Mahdi A. talks in an interview about the initial difficulties in meeting his classmates in Berlin and how he dealt with the experience of…
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…
George Edel, a Jewish doctor from Vienna (who converted to Christianity), tells of the flight preparations in the wake of the annexation of Austria…
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…
Kefah Ali Deeb came to Berlin in 2014 and spent six years writing a taz column about her old home country Syria and her…
In this letter, the former Berlin city planner Martin Wagner, who went to Istanbul exile in 1935, reports on his first time in Istanbul,…
Kadija J. talks about the difficulties she faces within the Italian education system.
Nazeeha Saeed, a journalist from Bahrain who lives in exile in Paris and Berlin since 2016, speaks about the discrimination against minorities and the…
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…
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…
Fred (Fritz) Grubel (formerly Grübel in Germany) was born in Leipzig in 1908. He studied in Leipzig,Frankfurt and received a doctorate in law. He…
In March 1933, Ernst Eduard Hirsch was dismissed from his position as a tenured judge in Frankfurt am Main and as a private lecturer…
Kefah Ali Deeb reflects on her arrival, integration expectations and her experiences in a refugee shelter.
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…
On the night of September 5-6, 1939, just a few days after the German attack on Poland, a group of Jewish journalists and writers…
Maaza Mengiste’s short story describes traumatic experiences of flight with many mythological allusions.
Käthe Berl was a well-known Austrian-American artist born in 1908 in Vienna into a Jewish family. Her family did not survive the Holocaust. Käthe,…
Majid comes from the Darfur region in Sudan and belongs to the ethnic group of the Fur people. He fled to Turkey via Libya…
Ummuahmde fled the war in Syria in 2012, together with her family. Since then they live in Istanbul and run a small shop there.…
Nadège is 34 and comes from Cameroon. Two years ago, she fled to Turkey because she was in danger in her home country due…
In a letter from 1946, Fred Stein describes the flight story of his family in detail to his friends and relatives. After Fred and…
Isabel Alonso Martin tells of her arduous journey to France – transit into a new life.
Herman Kruk writes in his diary about his flight from Warsaw to Vilnius, September 1939.
In an interview with the We Refugees Archive team, political refugee and scholar Hasan relates the reasons for why they decided to flee. The…
Marrie S. talks about what love in the form of solidarity, support, and rescue means to him.
On June 19 and 20 [1936], an international conference of German emigrants was held in Paris, where the statutes of the Association des Emigrés…
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…
Harry Asher- originally Georg Auscher – born in Vienna in 1907. In 1920 the family moved to Czechoslovakia, where his parents came from. At…
In an interview with the We Refugees Archive team, political refugee Eric talks about his new start in New York, financial difficulties, finding housing,…
Hussam Al Zaher, founder and editor-in-chief of kohero magazine, on public discourse around refugees in Germany, self-determination and external perceptions. The article was originally…
In this excerpt, Hertha describes how she was forced to leave her job as head doctor of the Women’s and Counseling Center.
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 German architect and urban planner Bruno Taut had come to Turkey from his first exile in Japan in 1935 as the head of…
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 her interview with Günter Gaus, Arendt talks about the reasons that led her to flee to Paris.
Selafet Hizarçi came to Germany from Turkey in 1969, where she immediatly began to work, learn the language and lateron started a family. Within…
Benzion Benshalom tells of the hardships of everyday life of the refugees in Vilnius and their worries about the measures taken by the Lithuanian…
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 excerpts from the diary Berlin-New York Aufzeichnungen 1933 bis 1945 Hertha Nathorff vividly describes the expulsion from her homeland, which was incomprehensible to…
A letter from Emanuel Ringelblum to Raphael Mahler
Hannah Arendt tells her ex-husband Günther Anders about the circumstances of her escape from Lisbon and her arrival in New York.
H. comes from Somalia and lives in Italy today. Together with other Somali refugees he took part in a round table discussion of the…
Hilda Epstein was a German nurse born in Karlsruhe into a religious Jewish family. She learned infant care in Heidelberg, and later moved to…
Edith Hillinger, born in Berlin in 1933, fled with her parents from Nazi Germany to Istanbul in 1937. Her father Franz Hillinger worked in…
In an audio contribution from 1983, Max Diamant tells how he was able to cross the Rhine to France unnoticed by ship.
