Karen Gershon

Karen Gershon, born Kaethe Loewenthal (1923–1993) was a German-born British writer and poet. She escaped to Britain in December 1938.

Her book We came as Children: A Collective Autobiography uses a number of testimonies of kindertransport to construct a single account.

One of her best-known poems, I was not there, describes her feelings of guilt at not being there when her parents were murdered by the Nazis.

Works

UK

Poetry

• THE RELENTLESS YEAR New Poets 1959, Eyre & Spottiswoode 1960
• SELECTED POEMS Gollancz 1966
• LEGACIES AND ENCOUNTERS Gollancz 1972
• MY DAUGHTERS, MY SISTERS Gollancz 1975
• COMING BACK FROM BABYLON Gollancz 1979
• COLLECTED POEMS Macmillan, Papermac 1990
• GRACE NOTES (with drawings by Stella Tripp), Happy Dragons Press, 2002

Non-Fiction

• WE CAME AS CHILDREN London, Gollancz 1966, republished Macmillan, Papermac 1989
• POSTSCRIPT: A Collective Account of the Lives of Jews in West Germany Since the Second World War Gollancz 1969
• A LESSER CHILD (Autobiography, Vol.1) Peter Owen 1993

Fiction

• BURN HELEN Harvester Press 1980
• THE BREAD OF EXILE Gollancz 1985
• THE FIFTH GENERATION Gollancz 1987

U.S.A.

• WE CAME AS CHILDREN Harcourt Brace & World 1967
• SELECTED POEMS Harcourt Brace & World 1967
• A TEMPERED WIND (Autobiography, Vol.2, 1938–1943) Northwestern University Press 2009

Germany

• WIR KAMEN ALS KINDER Alibaba Verlag 1988
• DIE FÜNFTE GENERATION Alibaba Verlag 1988
• DAS UNTERKIND Rowohlt 1992
• MICH NUR ZU TRÖSTEN BESTIMMT Karin Fischer, Edition Roter Stein 2000

Sources

• Peter Lawson (2006): Anglo-Jewish Poetry from Isaac Rosenberg to Elaine Feinstein. Pub. Vallentine Mitchell.
• J. M. Ritchie, German-speaking Exiles in Great Britain, Rodopi, Amsterdam, 2001, ISBN 90-420-1537-3.
• Literary estate of Karen Gershon (see External Links).

External links

• Shmuel Huppert, Biography of Karen Gershon, Jewish Women's Archive
• Meinolf Schumacher, Bielefelder Literatur-Splitter (12): "Wilhelm Harms' House" (Karen Gershon)
• Website of Stella Tripp, daughter of Karen Gershon, executor of literary estate of Karen Gershon
• Website of Naomi Shmuel, daughter of Karen Gershon, site contains further information about Karen Gershon
• Poems by Karen Gershon, 16 poems read by the author (with text)