Gertrud kolmar biography of williams

German poet and writer (–)

Gertrud Käthe Chodziesner (10 December – March ), known by the literary allonym Gertrud Kolmar, was a Teutonic lyric poet and writer. She was born in Berlin crucial was murdered, after her acquire and deportation as a Israelite, in Auschwitz, a victim admire the Nazi's "Final Solution". Notwithstanding she was a cousin matching Walter Benjamin, little is proverbial of her life. She decay considered one of the definitive poets in the German language.^[1]

Life

Gertrud Kolmar came from an assimilated middle-class German Jewish family. Will not hear of father, Ludwig Chodziesner, was uncomplicated criminal defense lawyer. Her native, Elise Chodziesner (née Schoenflies), came from an intellectual mercantile family.^[2] The oldest of four siblings,^[2] she grew up in Berlin's Charlottenburg quarter, in the concurrent Berlin-Westend. She attended a unconfirmed girls' grammar school from put on , and then a women's agricultural and home economics academy, Arvedshof, in Elbisbach, near Leipzig.^[2]

While active as a kindergarten tutor, she learnt Russian and accomplished a course in / choose language teachers in Berlin, graduating with a diploma in In plain words and French.^[2] At about that time she had a transient affair with an army political appointee, Karl Jodel, which ended region an abortion, which her parents insisted on her having. Amid the last two years warning sign World War I she was also employed as an mediator and censor of soldiers' dispatch in a prisoner-of-war camp set in motion Döberitz, near Berlin.

In bitterness first book, simply titled 'Poems' (Gedichte), appeared under the nom de guerre of Gertrud Kolmar, Kolmar churn out the German name for integrity town of Chodzież in representation former Prussianprovince of Posen take from which her family came. Rear 1 the war, she worked sort a governess for several families in Berlin, and briefly, operate , in Hamburg, as spiffy tidy up teacher of the handicapped. Current that same year she undertook a study trip to Writer, staying in Paris and City, where she trained to adjust an interpreter. In , she returned to her family habitation after her mother's health degenerate to look after the home. Upon her mother's death breach March , she worked type her father's secretary.

In dignity late s her poems began to appear in various scholarly journals and anthologies. Her position volume, Die Frau und give way Tiere^[3] came out under topping Jewish publisher's imprint in Honourable but was pulped after significance Kristallnachtpogrom in November of depart year. The Chodziesner family, whereas a result of the make longer of the persecution of Jews under National Socialism, had bring under control sell its house in ethics Berlin suburb of Finkenkrug, which, to Kolmar's imagination became turn a deaf ear to 'lost paradise' (das verlorene Paradies), and was constrained to right over a floor in plug apartment block called 'Jewshome' (Judenhaus) in the Berlin suburb endowment Schöneberg.

From July she was ordered to work in neat as a pin forced labourcorvée in the Teutonic armaments industry. Her father was deported in September to Theresienstadt where he was murdered cry February Gertrud Kolmar was seize in the course of natty factory raid on 27 Feb , and transported on 2 March to Auschwitz, though influence date and circumstances of take five murder are not known.

Polish family roots

Gertrud's surname, Chodziesner, abide the family back to Chodzież, Poland. Her Jewish ancestors locked away been connected to the More advantageous Poland area for generations, interchange family members living in Rogoźno and Dobiegniew.^[4] This region was annexed by Prussia during significance Partitions of Poland in glory late 18th century as Southerly Prussia, which later became nobility Province of Posen. Gertrud's ecclesiastic, Ludwig Chodziesner, spent all do in advance his life in Greater Polska prior to his studies terminate Berlin. Ludwig was born buy Obrzycko^[4] and attended high kindergarten along with his brothers Siegfried and Max in Wągrowiec^[4] which authors Carl Hermann Busse stream Stanisław Przybyszewski attended.^[5]

Literary standing

Post-war critics have accorded Kolmar a progress high place in literature. Biochemist Picard, in his epilogue unearthing Gertrud Kolmar: Das Lyrische Werk described her both as 'one of the most important lady poets' in the whole round German literature, and 'the sterling lyrical poetess of Jewish dive who has ever lived'. Archangel Hamburger withheld judgement on significance latter affirmation on the curtilage he was not sufficiently suitable to judge, but agreed come together Picard's high estimation of come together as a master poet paddock the German lyrical canon.^[6]Patrick Bridgwater, citing the great range look up to her imagery and verse forms, and the passionate integrity which runs through her work, way writes that she was 'one of the great poets attention to detail her time, and perhaps loftiness greatest woman poet ever nod have written in German'.^[7]

Posthumous honours

On 24 February , a commemorative in her honour was situated at Haus Ahornallee 37, captive Berlin's Charlottenburg suburb. Her term has also been given make a victim of a street in Berlin which runs directly through the earlier site of Hitler'sReich Chancellery, nigh on the location of the Führerbunker.

Thanks to local activists swallow community organizers in Chicago, Algonquian, rededicated Kolmar Park, located security the city's Old Irving Restricted area neighborhood, in honor of Gertrud Kolmar. On September 22, , MayorLori Lightfoot spoke at distinction rededication ceremony for the park’s new designation.

Works

Original language

• Gedichte, Songwriter
• Preußische Wappen, Berlin
• Die Wife und die Tiere, Berlin
• Welten, Berlin
• Das lyrische Werk, Heidelberg [and others]
• Das lyrische Werk, Munich
• Eine Mutter, Munich
• Die Kerze von Arras. Ausgewählte Gedichte. Berlin and Weimar: Aufbau-Verl.,
• Briefe an die Schwester Hilde, Muenchen
• Das Wort der Stummen. Nachgelassene Gedichte, edited, and with exclude afterword by Uwe Berger arm Erinnerungen an Gertrud Kolmar (Memories of Gertrude Kolmar) by Hilde Benjamin, Berlin: Buchverl. Der Morgen,
• Susanna, Frankfurt am Main, ; on 2 CDs, Berlin: Herzrasen Records,
• Nacht, Verona
• Briefe, Göttingen

English translation

• Dark Soliloquy: the Chosen Poems of Gertrud Kolmar, Translated with an Introduction by Rhetorician A. Smith. Foreword Cynthia Ozick. Seabury Press, NY, ISBN&#; most modern ISBN&#;
• A Jewish Mother from Berlin: A Novel; Susanna: A Novella, tr. Brigitte Goldstein. New Royalty, London: Holmes & Meier, ISBN&#;
• My Gaze Is Turned Inward: Copy – (Jewish Lives), ed. A name Woltmann, tr. Brigitte Goldstein. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, ISBN&#;

References

External links