Dina is 27 years old and comes from Aleppo. She lost her home because of the war and does not know if she will…
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 this letter of May 27, 1938, to the Latin and Greek teacher Johannes Oeschger, the German Romance scholar and literary scholar Erich Auerbach…
In her essay, Nazeeha Saeed critically examines the concept of “homeland” and analyzes the connotations that can go along with it, such as loyalty…
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…
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…
On June 4, 1938, the German architect and urban planner Bruno Taut, opened a retrospective of his work at the Istanbul Academy of Arts.…
Kefah Ali Deeb came to Berlin in 2014 and spent six years writing a taz column about her old home country Syria and her…
In his novel Exile, Lion Feuchtwanger describes the grim situation of the German refugee community living in Paris.
On 20 November 1939, the YIVO in Vilnius approached the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee with a funding request for the “Project of Investigations…
As part of her year-long efforts to obtain material restitution for her persecution by Nazi Germany, the poet Mascha Kaléko (1907-1975) described her attempts…
Mustapha F. talks about his first time in a reception camp and his experiences of the reception in Palermo. He reports about his lack…
In an interview with the We Refugees Archive Team, Iranian Political Exilee and Coordinator of the Committee on Forced Migration at Columbia University Kian…
Kefah Ali Deeb came to Berlin from Syria in 2014. In her text, she describes the first few weeks after her arrival, which were…
This is one of the crucial excerpts from Hannah Arendt’s essay “We Refugees” that she published in 1943 shortly after arriving in New York.
Social Democratic politician Elsbeth Weichmann (1900-1988) describes her arrival and the first months in the French capital in 1933, after she had to flee…
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…
Khatereh Rahmani describes her attempt, despite separation from her family and uncertainty about the future, to build her new life and everyday life in…
In the interview, the queer activist, human rights journalist and refugee L. [1. they wish to remain anonymous] presents their reflections on the topics:…
Because of his political and journalistic activities, İsa Artar came under state pressure and police observation in Turkey. Before he was sentenced to a…
Poem by Mascha Kaléko
Benno Simoni describes how he grew up and lived as a Jew in the GDR and – until the building of the Berlin Wall…
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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…
Even great political theorists sometimes have to write CVs. Also Hannah Arendt. It proves how crucially her experiences and work in Paris influenced her…
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…
The Austrian-Jewish (later Czechoslovakian) writer, journalist and reporter Egon Erwin Kisch (1885-1948), with his literary reportage “Notizen aus dem Pariser Ghetto” (Notes from 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…
Abdul S.– name changed, is an exiled professor of epidemiology at Kabul University of Medical Science and the first Afghan scholar to accept a…
İsa Artar was politically active in Turkey, among other things with the Gezi protests and as editor-in-chief of a critical online platform. When, after…
In the letter of May 8, 1936, Ernst Loewy tells his parents about his life in the Kwuzah (Kibbutz). The initial anticipation gives way…
Because of his political and journalistic activities, İsa Artar came under state pressure and police observation in Turkey. Before he was sentenced to a…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Raymonde, Marceline and Bonifacia Sanchez talk about the role of Spanish and French in their lives, their role as mediators between and facilitators for…
Aliou B. left Guinea alone at the age of thirteen. On his way via Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Libya, he experienced hunger, mistreatment…
Conversation with Giovanni from Ethiopia.
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…
This list documents a selection of names, “nationalities”, arrival dates and places of origin of refugees who arrived in Vilnius in 1939.
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…
Ummuahmed fled the war in Syria in 2012, together with her family. Since then, she lives in Istanbul. In this interview passage, she talks…
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…
K. talks about the reactions of others at school and at the citizen office to her Jewish identity.
Yurdanus shares two recipes from her home country and tells her story of flight.
Social Democratic politician Elsbeth Weichmann (1900-1988) describes the network of refugees in Paris in the 1930s and 1940s.
UNITED for Intercultural Action has been “collecting reliable data on refugee deaths related to Fortress Europe since 1993 in the ‘List of Deaths’”.
“For me, even the air is political”: In an interview, Hussam Al Zaher talks about the founding of kohero Magazine, an online magazine for…
In an interview with the We Refugees Archive team, political refugee Eric discusses his decision to leave Venezuela and to come to United States.…
Letter from the Nothmann family from the reception camp in Berlin-Wittenau to relatives.
