Not a Children’s Song
by Mascha Kaléko

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Mascha Kaléko was born in Western Galicia, but eventually settled in Berlin during her teenage years. She became involved in the Berlin literary scene and was a regular at the Romanisches Café, a known hangout for artists in Berlin.  In 1933, as the environment for Kaléko and her composer husband Chemjo Vinaver became increasingly more hostile, the couple decided to emigrate to Palestine and eventually to New York. Despite being well-known among German literary circles, Kaléko remained relatively obscure to the general public. Her poems are recognized for the simplicity of their style, which, despite their childlike quality, capture that little bit of melancholy in every day living. Each poem seems wrapped together with just enough irony to make the reader smile by the end even with that brief moment of sadness.

In 1958, the German-Jewish poet Jacob Picard wrote in a letter to Kaléko that her poems had a “tender resignation and melancholy” which gave them a distinctive charm. Correspondence between Jacob Picard and Mascha Kaléko exists in the archives of the Leo Baeck Institute.

In 1960, she was nominated for the Fontane Prize for literature, awarded by the Berlin Academy of the Arts, but declined the honor because a former member of the SS was on the jury. She died in Zuerich, Switzerland, in 1975.

Click here to learn more about the poet’s life.

Submitted by Tracey Beck, Leo Baeck Institute.