Mustapha F. came to Sicily from Gambia. He had to spend several months in different reception camps until he came to Palermo. Since then he has been going to school, learning Italian and, like many others, working part-time (often several jobs and usually without an employment contract).
With this cinematic meditation on Hannah Arendt's Paris years, We Refugees Archive pays tribute to its eponym. Arendt's essay "We Refugees" sprang from her experiences as a refugee in Paris.
The Hungarian communist, writer, journalist and antifascist activist Paul-Adolphe Löffler (1901-1979) describes Paris in his diary as a dazzling place of longing, which, however, regularly disappoints him. As a refugee with forged papers, he arrives by train at Gare de l'Est, where the city immediately robs him of his illusions: Paris seems less beautiful and sunny than expected, but the hope for a brighter future remains.
"Asylum is only a marginal part of my life. I don't live to get it." The musician Bahila H. comes from Syria and now lives in Berlin. She is studying architecture at the Brandenburg Technical University Cottbus-Senftenberg, continues to make music and hopes for a life in Berlin away from traditions and the suppression of opinions.
Human rights lawyer Esin B. talks about the living conditions of refugees in Istanbul and newly created immigration regulations in Turkey, which are compatible with international human rights, but bring legal problems.
This film describes the arrival of Hannah Arendt - a Jewish, German-American political theorist and publicist - in New York and her reflections on flight and helping people start over.
In this film, refugee South Asian LGBTQ+ activist Barbara Khan talks about her migration from Pakistan and her life in New York as a trans woman.
Fatima D. goes to school and receives training as a musician at the conservatory. Her future dream is to become a singer and musician. Her wish came about through a spontaneous encounter with a drum teacher who saw her playing the djembé.
Among the more than 10,000 Jews who were stranded in Vilnius in the fall of 1939 there was the librarian and political activist Herman Kruk from Warsaw. His exceptional diary records and press reports sketch a mosaic of the heterogenous society of refugees in Vilnius since the beginning of the war.
Berlin-born Romance philologist, literary and cultural scholar Erich Auerbach (1892-1957), now considered the founder of the discipline of comparative literature thanks to Palestinian postcolonial…
In excerpts from the diary Berlin-New York Aufzeichnungen 1933 bis 1945, Hertha Nathorff vividly describes the destruction of her life, which was incomprehensible to…
Harry Asher- originally Georg Auscher – born in Vienna in 1907. In 1920 the family moved to Czechoslovakia, where his parents came from. At…
Berlin-born Romance philologist, literary and cultural scholar Erich Auerbach (1892-1957), now considered the founder of the discipline of comparative literature thanks to Palestinian postcolonial…
In the chaos of war, Moyshe Mandelman (1895-1963) made it to Vilnius in 1940. He was particularly impressed by the local Jewish aid networks…
Aliou B. left Guinea alone at the age of thirteen. On his way via Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Libya, he experienced hunger, mistreatment…
Because of his political and journalistic activities, İsa Artar came under state pressure and police observation in Turkey. Before he was sentenced to a…
In March 1933, Ernst Eduard Hirsch was dismissed from his position as a tenured judge in Frankfurt am Main and as a private lecturer…
Polish-Jewish refugee journalists and writers having dinner in their dormitory in Sadowa Street 9, 1939/40.