The author of the novel “A Jewish Refugee in New York” Kadya Molodovsky is one of the most important Yiddish poets of the mid-20th…
In his poetic essay, Karam Alhamad describes his thoughts about belonging and feelings to Berlin. He feels as a Syrian in Berlin only in…
In a radio interview from 1959, Arendt speaks about the political and legal situation of refugees in the 1930s and the differences between immigration…
Mahdi A. describes his initial helplessness after his arrival in Berlin, what the city means to him now and his plans for the future.
The history of the Asile de Nuit, Asile de Jour et Créche Israelites (Jewish night asylum, day asylum and day nursery) dates back to…
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…
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…
Hannah Arendt describes the circumstances of her escape from the internment camp Gurs.
Isabel Vásquez is from Cantón El Rosario, Santa Ana in El Salvador. She fled to the U.S. with her 9-year-old daughter when she was…
Malek [1. name changed] describes the psychological stress that the asylum process in the U.S. triggered in him.
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 this letter Friederike Ergas describes the living situation of her friends Jenny Schaffer Bernstein and Otto Bernstein who urgently need financial support from…
In this interview, Alexandra Sadownik shares what home means to her and where she feels at home. She tells what she particularly likes about…
In her essay, Widad Nabi reflects critically on belonging as reality or illusion, her experiences and feelings in Germany, and on exile not as…
In this letter Anna Seghers asks Prince Löwenstein why he has not gotten back to her, even though he said that he would get…
In an interview with Sender Freies Berlin on 1 June 1956, the poet Mascha Kaléko (1907-1975) looks back on her first years of emigration…
Ummuahmed fled the war in Syria in 2012, together with her family. Since then they live in Istanbul and run a small shop there.…
Shortly before her internment in camp Gurs, Hannah Arendt reports in a letter to the German-Austrian philosopher, poet and writer Günther Anders about the…
An unknown author writes in a DP camp magazine about the shortcomings of just having a single term for all displaced persons.
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The pictures from his daughter’s private archive show Max Diamant (1906-1992) with family and friends in Paris, Mexico and Germany.
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Traugott Fuchs, in protest against his dismissal by the Nazis and out of political convictions, followed his teacher Leo Spitzer into exile in Turkey,…
In this interview, the queer activist, human rights journalist, and refugee L. [1. they wish to remain anonymous] talks about their experiences of discrimination…
Official letter from the Prussian Minister for Science, Art and National Education, dated September 1, 1933, to Fritz Neumark concerning his withdrawal from teaching…
On the night of September 5-6, 1939, only a few days after the German attack on Poland, a group of Jewish journalists and writers…
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…
6
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…
In an interview with the We Refugees Archive team, political refugee and scholar Hasan talks about starting over in the United States and the…
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…
Adrián Cruz is from Guatemala City in Guatemala. He fled to the United States when he was 17 years old. He comes from a…
In an interview with the We Refugees Archive team, refugee and South Asian LGBTQ+ activist Barbara Khan relates the reasons for why she decided…
Marrie S. talks about what education means to him and how Palermo has become his home through the people who supported him.
On June 10, 1933, refugees from Germany decided to found the Association des Emigrés Allemands en France (Association of German Emigrants in France) in…
Nazeeha Saeed was harassed by state authorities because of her journalistic activities in Bahrain. In this interview excerpt she speaks about how she settled…
Isa Artar talks about his experiences as well as identity problems after arriving in exile.
On November 27, 1939, Motel Grajer, a Yeshivah student from Markuszów, Poland, who had escaped the Germans to Vilnius, gave an interview to the…
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…
Abdul S. – name changed, is an exiled professor of epidemiology at Kabul University of Medical Science and the first Afghan scholar to accept a…
Henrietta K. Buchman, secretary of JDC’s Poland and Eastern Europe Committee, informs Charles Sonnenreich, President of the United Romanian Jews of America, of the…
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…
In her famous interview with Günter Gaus, Hannah Arendt talks about her time in Paris, where she had fled from Nazi Germany in 1933…
Aliou B. left Guinea alone at the age of thirteen. On his way via Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Libya, he experienced hunger, mistreatment…
Françoise and Marie Lopez talk about the gradual migration of their parents to France.
