Her experiences resulting from the rise of the Nazis in World War II Europe transformed her into a poignant spokesperson for the grief and yearnings of her fellow Jews.

Her parents were the wealthy natural rubber and gutta-percha manufacturers Georg William Sachs (1858–1930) and his wife Margarete, née Karger (1871–1950).

As the Nazis took power, she became increasingly terrified, at one point losing the ability to speak, as she would remember in verse: "When the great terror came/I fell dumb."

[2] After her mother's death, Sachs suffered several psychotic breakdowns,[citation needed] characterized by hallucinations, paranoia, and delusions of persecution by Nazis, and spent a number of years in a mental institution.

But she maintained a forgiving attitude toward younger Germans, and corresponded with many German-speaking writers of the postwar period, including Hans Magnus Enzensberger and Ingeborg Bachmann.

[3] Sachs and Celan shared the Holocaust and the fate of the Jews throughout history, their interest in Jewish and Christian beliefs and practices, and their literary models; their imagery was often remarkably similar, though developed independently.

When Sachs met Celan she was embroiled in a long dispute with Finnish-Jewish composer Moses Pergament over his adaptation of her play Eli: Ein Mysterienspiel vom Leiden Israels.

The poetry she wrote as a young woman in Berlin is more inspired by Christianity than Judaism and makes use of traditional Romantic imagery and themes.

Sachs herself mourns no longer as a jilted lover but as a personification of the Jewish people in their vexed relationship with history and God.