In 1961 Sachs won the first Nelly Sachs Prize, a literary award given biennially by the German city of Dortmund and named in her honour. The city commissioned Walter Steffens to compose the opera "Eli" based on her mystery play, which premiered at the new opera house in 1967. When, with Shmuel Yosef Agnon, she was awarded the 1966 Nobel Prize in Literature, she observed that Agnon represented Israel whereas "I represent the tragedy of the Jewish people." She read her poem "In der Flucht" at the ceremony.