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…
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.…
Somayeh Rasouli, who fled to Berlin from Afghanistan, reports on the difficulties that arise with “little prospect to remain” in building a new life…
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…
On November 16, 1939, Owsiej Bułkin was the seventh refugee stranded in Vilnius who gave a report to the Komitet tsu zamlen materialn vegn…
Majid comes from the Darfur region in Sudan and belongs to the ethnic group of the fur people. He fled to Turkey via Libya…
First Alaa Muhrez and her husband moved to a village near Leipzig, then they moved to Berlin. Alaa describes experiences of discrimination that she…
In this letter, the German architect and city planner Martin Wagner who emigated to Istanbul in 1935, asks Ernst Jäckh, who lives in London…
The DP theatre group “Baderech” announces its formation.
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…
The expectations of refugees who come to Germany are high: they should integrate, learn the language, build a new life for themselves and at…
In an interview with the We Refugees Archive Team, Iranian Political Exilee and Coordinator of the Committee on Forced Migration at Columbia University Kian…
In excerpts from the diary Berlin-New York Aufzeichnungen 1933 bis 1945, Hertha Nathorff vividly describes the expulsion from her homeland, which was incomprehensible to…
In a diary entry of 27 January 1939, the poet Mascha Kaléko (1907-1975) traces her escape from Germany to New York in the autumn…
Hamdi shares a recipe from her home country Somalia and retells her story of flight and arrival.
In this letter to her ex-husband Günther Anders from May 1941, Hannah Arendt gives an overview of her arrival experience in New York.
The author of the novel “A Jewish Refugee in New York” Kadya Molodovsky is one of the most important Yiddish poets of the mid-20th…
In her essay, Kseniia Tsybulska describes her escape from Kyiv and reflects on her feelings of homesickness after her arrival. How can she live…
In this 1938 letter to Leonie Zuntz, Fritz Rudolf Kraus (1910–1991) describes his feelings about the exilic condition in Turkey. He wonders whether he…
On 24 June 1941, Kruk writes about his discouragement regarding his futile attempts to leave Vilnius for the USA shortly after the German attack…
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Traugott Fuchs, in protest against his dismissal by the Nazis and out of political convictions, followed his teacher Leo Spitzer into exile in Turkey,…
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…
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…
Oskar Maria Graf was a German-American writer. His literary beginnings can be found in expressionist poetry. He wrote poems, novels, (autobiographical) stories, calendar stories,…
Traugott Fuchs, in protest against his dismissal by the Nazis and out of political convictions, followed his teacher Leo Spitzer into exile in Turkey,…
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…
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,…
Diawara B. tells of the futility of his integration efforts in the hostile Italian immigration system – especially in view of the “security decree”.
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”…
Fatima D. tells of her escape through the desert.
Fritz Neumark published his autobiography “Zuflucht am Bosporus. Deutsche Gelehrte, Politiker und Künstler in der Emigration 1933–1953“. In it, he describes his two-decade stay…
Itzel Tzab was born in La Libertad, Petén in Guatemala. She grew up in rural poverty, where her family experienced deadly assaults by violent…
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…
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 her essay, Alaa Muhrez not only describes her own reflections on the topics of “homesickness”, “identity” and “exile”, but also takes up the…
From October to November 1940, writer Hertha Pauli published a three-part account of her escape through German-occupied France via Spain and Portugal to the…
On the night of September 5-6, 1939, only a few days after the German attack on Poland, a group of Jewish journalists and writers…
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…
On September 21, 1933, Dr. Fritz Neumark was appointed to the University of Istanbul, three weeks after his letter of dismissal due to the…
On the night of September 5 to September 6, 1939, only a few days after the German attack on Poland, a group of Jewish…
Helga Hagen was born in 1918 in Berlin-Nikolassee. The father, a private banker, comes from the bourgeois, completely assimilated Jewish upper class of the…
Mohammad talks in an interview about his arrival in Germany, about expectations and memories – about comparing and forgetting. And about Berlin: a city…
Internal communications between the Vilnius delegation of the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the New York Headquarters.