In an interview with the We Refugees Archive Team, Chinese human rights activist and political exilee Teng Biao talks about how he arrived in…
Ummuahmed fled the war in Syria in 2012, together with her family. Since then they live in Istanbul and run a small shop there.…
In this letter Friederike Ergas describes the living situation of her friends Jenny Schaffer Bernstein and Otto Bernstein who urgently need financial support from…
Mahdi, who decided to flee Iran at the age of fourteen and has been living in Berlin ever since, tells where and from whom…
A letter from Emanuel Ringelblum to Raphael Mahler
The German architect and urban planner Bruno Taut had come to Turkey from his first exile in Japan in 1935 as the head of…
George Edel, a Jewish doctor from Vienna (who converted to Christianity), tells of the flight preparations in the wake of the annexation of Austria…
Mendel Balberyszski (1894-1966) was born in Vilnius but had been living in Łódź for over a decade at the outbreak of the Second World…
Itzel Tzab was born in La Libertad, Petén in Guatemala. She grew up in rural poverty, where her family experienced deadly assaults by violent…
The Austrian writer Joseph Roth (1894–1939) did not wait long and left Berlin shortly after Hitler’s seizure of power. By February 1933, he was…
Barry Chukudi is from Nigeria, from Biafra. He fled to Turkey in 2013 due to the violence of the Nigerian military in the struggle…
In an interview with the We Refugees Archive Team, Iranian Political Exilee and Coordinator of the Committee on Forced Migration at Columbia University Kian…
Mendel Balberyszski (1894-1966) was born in Vilnius but had been living in Łódź for over a decade at the outbreak of the Second World…
In an interview with the We Refugees Archive team, the political refugee and activist Sami[1. name changed] from Syria, talks about his American identity…
In this letter Anna Seghers vouches for Lothar Freud and Lukas Lehman to receive aid from the American Guild for German Cultural Freedom, so…
In a letter from 1946, Fred Stein describes the flight story of his family in detail to his friends and relatives. After Fred and…
Edith Hillinger, born in Berlin in 1933, fled with her parents from Nazi Germany to Istanbul in 1937. Her father Franz Hillinger worked in…
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Photo collection by the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
Itzel Tzab was born in La Libertad, Petén in Guatemala.She grew up in rural poverty, where her family experienced deadly assaults by violent neighbors.…
In this letter of May 27, 1938, to the Latin and Greek teacher Johannes Oeschger, the German Romance scholar and literary scholar Erich Auerbach…
In this Interview, Alexandra Sadownik rembers how it was when her family arrived in Germany in 1998. For several years, Alexandra lived in a…
Raymonde, Marceline and Bonifacia Sanchez talk about the role of Spanish and French in their lives, their role as mediators between and facilitators for…
In her 1984 memoirs, Susanne Friedmann-Kirsch (born 1926) describes her family’s flight migration – a “three-year odyssey” – from Vienna after the Anschluss in…
Khatereh Rahmani describes her attempt, despite separation from her family and uncertainty about the future, to build her new life and everyday life in…
Soviet People’s Commissar, Communist politician and Marxist theorist Leon Trotsky spent 4 years of his exile in Istanbul before exiling to France. Trotsky originally…
In this interview, the political refugee and activist Sami[1. name changed] from Syria, presents his thoughts and experiences on the topics: Support Networks for…
The Women’s International Zionist Organization (WIZO), the largest international charitable women’s organization in the world, in cooperation with other organizations and under the leadership…
In a diary entry in New York on June 20, 1941, the poet Mascha Kaléko (1907-1975) describes the many, mainly material, worries as a…
Herman Kruk was a refugee from Warsaw who wrote reports on the refugee situation in Vilnius for the Yiddish magazine Folks-gezunt (Public Health) of…
The history of the Asile de Nuit, Asile de Jour et Créche Israelites (Jewish night asylum, day asylum and day nursery) dates back to…
Fé Garcia Petit tells of workers resistance, solidarity and sexism.
Kadija J. has lived in Palermo for over two years. In the interview, she talks about her reasons to come to Europe, her visions…
In this text, written by Thomas Mann (1875-1955), he explains his opinion about the foundation of the German Academy in New York in connection…
In this letter, the German architect and city planner Martin Wagner who emigated to Istanbul in 1935, asks Ernst Jäckh, who lives in London…
In this letter Anna Seghers asks Prince Löwenstein why he has not gotten back to her, even though he said that he would get…
Otto Bernstein and his wife Jenny Schaffer-Bernstein both need financial support in order to flee Germany. In this letter the Hebrew Sheltering And Immigrant…
As a convinced communist, progressive architect Margarethe Schütte-Lihotzky came to Istanbul in 1938 to teach at the Academy of Fine Arts. In this passage…
Berlin-born Romance philologist, literary and cultural scholar Erich Auerbach (1892-1957), now considered the founder of the discipline of comparative literature thanks to Palestinian postcolonial…
Angelines Koulikoff reports about the difficulties as a Spanish citizen to find work.
