Nelly Sachs

 

(1891–1970) was a German-born Jewish poet and playwright whose quiet but powerful voice emerged from one of the darkest chapters of human history. Born in Berlin on 10 December 1891, she grew up in a cultured and educated family and began writing at a young age. Yet it was only after the age of fifty, shaped by exile and loss, that her most important work came into being.

In 1940, as the Nazi persecution of Jews intensified, she fled Germany with her mother and found refuge in Sweden, thanks in part to the intervention of the Swedish Nobel laureate . Many of her relatives and friends did not survive the Holocaust. Living in Stockholm as an exile, often in fragile health and emotional distress, Sachs transformed her grief into poetry of rare spiritual depth.

Her writings speak of Jewish suffering, exile, and the destiny of Israel, yet they do so not in anger or political protest, but in language that resembles prayer. Drawing from biblical imagery and Jewish mysticism, her poems are filled with symbols such as stars, ashes, angels, and dust. She sought to give voice to those who had been silenced, turning mourning into lyrical remembrance. Among her best-known works are In the Dwellings of Death (1947), one of the earliest poetic responses to the Holocaust, and the dramatic work Eli: A Mystery Play of the Sufferings of Israel, which reflects deeply on Jewish pain and faith.

On her seventy-fifth birthday in 1966, she was awarded the , which she shared with the Hebrew writer . The Nobel Committee honored her “for her outstanding lyrical and dramatic writing, which interprets Israel’s destiny with touching strength.” With this award, she became the first Jewish woman to receive a Nobel Prize in any field.

Nelly Sachs lived a simple and largely secluded life in Stockholm until her death on 12 May 1970. She never married and remained deeply devoted to her writing, which continues to be read as a testimony of faith, suffering, and spiritual endurance. For those unfamiliar with her, she stands as a gentle yet profound witness of the twentieth century—one who turned exile into poetry and sorrow into enduring light.