In this interview,the queer activist, human rights journalist, and refugee L.[1. they wish to remain anonymous] talks about their decision to leave Egypt and…
Diawara B. talks about the so-called “Security Decree” passed by the Italian government.
In an interview, the writer Widad Nabi speaks about what Berlin means to her.
In his letter to Ernst May from 1935, the former Berlin city planner Martin Wagner, who went to Istanbul exile in 1935, reports on…
Traugott Fuchs, in protest against his dismissal by the Nazis and out of political convictions, followed his teacher Leo Spitzer into exile in Turkey,…
Nazeeha Saeed, a journalist from Bahrain who has been living in Berlin since 2019, talks about what opportunities the new home gives, how one…
Diawara B. and the Mayor of Palermo, Leoluca Orlando, talk about the possibilites of Palermo as a city of reception.
In a diary entry from September 1939, the poet Mascha Kaléko (1907-1975) reflects on the outbreak of the war in Europe and her own…
Nazeeha Saeed, a journalist from Bahrain who lives in Paris and Berlin since 2016, talks about how she came to call herself a “journalist…
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…
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…
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 the course of the National Socialist racial policy, Hertha Nathorff lost her license to practice medicine in 1934 and her medical license in…
Ilija Trojanow, who fled with his parents from Bulgaria to Germany in 1971 and whose life is marked by experiences of migration, deals in…
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…
On 21 December 1939, Chaim-Leyb D. was interviewed by the “Committee to Collect Material about the Destruction of Polish Jewry 1939” about his flight…
Erdal Yılmaz, his name has been changed, talks about his life in Istanbul and uses his own experience to deal with different phases of…
Igiaba Sciego, actually Alì Omar Scego, from Somalia tells about the loss of his name in Italy.
Nacibullah left Afghanistan as a 16-year-old in 2018 without his family. Two central reasons forced him to flee: existential economic hardship and the war…
Kadija J. on her reasons for coming to Europe.
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Photo collection by the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
Barry Chukudi is from Nigeria, from Biafra. He fled to Turkey in 2013 due to the violence of the Nigerian military in the struggle…
Lessie Sachs Wagner has applied for financial aid from the American Guild for German Cultural Freedom and in this letter she is denied her…
Barry Chukudi is from Nigeria, from Biafra. He fled to Turkey in 2013 due to the violence of the Nigerian military in the struggle…
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…
On 8 February, 1940, Pese R. entered the office of the “Committee to Collect Material about the Destruction of Polish Jewry, 1939” in Vilnius,…
Selafet Hizarçi came to Germany from Turkey in 1969, where she immediately began to work, learn the language and started a family. As part…
The German architect and urban planner Bruno Taut had come to Turkey from his first exile in Japan in 1935 as the head of…
The German architect and urban planner Bruno Taut had come to Turkey from his first exile in Japan in 1935 as the head of…
In an interview with the We Refugees Archive team, political refugee and scholar Hasan discusses their identity as a refugee and the support networks…
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Photo series by Bolesława and Edmund Zdanowscy
Nazeeha Saeed, a journalist from Bahrain who lives in Paris and Berlin in exile since 2016, speaks about her visions for the future: As…
3
These pictures show arrival and support structures for refugees from the Czech Republic and Germany in Paris in 1938 and 1939.
In August 1940, the local office of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee summarized the situation of Jewish refugees in Istanbul and the state…
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.…
Alfred Rosenthal describes his departure from Germany to Palestine in 1933 not as an escape but as emigration. Before emigrating from Israel to the…
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 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…
Mahdi, who decided to flee Iran at the age of fourteen and has been living in Berlin ever since, tells where and from whom…
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…
K. talks about the term “contingent refugees” and her own experience of flight from her childhood perspective.
Hanna Fuchs’s poem Knigge für Flüchtlinge, which she wrote in 1945 in Switzerland under the pseudonym Hansi Fuchs, deals with important questions of her…
The Austrian writer Joseph Roth (1894–1939) did not wait long and left Berlin shortly after Hitler’s rise to power. By February 1933, he was…
Fred (Fritz) Grubel (in Germany formerly Grüber) worked in the administration of the Jewish Community in Leipzig, his responsibilities included organizing the emigration 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…
In this interview, Alexandra Sadownik reports what it means for her to be a Jew in Germany and where she lives her Jewish identity.
