Background
Ilse Blumenthal-Weiss was born on 14 October 1899 in Berlin to Gottlieb Weiss, a clothing store owner, and Hedwig Weiss-Brock.
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Ilse Blumenthal-Weiss
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A survivor of Westerbork and Theresienstadt concentration camps, she wrote largely about the Holocaust. She trained to become a teacher in physical education and worked as an orthopedic specialist, although she had also written poetry from a young age. She published her first volume of poems, Gesicht und Maske ("Face and Mask"), in 1929.
She corresponded with the Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke, and their letters were published in Briefe aus Muzot in 1935.
In 1937, being Jewish, Blumenthal-Weiss fled Nazi Germany. While living in New York, she published three more collections of poetry: Das Schlüsselwunder (1954.
"The Key Miracle"), Mahnmal (1957. "Memorial"), and Ohnesarg (1984.
"Coffinless"). Most of the poems contained therein focused on the Holocaust and its victims.
She also worked as a librarian at the Leo Baeck Institute, New New York She died on 10 August 1987 in Greenwich, Connecticut.