In diary entries, the writer and journalist Paul-Adolphe Löffler (1901-1979) describes his relationship with the Hungarian community in Paris, which is shaped by longing…
In a radio interview from 1959, Arendt speaks about the political and legal situation of refugees in the 1930s and the differences between immigration…
In an interview with the We Refugees Archive Team, Iranian Political Exilee and Coordinator of the Committee on Forced Migration at Columbia University Kian…
“For me, even the air is political”: In an interview, Hussam Al Zaher talks about the founding of kohero Magazine, an online magazine for…
This memorandum clarifies the creation of the German Academy of Arts and Sciences together with the American Guild for German Cultural Freedom in New…
Social Democratic politician Elsbeth Weichmann (1900-1988) describes the network of refugees in Paris in the 1930s and 1940s.
Joint Funding Agreement for the “Project for Investigating the Destruction of Jewish Population in Poland and its Current Situation” of the YIVO, 20 November…
Abdul S.– name changed, is an exiled professor of epidemiology at Kabul University of Medical Science and the first Afghan scholar to accept a…
The Polish Jewish family Weyland from Łódź survived the Holocaust thanks in part to Sugihara Chiune (1900–1986), the Japanese consul in Kaunas just before…
In a letter to the philosopher and director of the now New York-based Institute for Social Research Max Horkheimer (1895-1972), the German-Jewish philosopher and…
Kefah Ali Deeb came to Berlin in 2014 and spent six years writing a taz column about her old home country Syria and her…
George Edel, a Jewish doctor from Vienna (who converted to Christianity), tells of his flight from Zagreb to Paris and of his stay in…
In an audio contribution from 1983, Max Diamant tells how he organized escape aid from Lisbon in cooperation with the Emergency Rescue Committee led…
After a short stay in Rome, Istanbul became a city of transit for Liselotte Dieckmann (1902–1994), a German scholar of German Studies. She lived…
This document is a text about the admission of Thomas Mann (1875-1955) to the German Academy of Arts and Literature, which is part of…
In his letter to the architect Walter Gropius, Martin Wagner reflects on how the Neues Bauen (New Building) can be rescued into better times…
Alaa Muhrez talks about the new friendships she has made in Berlin and about the potential as well as difficulty when it comes to…
Diawara B. and the Mayor of Palermo, Leoluca Orlando, talk about the possibilites of Palermo as a city of reception.
In an interview with the We Refugees Archive team, refugee and South Asian LGBTQ+ activist Barbara Khan relates the reasons for why she decided…
In her memoir from 1984, Susanne Friedmann-Kirsch (1926–) describes her family’s flight migration – a “three-year Odyssey” – from Vienna after the Anschluss in…
Marrie S. talks about what love in the form of solidarity, support, and rescue means to him.
In her work “A Jewish Refugee in New York” Kadya Molodowsky presents the life of the twenty-year-old refugee from Lublin Rivke Zilberg in New…
In an interview with the We Refugees Archive team, refugee and South Asian LGBTQ+ activist Barbara Khan talks about her identity as a trans-refugee…
Mendel Balberyszski (1894-1966) was born in Vilnius but had been living in Łódź for over a decade at the outbreak of the Second World…
Marcel Weyland (born 1927 in Łódź) survived the Holocaust thanks in part to Sugihara Chiune (1900-1986), the Japanese consul in Kaunas. Thanks to him,…
On September 21, 1933, Dr. Fritz Neumark was appointed to the University of Istanbul, three weeks after his letter of dismissal due to the…
In this letter, Lessie Sachs Wagner describes her current living situation and the difficulty of finding time to focus on her work. She is…
In her famous interview with Günter Gaus, Hannah Arendt talks about her time in Paris, where she had fled from Nazi Germany in 1933…
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Istanbul became a place of refuge for thousands of Russian refugees who left the Soviet territories for political…
Lessie Sachs Wagner has applied for financial aid from the American Guild for German Cultural Freedom and in this letter she is denied her…
In August 1940, the local office of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee summarized the situation of Jewish refugees in Istanbul and the state…
Even great political theorists sometimes have to write CVs. Also Hannah Arendt. It proves how crucially her experiences and work in Paris influenced her…
Fatima D. is from Gambia and came to Palermo in May 2017. She is one of many refugee minors who came unaccompanied by adults.…
Abdul S. – name changed, is an exiled professor of epidemiology at Kabul University of Medical Science and the first Afghan scholar to accept a…
In this letter from September 1938 Anna Seghers thanks Prince Löwenstein for his help and explains how she plans to write her next book.
