Friederike Kempner

In 1864, she was able to establish her own residence at a family estate called Friederikenhof (Gierczyce) near Reichthal (Rychtal), where she wrote many of her works. Early in life, she developed an interest in general humanitarian questions, especially in hygiene, as well as in reforms of the prison system and the abolition of solitary confinement. Suffering from taphophobia like many of her contemporaries, she urgently advocated the introduction of morgues and a waiting time in cases of suspended animation. Kempner left a comprehensive oeuvre of pamphlets, as well as several novellas and theatre plays which, however, remained largely unheeded by literary critics. Some of her exalted poems attained notoriety for their unintentional humor; she was mocked as "The Silesian Swan" by editors like Paul Lindau and many parodies were created which later were occasionally even attributed to Kempner herself. This "literary heritage" prompted the author and critic Alfred Kempner (not a direct relative) to adopt the surname Kerr in 1887. In 1905 Sigmund Freud mocked the "involuntary comedy" of her poetry in "The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious," tr. Penguin, 2002, 208-09. Friedrike Kempner remained unmarried. She died at her Friederikenhof manor and is buried in the Old Jewish Cemetery, Wrocław.

• Gedichte, 2d ed., Breslau, 1852 (frequently republished) • Novellen, 1861 • Denkschrift über die Nothwendigkeit einer Gesetzlichen Einführung von Leichenhäusern), 1867 (republished five times) • Nettelbeck als Patriot und Kosmopolit, a novel, 1868 • Dramas • Berenice, 1860 • Rudolf der Zweite, 1867 • Antigonos, 1880