Rose Auslaender Manuscript Collection

Rose Ausländer was born on May 11, 1901 in Czernowitz, Bukowina, then part of Austria (today Chernivtsi, Ukraine) as Rosalie Beatrice Scherzer, the daughter of Sigmund and Kathi (née Binder) Scherzer. In 1914, with the outbreak of World War I, the family fled to Vienna, where they stayed until after the end of the war, when they returned to Czernowitz (then Cernăuţi, Romania). In 1919 she began studying literature and philosophy; at this time she also became involved with the philosophy of Constantin Brunner and attended the "Ethical Seminar" in Czernowitz.

In April 1921 Rose immigrated with Ignaz Ausländer to the United States, where Rose had family. For two years she stayed with her relatives in Mississippi before settling in New York City in July 1923. That October she married Ignaz Ausländer; in November 1926 she and her husband became naturalized American citizens. Her first published poem appeared in the New Yorker Volkszeitung in 1929. In 1931 she returned to Czernowitz to care for her mother, where she stayed for some time, although she returned briefly to New York in 1934; by December she had immigrated to Bucharest. During this time her poems were published in various newspapers. In 1937 she lost her American citizenship due to her lack of American residence. Prior to the outbreak of World War II she worked with the literary magazine Klingsor and the Czernowitz newspapers Morgenblatt and Der Tag.

In 1939 Der Regenbogen, her first book of poetry, was published. That August and September she was in New York but in October 1939 returned to Czernowitz to care for her mother. She survived the Nazi era in the ghetto of Czernowitz. After the war she left Czernowitz and came to New York in September 1946, where she supported herself by working as a translator and correspondent. In 1949 Rose Ausländer's first poem in English was published; for the next several years she wrote primarily in English, until 1956. The newspapers Aufbau and Staatszeitung-Harold published some of her poetry as well as her book reviews, while some of her English poetry appeared in literary journals and her translations of others' poetry in anthologies.

In 1965 she moved to Düsseldorf, where she lived until her death on January 3, 1988.