18.09.2020
10:08
He stood out within the literary avant-garde of the 1930s in Berlin
September 16, 2020 Share on FacebookShare Share on TwitterTweet Share on WhatsAppShare
Mascha Kaléko
Doodle today, illustrated by the artist Ramona Ring, pays tribute to the German poet Mascha Kaléko, whose poems and songs won him considerable recognition within the literary avant – garde of the 1930s in Berlin. On September 16, 1974, Kaléko gave her final reading at the America Memorial Library in Berlin.
Although she became known as Mascha Kaléko, her birth name was Golda Malka Aufen. She was the daughter of Fischel Engel and Rozalia Chaja Reisel Aufen. The ridge was born on June 7, 1907 in Schidlow, Galicia, in what is now southern Poland. With the outbreak of World War I, she and her family fled the country for Germany and made a new home in Berlin in 1918.
His love of writing and poetry in particular began in adolescence. In 1925 Kaléko was hired as an apprentice at the Office for the Welfare of Jewish Organizations in Germany. During that time he alternated his work with study: he attended courses in philosophy and psychology, among others, at Lessing University and Friedrich-Wilhelm University.
On July 31, 1928, she married the Hebrew language teacher Saul Aaron Kaléko and adopted his surname. At the end of the 1920s he came into contact with the artistic avant-garde in Berlin and thus met Else Lasker-Schüler, Erich Kästner and Joachim Ringelnatz.
In 1929 he published his first poetry in the newspaper Der Querschnitt . With the publication of his works, his popularity grew little by little. In Kaléko’s poem Das Bißchen Ruhm (“A Little Glory,” 2003), he compares fame to plants that must be maintained with daily care, a concept reflected in today’s Doodle illustration.
In 1933, he published his first book, Das Lyrische Stenogrammheft (“Lyrical shorthand”), followed two years later by Kleine Lesebuch für Große (“The little reader for adults”). Kaléko’s work captured the essence of daily urban life during the decline of the Weimar Republic and, through satirical verses, explored important themes such as social injustice and exile.
Previous graphics made by artist Ramona Ring, author of today’s doodle
In December 1936, Kaléko’s son, Evjatar Alexander Michael, was born in Berlin. The boy’s father was director Chemjo Vinaver. On January 22, 1938, Saúl and Mascha Kaléko’s marriage was dissolved, and she married Chemjo Vinaver.
The family emigrated in September 1938 to the United States, where Kaléko dedicated himself to writing texts for advertising and poetry for children. He also published texts in the Jewish exile magazine Aufbau. During their stay, the family obtained US citizenship.
In 1960 she went to live, together with her husband, in Israel. Her son died repeatedly in New York in 1968. Her husband died in 1973 and she died on January 21, 1975, after suffering from stomach cancer.
Artist Ramona Ring, who resides in Hamburg and was in charge of the doodle design, said one of the things that made her feel like Kaleko was her sensitivity. “When I began to read Mascha’s poems, I was struck by the tender language he found to express the difficult feelings that arise from being lost and rootless, something that I can easily identify with.”
Asked about what she sought to reflect in the doodle that was published today, the artist explained the following on the official blog: “ I read many of her poems, and what I found convincing, among other things, was her metaphor of fame in Das Bißchen Ruhm – flowers in a greenhouse that you have to keep watering and caring for. I also liked how she talked about leaning against rain clouds in Die frühen Jahre – the clouds were a metaphor for the hardships she had to endure as a child. Those are the elements that I drew from his poetry that inspired Doodle’s artwork. ”
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