Paula Buber

Paula Judith Buber, b. Winkler (born June 14, 1877 in Munich ; died August 11, 1958 in Venice ) was Martin Buber's wife and worked as a writer under the pseudonym Georg Munk.

Life

Paula was the daughter of the Catholic senior building officer Franz Winkler and his wife Fanny, geb. Pischler. After attending a monastery boarding school, she trained as a teacher. From 1896 she worked as a secretary for the architect and private scholar Friedrich Helvig Arndt, the husband of the writer Helene Böhlau . In their circle, she got to know the German-Jewish philosopher Theodor Lessing , who described her in his memoirs as "tough, brilliant, harmless" and "incredibly clever and imperious will".

In 1899 she met Martin Buber while studying German in Zurich. Since she could not be married according to the Jewish rite as a non-Jew, her children Rafael (1900–1990) and Eva (1901–1992) were born out of wedlock. In 1901 she left the Catholic Church. After their financial circumstances were secured due to the success of Rabbi Nachman's stories (1906), the Buber family moved to Berlin. There Paula converted to Judaism in January 1907, which made her official marriage to Martin Buber possible on April 20, 1907 and both of them being Austrian citizens, until they were naturalized in the Hessian state association in 1921 . In 1912 she published her first book under the pseudonym Georg Munk, the collection of novels The fake children of Adam . In 1914 she fell seriously ill with typhus . In 1916 the family moved from Berlin to Heppenheim . This is where the first part of Martin Buber's translation of the Bible and Me and You , which established his worldwide fame, was written.

In 1935 Paula was expelled from the Reichsschrifttumskammer because of “Jewish infiltration” . In March 1938 the Buber family emigrated to Palestine , where Martin took up a chair at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem . Paula's novel Muckensturm. A year in the life of a small town , was created between 1938 and 1940 and describes the beginnings of National Socialism in a small German town. However, Paula Buber had difficulties finding a publisher. The book was only published by Lambert Schneider in 1953 .

During the November pogroms on November 9, 1938, her house in Heppenheim was devastated and the furniture and parts of the library she had left behind were destroyed.

Paula Buber died in Venice in 1958 when she was returning from a trip to the USA and Europe with Martin Buber.

Works (selection)

• Reflections by a Philozionist , in the Zionist magazine Die Welt , 1901
• Stories of Rabbi Nachman , Hasidic Tales, 1906 (together with Martin Buber)
• The fake children of Adam , collection of short stories. Leipzig: Insel, 1912
• Astray . Novel. Leipzig: Insel, 1916
• St. Gertraudens Minne . Legend. Leipzig: Insel, 1921
• The willow mother , 1927
• The living water . Family novel. Wiesbaden: Insel, 1952
• Muckensturm. A year in the life of a small town . Heidelberg: Lambert Schneider, 1953

literature

• Sieglinde Denzel, Susanne Naumann: "On the living water". Paula Buber June 14, 1877 - August 11, 1958. In: Esther Röhr (Ed.): I am what I am. Women alongside great theologians and religious philosophers of the 20th century , Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 1997, ISBN 3-579-02212-1 ; 2nd edition 1998; as paperback: 2001, ISBN 3-579-00549-9 .
• Buber, Paula. In: Lexicon of German-Jewish Authors . Volume 4: Brech-Carle. Edited by the Bibliographia Judaica archive. Saur, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-598-22684-5 , pp. 302-303.
• Nassrin Elisabeth Sadeghi: Paula Buber. Skills of self and femininity in the work of the German-Jewish author , Univ., Phil. Diss., Giessen 2015

Web links

• Literature by and about Georg Munk alias Paula Judith Buber in the catalog of the German National Library
• Elisabeth Verden: From a long distance , Die Zeit, October 9, 1952 No. 41

Footnotes

1. ↑ Once and never again . Memories, published from the estate in 1969, p. 365ff