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These pictures show arrival and support structures for refugees from the Czech Republic and Germany in Paris in 1938 and 1939.
Hilde Marx (1911-1986) was a German-American poet, writer and journalist. She is one of the authors whose writing career was only just beginning when…
Alice Salomon’s life is described in this statement and the reasons she requires financial assistance from the American Guild for Cultural Freedom. The statement…
On 20 November 1939, the YIVO in Vilnius approached the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee with a funding request for the “Project of Investigations…
Nacibullah came to Turkey from Afghanistan as a 16-year-old in 2018 without his family and now lives and works in Turkey without papers or…
In this interview, the queer activist, human rights journalist, and refugee L. [1. they wish to remain anonymous] talks about their experiences of discrimination…
Diawara B. talks about the shocking experiences he made after his arrival in a reception camp in Sicily and the support he received on…
In an interview with the We Refugees Archive team, political refugee and scholar Hasan discusses their identity as a refugee and the support networks…
The financial scientist Fritz Neumark (1900–1991) talks about his beginnings in exile in Turkey, his expectations and his good fortune to have been offered…
Benzion Benshalom tells of the hardships of everyday life of the refugees in Vilnius and their worries about the measures taken by the Lithuanian…
In November 1939, a group of Polish-Jewish refugee writers and journalists formed the “Committee to Collect Material about the Destruction of Polish Jewry 1939”…
Hilde Marx (1911-1986) was a German-American poet, writer and journalist. She is one of the authors whose writing career was only just beginning when…
Hilde Marx (born November 1, 1911 in Bayreuth) was a German-American poet, writer and journalist. She is one of the authors whose writing career…
In 1938, Baroness Germaine de Rothschild (née Germaine Alice Halphen, 1884–1975) founded the Comité Israélite pour les Enfants venant d’Allemagne et de l’Europe Centrale…
Hertha Nathorff, née Einstein (1895-1993) was a German pediatrician, psychotherapist and social worker. Until 1934 she worked as a senior physician at the Red…
Austrian painter Max Oppenheimer (1885–1954) is asked to join the visual and performing arts committee established by the Secretary General of the Council of…
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Photo series by Bolesława and Edmund Zdanowscy
Giulia di Carlo worked in a reception centre in Palermo and describes from her perspective the situation for refugees in the city.
