Rosey E. Pool

Rosey E. Pool
Born (1905-05-07)7 May 1905
Amsterdam
Died 29 September 1971(1971-09-29) (aged 66)
London
Nationality Dutch
Occupation Writer, educator

Rosey E. Pool (7 May 1905, Amsterdam – 29 September 1971, London) was a Dutch writer, poet, educator and translator. Rosey Pool was born and raised in a secular Jewish family in Amsterdam. In the 1920s Rosey Pool participated in Dutch socialist youth movements such as the Arbeiders Jeugd Centrale and the Sociaal Democratische Studenten Club (SDSC). In 1927 she was one of the founders of the Socialistische Kunstenaars Kring (SKK, Socialist Artists Group). Shortly after she got engaged to the Berlin jurist and later Hamburg senator Gerhard Kramer (1904–1973) in August 1927, Pool moved to Berlin. There she studied English Literature at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität (currently known as the Humboldt University). There she wrote her dissertation on The Poetry of the American Negro, which she was unable to finish because of anti-Jewish measures by the Nazis. In 1935 Kramer and Pool divorced. From Berlin, Pool helped German Jews to flee to the Netherlands, by providing them addresses. In January 1939, shortly after the Kristallnacht, Pool returned to Amsterdam.

During the Second World War she taught at the Jewish Lyceum in Amsterdam (with Anne Frank amongst her pupils). Pool became involved in a German Jewish resistance group named Van Dien, which had formed around the Tehuis Oosteinde.[1] In September 1943, this resistance group helped her to escape from the Nazi transit camp Westerbork. She hides in the town of Baarn, and writes resistance poetry and compiles a bundle of African American poetry.

After 1945 Pool became involved in the Black Arts Movement, both in Britain and the United States. In the United States she contributed to the emancipation of African Americans in the Civil Rights Movement by comparing anti-Jewish measures of the Nazis with the segregation of the American South. Rosey Pool established correspondence with famous writers and poets, such as Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, W.E.B. Du Bois, Naomi Madgett, Owen Dodson, Gordon Heath, and Robert Hayden.

In 1966 Pool was a jury member at the World Festival of Black Arts, held in Dakar, Senegal. The jury awards prizes to the poet Robert Hayden and Nelson Mandela.[2] In 1966 Pool became a follower of the Bahá'í Faith.

Bibliography (selection)

Translator
Works authored by Pool
Secondary literature

References

  1. ↑ Ben Braber, Passage naar vrijheid. Joods verzet in Nederland 1940–1945. Balans, 1987, p. 31, 76.
  2. ↑ 'Literary Awards at Dakar', Negro Digest, Vol. XV, No. 8 (June 1966), 88–91:89.
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