Karen Gershon

Karen Gershon, born Kaethe Loewenthal (29 August 1923 – 24 March 1993) was a German-born British writer and poet. She escaped to Britain in December 1938.

Her book We came as Children: A Collective Autobiography uses a number of testimonies of kindertransport to construct a single account.

One of her best-known poems, I was not there, describes her feelings of guilt at not being there when her parents were murdered by the Nazis.

Poetry

 * The Relentless Year New Poets 1959, Eyre & Spottiswoode 1960
 * Selected Poems Gollancz 1966 (published in the United States by Harcourt Brace & World in 1967)
 * Legacies and Encounters Gollancz 1972
 * My Daughters, My Sisters Gollancz 1975
 * Coming Back from Babylon Gollancz 1979
 * Collected Poems Macmillan, Papermac 1990
 * Grace Notes (with drawings by Stella Tripp), Happy Dragons Press, 2002

Non-Fiction

 * We came as children (Wir kamen als Kinder) London, Gollancz 1966, republished Macmillan, Papermac 1989 (published in the US by Harcourt Brace & World in 1967 and in Germany by Alibaba Verlag in 1988)
 * Postscript: A Collective Account of the Lives of Jews in West Germany Since the Second World War  Gollancz 1969

Fiction

 * Burn Helen Harvester Press 1980
 * The Bread of Exile Gollancz 1985
 * The Fifth Generation (Die Fünfte Generation) Gollancz 1987 (published in Germany Alibaba Verlag 1988)

Other

 * A Tempered Wind (Autobiography, Vol.2, 1938–1943) Northwestern University Press 2009
 * A Lesser Child (Das Unterkind) (Autobiography, Vol.1) Peter Owen 1993 (published in Germany Rowohlt 1992)
 * Only Meant to Comfort (Mich nur zu trösten bestimmt) Karin Fischer, Edition Roter Stein 2000 (in Germany)