Selma Benjamin was born in 1919 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, daughter of orthodox Jews. She taught herself to read at 4 and has never stopped. She lost her adolescence while escaping from the tightening web of the Nazi Holocaust, to England where she met her life's love and had two daughters. They started a new life in the U.S.A. where English courses at UCLA inspired her to write poetic reflections and descriptions of her journeys.