Else Lasker-Schüler Collection

This collection contains letters and cards sent by Else Lasker-Schüler to Carl Seelig, Georg Koch, members of the Asher family and others, as well as 3 handwrittens drafts of poems which appear in Lasker-Schüler's Hebräische Balladen .

The three manuscript poem do not vary in terms of textual content from their corresponding published versions, "Zebaoth," "Jakob und Esau," and "Sulamith" in Hebräische Balladen . Most of the letters and cards date from the period of Lasker-Schüler's exile in Switzerland and are personal and informal in nature. A few items date from her Berlin years, notably a card to Walther Rathenau (1921) and three cards to the artist Georg Koch. In addition, a few items of the correspondence were sent while on visits to Jerusalem, and one card dates to her final years there. The correspondence paints a vivid picture of the author's experience of displacement and of various experiences and hardships, personal, financial, and bureaucratic, that she had in Switzerland. A few of the letters contain drawings, some within the text of the letter and a couple on separate sheets included with the letter. Some of the correspondence has been translated into English (see folder 11). The final folder contains a a photo of Laker-Schüler's gravesite in Jerusalem, a German commerative postage stamp bearing her image, and finally an illustrated brochure advertisement for the Gesamtausgabe in zehn Bänden published by Paul Cassirer in 1919-1920.