Google honors Nelly Sachs, Jewish poet who escaped Nazi Germany

USA TODAY
On Monday, Google honored Nelly Sachs, the Nobel-winning poet who escaped Nazi Germany, with a doodle on the anniversary of her birth 127 years ago.

Google is using its logo Monday to pay tribute to Nelly Sachs, a Jewish poet who escaped Nazi Germany and later wrote about the aftermath of World War II.

Sachs was born on December 10, 1891, according to Google. While living with her family in Berlin, she started writing as an adolescent, publishing poetry in German periodicals.

With the help of Swedish writer Selma Lagerlöf, Sachs and her mother escaped Germany at the start of World War II.

While in Sweden working as a translator, Sachs wrote poems about what happened during and after the war, and the suffering of the Jewish people.

In one poem, called “O die Schornsteine" ("O the Chimneys"), Sachs uses the imagery of smoke rising from concentration camps to represent the spirits of those who died. Google's doodle features a typewriter with smoke rising from buildings in the background.

In 1966, Sachs was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for "her outstanding lyrical and dramatic writing, which interprets Israel's destiny with touching strength," said the organization. Sachs died in 1970.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Google honors Nelly Sachs, Jewish poet who escaped Nazi Germany