[1][2] The daughter of Eduard Joseph Glaser, a Roman Catholic, and Ella Cohn, a Jew, she was born Elisabeth Theresia Glaser in Friedenau,[1] a suburb of Berlin, and grew up in Leipzig and Berlin.
By the age of 20, she was writing poetry and short stories that were published in local newspapers.
In 1933, she completed her first novel Der Ausgestoßene (The outcast); it was accepted for publication but was not released due to the political environment in Germany at the time.
However, after her father died in 1942, her mother was deported to the Sobibór extermination camp where she was murdered in the gas chambers.
A German version Auswege appeared in 1988; it was to be her last novel, although she continued to produce poetry, short stories and radio plays.