SHOSHANE (SUSANNE, SUSAN) TAUBE

SHOSHANE (SUSANNE, SUSAN) TAUBE (b. January 9, 1926)

            She was born in Vacha, Thüringen Province, Germany.  Until 1936 she studied in the local school, later moving with her parents to Frankfurt, where until 1940 she studied Jewish and general subject matter in a religious school.  She spent 1940-1941 in Berlin, after which she was sent to the Sophienwalde sub-camp of Stutthof (Sztutowo) concentration camp.  She was liberated on March 9, 1945, and from 1947 she was living in the United States.  She began writing in German, later switching to Yiddish.  She debuted in print with stories (reworked from her diary which she kept in the concentration camp) in Forverts (Forward) in New York and in Dos naye lebn (The new life) in Lodz—republished in Yiddish, Polish, German, and other periodicals.  Among her books: Di umfargeslekhe, fartseykhnungen (The unforgotten, notes), translated from German by her husband Herman Taube (Baltimore, 1948), 142 pp.  Her book Gedenk (Remember), stories and reportage pieces published in Yiddish journals was translated by Helena Frank into English and appeared as Remember (London, 1951), 182 pp., with a foreword by Henry Turk.  She was last living in Baltimore.

Sources: Y. M. Kertsh, in Forverts (New York) (September 5, 1948); M. Gaft, in Nyu yorker vokhnblat (New York) (August 1948); N. Mayzil, in Yidishe kultur (New York) (July 1950); M. Tavitsh, in Yorbukh tsh”y (New York, 1950), p. 85; M. Shochet, in The Jewish News (Baltimore) (September 28, 1951).

Khayim Leyb Fuks