In her work “A Jewish Refugee in New York” Kadya Molodowsky presents the life of the twenty-year-old refugee from Lublin- Rivke Zilberg in New…
Nazeeha Saeed was harassed by state authorities because of her journalistic activities in Bahrain. In this interview excerpt she speaks about how she settled…
In a letter from 1946, Fred Stein describes in detail the story of his family’s escape to his friends and relatives via Paris and…
Ernst E. Hirsch reflects on his privileged emigration to Istanbul with the help of the Notgemeinschaft deutscher Wissenschaftler im Ausland (Emergency Society of German…
In her work “A Jewish Refugee in New York” Kadya Molodowsky presents the life of the twenty-year-old refugee from Lublin Rivke Zilberg in New…
Count Hubert Conquere de Monbrison and Princess Irena Paley (a niece of the last Russian Tsar, who later became Monbrison’s wife) used their castle…
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Fred Stein (1909-1967) began to make photography his profession after his escape from Nazi Germany to Paris in 1933. Besides street photography, portraiture became…
Mendel Balberyszski (1894-1966) was born in Vilnius but had been living in Łódź for over a decade at the outbreak of the Second World…
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Between 1936 and 1939, more than 35,000 children who had fled the Spanish Civil War were accommodated and cared for in France. Fred Stein…
Aliou B. left Guinea alone at the age of thirteen. On his way via Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Libya, he experienced hunger, mistreatment…
The German architect and urban planner Bruno Taut had come to Turkey from his first exile in Japan in 1935 as the head of…
Report compiled by Moses Beckelman, Lithuanian delegate of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, about the “Nobody’s Land” within the Suwałki Triangle, 10 November…
Majid comes from the Darfur region in Sudan and belongs to the ethnic group of the Fur people. He fled to Turkey via Libya…
The “Jüdische Jugendhilfe” (Jewish Youth Aid) was founded on 30 January 1933 out of a group of Zionist youth organisations. It organised the emigration…
In a courageous essay, Tooba Qazi tells of her childhood in Pakistan, her arranged marriage, her exploitation by her husband’s family in Manchester, her…
Lessie Sachs Wagner (1872-1942) writes a letter to the American Guild for German Cultural Freedom to ask if they have decided to support her…
On June 19 and 20 [1936], an international conference of German emigrants was held in Paris, where the statutes of the Association des Emigrés…
After he was prohibited from working in Nazi Germany in 1937 because of his Jewish origins and his social democratic commitment, Franz Hillinger fled…
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Photo series by Bolesława and Edmund Zdanowscy
Valeria H. Parker is vouching for Dr. Alice Salomon (1872-1948) to get financial aid from the American Guild for German Cultural Freedom. She describes…
Berlin-born Romance philologist, literary and cultural scholar Erich Auerbach (1892-1957), now considered the founder of the discipline of comparative literature thanks to Palestinian postcolonial…
Kadija J. about the thankfulness for the support she received in Palermo.
Selafet Hizarçi came to Germany from Turkey in 1969, where she immediatly began to work, learn the language and lateron started a family. Within…
In an interview with the We Refugees Archive Team, political refugee Eric talks about his active support of the Venezuelan community in New York,…
On June 10, 1933, refugees from Germany decided to found the Association des Emigrés Allemands en France (Association of German Emigrants in France) in…
Berlin-born Romance philologist, literary and cultural scholar Erich Auerbach (1892-1957), now considered the founder of the discipline of comparative literature thanks to Palestinian postcolonial…
Excerpts from the biography of the successful Charité surgeon Rudolf Nissen describe the anti-Semitic mood in 1933 and the very quick decision to leave…
Marrie S. talks about what education means to him and how Palermo has become his home through the people who supported him.
Internal communications between the Vilnius delegation of the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the New York Headquarters.
Herman Kruk was a refugee from Warsaw who wrote reports on the refugee situation in Vilnius for the Yiddish magazine Folks-gezunt (Public Health) of…
Hertha Nathorff, née Einstein (1895-1993) was a German pediatrician, psychotherapist and social worker. Until 1934 she worked as a senior physician at the Red…
Benzion Benshalom writes about his euphoria after attending a Zionist assembly in Vilnius for the first time.
Internal Communication between the Vilnius Delegation of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the New York Headquarters.
In this interview, the political refugee and activist Sami[1. name changed] from Syria talks about his new beginning and initial challenges in the US.…
On 8 February, 1940, Pese R. entered the office of the “Committee to Collect Material about the Destruction of Polish Jewry, 1939” in Vilnius,…
The newspaper article “Jews must preserve the German language” appeared in the New York exile newspaper Aufbau on Dec. 27, 1940. In it, the…
Mustapha F. talks about his first time in a reception camp and his experiences of the reception in Palermo. He reports about his lack…