Herman Taube was born to Jewish parents in Lodz, Poland in 1918. Orphaned at an early age, he was brought up by his religious grandfather. In pre-war Lodz, Herman became a yeshiva student and a voracious reader of Polish and Yiddish books. During the war, Herman lived as an exile in Uzbekestan and served as a medic in the Second Polish Army with whom he was stationed in Majdanek. He participated in the liberation of Poland and administered medical care to those who survived the camps. In 1947, he immigrated to American with his wife Susan Taube. He has authored 17 novels and books of poetry and has been a frequent contributor to the Yiddish Forward and a columnist for the Washington Jewish Week.