Auslaender, Rose, 1901-1988

Rose Ausländer was born on May 11, 1901 in Czernowitz, Bukowina, then part of Austria (today Chernivtsi, Ukraine) as Rosalie Beatrice Scherzer, the daughter of Sigmund and Kathi (née Binder) Scherzer. In 1914, with the outbreak of World War I, the family fled to Vienna, where they stayed until after the end of the war, when they returned to Czernowitz (then Cernăuţi, Romania). In 1919 she began studying literature and philosophy; at this time she also became involved with the philosophy of Constantin Brunner and attended the "Ethical Seminar" in Czernowitz.

In April 1921 Rose immigrated with Ignaz Ausländer to the United States, where Rose had family. For two years she stayed with her relatives in Mississippi before settling in New York City in July 1923. That October she married Ignaz Ausländer; in November 1926 she and her husband became naturalized American citizens. Her first published poem appeared in the New Yorker Volkszeitung in 1929. In 1931 she returned to Czernowitz to care for her mother, where she stayed for some time, although she returned briefly to New York in 1934; by December she had immigrated to Bucharest. During this time her poems were published in various newspapers. In 1937 she lost her American citizenship due to her lack of American residence. Prior to the outbreak of World War II she worked with the literary magazine Klingsor and the Czernowitz newspapers Morgenblatt and Der Tag .

...