Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger

At an early age she began to study literature. Her work shows a heavy influence from those she studied: Heinrich Heine, Rainer Maria Rilke, [[Klabund]Tagore]]. In 1939 she began to write poetry, and was already a skilled translator, being able to translate between French, Romanian, Yiddish and her native German. After German troops invaded in July 1941, and the region where she lived was ceded to the Soviet Union in 1940, the family was forced to relocate to the city's ghetto. In 1942 the family was deported to the Mikhailovka labor camp in Transnistria, where Selma soon died of typhus. Meerbaum-Eisinger's work comprises 57 poems, which were written in pencil and hand-bound into a volume named Blütenlese (English: Blossom Vintage/The Reaping of Blossoms). Fifty-two poems were her own and the rest were translations from French (Paul Verlaine), Yiddish (Itzik Manger, H. Leivick), and Romanian (Discipol Mihnea). The volume was dedicated to her love and best friend, Lejser Fichman, a year her senior. It was planned that Fichman would give the book of poems to another friend of Meerbaum-Eisinger's, who would have the book published upon its arrival in Mandatory Palestine. Her poems were rediscovered and published by Tel Aviv University in 1979, edited by Adolf Rauchwerger. In 1980 they were then published in Germany, through the efforts of journalist and researcher Jürgen Serke. The lost volume was published in its entirety under the title Ich bin in Sehnsucht eingehüllt (English: I am engulfed in longing). An audiobook of the poems was produced in November 2005.

• Born — 5 February 1924 • Birthplace — Cernăuţi, Kingdom of Romania • Died — 16 December 1942 • Place of death — Mykhailivka, Kingdom of Romania • Occupation — Poet