Miriam Merzbacher-Blumenthal collection 1878-2009 1927-1975, 1995-2003

The collection includes memoirs, poems, notes, correspondence, photographs and clippings pertaining to Miriam Merzbacher-Blumenthal, to her husband Peter and to her mother Ilse Blumenthal-Weiss. Materials concentrate on the 1940s, when Miriam Merzbacher-Blumenthal and her mother Ilse Blumenthal-Weiss lived in Amsterdam and New York, as well as on correspondence from the 1950s and 1960s.Four extensive manuscripts of a doctoral dissertation on the poet Ilse-Blumenthal-Weiss by Beatrix Marguerre Pollack in addition to background information on the author have been removed to the LBI Manuscript Collection (The doctoral dissertation was published by UMI Dissertation Services, Ann Arbor, Mich, 1994.)Books from the private library of Miriam Merzbacher-Blumenthal, pertaining to German literature and German-Jewish topics, including signed copies by Hermann Hesse, Rainer Maria Rilke, Nelly Sachs and others, have been removed to the LBI Library.Miriam Merzbacher-Blumenthal was born on March 7, 1927, the daughter of Ilse Blumenthal-Weiss and Herbert Blumenthal. The Blumenthal-Weiss family lived in Berlin until 1937, when the parents, their daughter Miriam and her older brother Peter emigrated to Holland. Herbert, who was a dentist, and Peter Blumenthal were deported to Mauthausen and Auschwitz concentration camps and killed. Ilse and Miriam survived Westerbork and Theresienstadt concentration camps. In 1947 they immigrated to the United States.Ilse Blumenthal-Weiss started writing poetry as a child. She was a successful writer, who published several books and exchanged letters with, among others, Rainer Maria Rilke and with her friends Nelly Sachs and Hermann Hesse.Miriam Merzbacher-Blumenthal married Peter Merzbacher in the late 1940s.The couple had two children and lived in New York City until 1961 before moving to Connecticut. Peter Merzbacher was born on December 4, 1910 in Nuremberg, Germany. Most of his family lived in Nuremburg and Munich. After emigrating from Nazi-Germany in 1936, Peter lived in Brazil for 10 years before immigrating to the United States.Finding aid available online.See also the Ilse Blumenthal-Weiss collection, AR 1020.Processeddigitize