Lessie Sachs was born in Breslau in 1897. Her father was the neurologist Heinrich Sachs. She attended arts and crafts schools in Breslau and Munich, where she belonged to liberal student and artist organizations. Her first poems were published in the journal Simplicissimus . Later, several major German newspapers such as the Vossische Zeitung published her work. Some of her poems were also set to music and broadcast by several radio stations. She also practiced drawing and handicrafts. In 1933, she married the composer and pianist Josef Wagner. A year later, their daughter Dorothée was born. The family immigrated to the United States in 1938 and settled in New York, where Lessie Sachs continued to write and publish. Some of her works appeared in the German-Jewish newspaper Aufbau . Lessie Sachs died in 1942. A collection of her poems was published by her husband in New York in 1944 under the title Tag- und Nachtgedichte, with a foreword by Heinrich Mann.
From the guide to the Lessie Sachs Collection, 1931-1944, (Leo Baeck Institute Archives)
