In 1938 she was stripped of her German citizenship and the outbreak of World War II prevented any return to Europe. According to her first Hebrew translator, Yehuda Amihai, she lived a life of poverty and the children in the neighborhood mocked her for her eccentric dress and behavior. She formed a literary salon called “Kraal,” which Martin Buber, the philosopher, opened on January 10, 1942, at the French Cultural Center.” Some leading Jewish writers and promising poets attended her literary programs, but Lasker-Schüler eventually was banned from giving readings and lectures because they were held in German. She begged the head of the German synagogue in Jerusalem to let her use his Gotteshaus (house of God) one more time:  “Wherever I was, German is not allowed to be spoken. I want to arrange the last Kraal evening for a poet who is already broken, to recite from his translations [into German] of a great Hebrew” (Letter to Rabbi Kurt Wilhelm, Else Lasker-Schüler Archive, Jerusalem, cited in Bauschinger, p. 270). In her final years, Lasker-Schüler worked on her drama "IchundIch (IandI)", which remained a fragment. However, she finished her volume of poems, "Mein Blaues Klavier" (1943, My Blue Piano), printed in a limited edition of 330 copies. “[H]er literary farewell became her last attempt to overcome loneliness. Significantly, she dedicated the work to “my unforgettable friends in the cities of Germany and to those, like me, exiled and dispersed throughout the world, in good faith.” In one of her final acts, she asked that her hometown of Wuppertal and its surrounding area be spared from Allied bombing." She tended to spend whatever money she had all at once which made her go for days without food or shelter. Heinz Gerling and the poet Manfred Schturmann came to her aid. Gerling opened a bank account for her and arranged for regular payments to cover her expenses whereas Schturmann edited her work and helped with her dealings with publishers. After her death Schturmann became the trustee of her legacy and during the 1950s and '60s dealt extensively with publishers in East and West Germany, Switzerland and Austria who wished to publish her works. In 1944 Lasker-Schüler's health deteriorated. She suffered a heart attack on January 16, and died in Jerusalem on January 22, 1945.