a park, in Dennewitzstraße, named after her.

[edit] References

www.nobel-winners.com :: Nelly Sachs. This article includes some text from that page, in its version as of 2006-12-13, which is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License
Hilde Domin, a lyric colleague and friend
[1] Map showing location of Maaßenstraße and Nelly-Sachs-Park in Berlin-Schöneberg.