Selma Merbaum | © Yad Vashem
The slender body of work penned by Selma Merbaum (also known as Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger) came to poignantly epitomize the German-Jewish culture of Bukovina that was obliterated by National Socialism. In October 1941, Merbaum, her mother and her stepfather had to move to the ghetto established by Romanian troops in Chernivechchyna. In June 1942, the family was then removed from the ghetto, herded into cattle wagons and taken to the Cariera de Piatra (Bug River Quarry) camp. Forced to do hard labor building highway IV, Merbaum died of typhus and exhaustion in December 1942. Before being deported, she had been able to entrust her 57 hand-written poems to a friend.
“Selma Merbaum has been with me as the voice of a poet ever since my schooldays,” says lyricist and performance artist Nora-Eugenie Gomringer. “She was a relative of Paul Celans, an incredibly bright girl, as attested by the verses she penned and the few other sources that remain. I sing her verses and read them aloud. They are so impressive, so forceful, yet they waft around as if they were lost.” Gomringer (1980), head of the Villa Concordia International House of Artists in Bamberg since 2010, will devote this evening to Selma, her soulmate of choice. Ich habe keine Zeit gehabt zu Ende zu schreiben (I didn’t have time to finish writing) is the title given to a volume containing Merbaum’s poetry and her life story, put together by Marion Tauschwitz. A new edition (with a foreword by German actress Iris Berben) was recently published by Klampen Verlag.
This event has been organized in cooperation with the Kulturzentrum der Israelitischen Kultusgemeinde (Israelite Religious Community).
Tickets: 9 euros / 6 euros (discount rate). Lyrik Kabinett members receive free admission. For more information, please visit the Lyrik Kabinett website. The event will be held in German.
LMU and the Lyrik Kabinett have worked together very intensively for over 30 years. The more than 70,000 works subsumed under the Lyrik Kabinett Foundation are available via OPAC to everyone related to LMU. Numerous events provide a fascinating insight into the current poetic landscape.