Margarete Kollisch (born December 9, 1893, in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

; died October 11, 1979, in

Staten Island Staten Island ( ) is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located in the city's southwest portion, the borough is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull an ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

) was an Austrian writer and poet who fled from the Nazis and continued her artistic creation in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

Biography

Kollisch was born Margarete Moller in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

as the daughter of the lawyer Ignaz Moller (1859–1937) and Hermine Moller née Bunzl-Federn (1870–1928). She attended a girls' school in Vienna and then studied

philology Philology () is the study of language in oral and writing, written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defin ...

at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich histor ...

. In 1917, she earned her teaching degree. During World War I, she worked as a nurse, earning a silver medal from the

Red Cross The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a Humanitarianism, humanitarian movement with approximately 97 million Volunteering, volunteers, members and staff worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ensure re ...

. She also worked as a

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

and

translator Translation is the communication of the Meaning (linguistic), meaning of a #Source and target languages, source-language text by means of an Dynamic and formal equivalence, equivalent #Source and target languages, target-language text. The ...

for the French Embassy in Vienna. In 1923, she married

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

Otto Kollisch, and the couple had three children: Steve, Peter, and Eva. After their youngest son, Peter, was born in 1928 the family moved to

Baden near Vienna Baden (German language, German for "Bath (disambiguation), Baths"; Central Bavarian: ''Bodn''), unofficially distinguished from Baden (disambiguation), other Badens as Baden bei Wien (Baden near Vienna), is a spa town in Austria. It serves as the ...

. When the

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...

annexed Austria, the family prepared to leave the country. In 1939, their children fled Austria on a

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. Otto Kollisch immigrated to the United States via England, and Margarete immigrated via the Netherlands, arriving in the U.S. in October 1939. Their three children joined them in 1940, and the family settled in the

borough of

. Margarete Kollisch worked as a

massage therapist Massage is the manipulation of the body's soft tissues. Massage techniques are commonly applied with hands, fingers, elbows, knees, forearms, feet or a device. The purpose of massage is generally for the treatment of body stress or pain. In Eu ...

and gave private language instruction for most of the remainder of her life. Her youngest daughter, Eva Kollisch, has become a noted author as well and a professor for German, Comparative Literature, and Women's Studies at the

Sarah Lawrence College Sarah Lawrence College is a Private university, private liberal arts college in Yonkers, New York. The college models its approach to education after the Supervision system, Oxford/Cambridge system of one-on-one student-faculty tutorials. Sara ...

. Eva Kollisch went to great lengths to review and preserve her mother's work.

Creative writing career

Kollisch published many works in German, Austrian, and U.S.-American newspapers and journals throughout her life. After immigrating to the United States, Kollisch became part of a circle of writers in exile alongside Mimi Grossberg and others. She published the first anthology of her poetry, ''Wege und Einkehr'' (''Paths and Retreats''), in 1960 A second collection of poetry, ''Unverlorene Zeit'' (''Unlost Time''), followed in 1971. Her work was considered to fall into late romantic poetry, following

Rilke René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke (4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926), shortened to Rainer Maria Rilke (), was an Austrian poet and novelist. He has been acclaimed as an idiosyncratic and expressive poet, and is widely recogni ...

and other German-language romantic poets. She also published work in the Austrian journal ''Literatur und Kritik'' alongside Mimi Grossberg, Maria Berl Lee, and Rose Ausländer. She was accepted into the Austrian PEN-Club in 1978.Wie wir hoeren
" ''Aufbau.'' March 31, 1978. A third collection of Kollisch's poetry, ''Rückblendung'', was published posthumously in 1981.

References

External links

*

at the

University at Albany The State University of New York at Albany, commonly referred to as the University at Albany, UAlbany or SUNY Albany, is a public research university with campuses in Albany, Rensselaer, and Guilderland, New York. Founded in 1844, it is one ...

State University of New York The State University of New York (SUNY, , ) is a system of public colleges and universities in the State of New York. It is one of the largest comprehensive system of universities, colleges, and community colleges in the United States. Led by c ...

. {{DEFAULTSORT:Kollisch, Margarete 1893 births 1979 deaths Writers from Vienna Yiddish-language poets American people of Austrian-Jewish descent Austrian Jews Austrian women poets Jewish poets University of Vienna alumni 20th-century poets 20th-century American women writers 20th-century Austrian women writers Jewish emigrants from Austria after the Anschluss to the United States Jewish women writers