Pola Groß (ZfL): Mascha Kaléko – Lyrikerin der Großstadt: von der Bleibtreustraße ins Exil

Towards the end of the Weimar Republic, German-Jewish author Mascha Kaléko (1907–1975) became famous for her cheerful and ironic as well as occasionally melancholic and serious urban poetry. Her early poetry is closely tied to the metropolis of Berlin. But throughout her career she kept referring to her former hometown. where she spent “a few shining years”. After having been banned from writing by the National Socialists, she was forced to flee Germany in 1938. She wrote her final complete poem in 1974. In it, Kaléko remembers Bleibtreustraße, where she once lived, as both her “joy” and her “misery.” The presentation will connect the different biographical stations of Kaléko’s life with her writing and oeuvre.

Reading by Irene Wagner, Professor of Speech Training in the Acting Program at Berlin University of the Arts.

Literarische Heimat Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf

Many authors who helped shape the cultural life of their time spent years of their lives in Berlin’s Wilmersdorf and Charlottenburg districts. In cooperation with the ZfL and the Acting program at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK), the Stadtbibliothek Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf presents some of these authors.

Fig. above: D.M. Nagu from the series Songs for a Future Generation (2020) (detail)