Nelly Sachs
Nelly Sachs
Nelly Sachswas a Jewish German poet and playwright whose experiences resulting from the rise of the Nazis in World War II Europe transformed her into a poignant spokeswoman for the grief and yearnings of her fellow Jews. Her best-known play is Eli: Ein Mysterienspiel vom Leiden Israels; other works include the poems "Zeichen im Sand", "Verzauberung", and the collections of poetry In den Wohnungen des Todes, Flucht und Verwandlung, Fahrt ins Staublose, and Suche nach Lebenden...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth10 December 1891
CitySchoneberg, Germany
CountryGermany
I think of what my father used to say on every tenth of December, back in my home town, Berlin: Now they celebrate the Nobel ceremony in Stockholm.
World, they have taken the small children like butterflies and thrown them, beating their wings, into the fire--
We breathed the air of freedom without knowing the language or any person.
Instead of a homeland I hold the metamorphoses of the world.
But silence is where victims dwell.
When sleep leaves the body like smoke and man, sated with secrets, drives the overworked nag of quarrel out of its stall, then the fire-breathing union begins anew . . .