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…
Nacibullah came to Turkey from Afghanistan as a 16-year-old in 2018 without his family. In this interview excerpt, he describes the problems he faces…
Ilija Trojanow, who fled with his parents from Bulgaria to Germany in 1971 and whose life is marked by experiences of migration, deals in…
Internal Communication between the Vilnius Delegation of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the New York Headquarters.
The financial scientist Fritz Neumark talks about homesickness and his not easy decision to return to Germany after 16 years of exile in Istanbul,…
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…
A couple of months after her flight to New York, the poet Mascha Kaléko (1907-1975) describes her first impressions of the city in a…
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…
Alaa Muhrez talks about her experiences in searching a job in Berlin.
Benzion Benshalom writes about his euphoria after attending a Zionist assembly in Vilnius for the first time.
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…
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Istanbul became a place of refuge for thousands of Russian refugees who left the Soviet territories for political…
Bertolt Brecht’s poem on the difference between emigration and exile
Alaa Muhrez talks about her experiences of arriving and everyday life in exile, about questions of identity and experiences of exclusion.
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…
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…
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…
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 the excerpt from his work “Schicksalsreise” (Journey of Destiny), Alfred Döblin tells of his continued flight from Paris as soon as news of…
Kefah Ali Deeb came to Berlin in 2014 and spent six years writing a taz column about her old home country Syria and her…
Issam Alnajm’s poem is an ode to Bochum, where Issam found a “new home” after his arrival in Germany in 2015.
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 her text, Sahar Reza describes the role of languages in her life as a refugee for almost 30 years. She describes her struggles…
K. moved to Germany from Russia as a child with her family as part of a contingent program for Jewish people. Here, she talks…
This memorandum clarifies the creation of the German Academy of Arts and Sciences together with the American Guild for German Cultural Freedom in New…
Ummuahmde 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 from September 1938 Anna Seghers thanks Prince Löwenstein for his help and explains how she plans to write her next book.
In an interview with the We Refugees Archive Team, political refugee Eric talks about his active support of the Venezuelan community in New York,…
Alaa Muhrez on the reasons for her flight from Syria and Egypt, the decision for Germany and what she learned to appreciate about Berlin.
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…
The writer and journalist Paul-Adolphe Löffler (1901-1979) writes about the initial loneliness he suffered during his first period in Paris without his family, as…
Paydar H. is a Kurd from Aleppo in Syria. After the bombing of the city in 2013, he fled with his brother to Turkey…
In an interview with the We Refugees Archive Team, Chinese human rights activist and political exilee Teng Biao talks about how he arrived in…
In an interview with the We Refugees Archive team, refugee and South Asian LGBTQ+ activist Barbara Khan discusses the question of home, homesickness and…
Fatima D. is from Gambia and came to Palermo in May 2017. She is one of many refugee minors who came unaccompanied by adults.…
Poem by Mascha Kaléko (ca. 1938)
In excerpts from the diary Berlin-New York Aufzeichnungen 1933 bis 1945 Hertha Nathorff vividly describes the expulsion from her homeland, which was incomprehensible to…
İsa Can Artar and Daryna Axxi Degtiarova depict the objects of refugees that have a special meaning for them in the photo series “Home…
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…
Fé Garcia Petit tells of workers resistance, solidarity and sexism.
The newspaper article “Jews must preserve the German language” appeared in the New York exile newspaper Aufbau on Dec. 27, 1940. In it, the…
In an interview with the We Refugees Archive team, political refugee and scholar Hasan discusses their relationship to their mother tongue and the notion…
M. talks about her volunteer work: her tasks in a welfare and social institution and her commute by public transport. While doing so she…
Edith Hillinger, born in Berlin in 1933, fled with her parents from Nazi Germany to Istanbul in 1937. Her father Franz Hillinger worked in…
In July 1940, Fritz Neumark received notification in Istanbul that he and his family had been expatriated.
Ummuahmde fled the war in Syria in 2012, together with her family. Since then they live in Istanbul and run a small shop there.…
Because of his political and journalistic activities, İsa Artar came under state pressure and police observation in Turkey. Before he was sentenced to a…
On an unusually bright morning in Berlin I was sitting alone, sipping a cup of coffee and hesitating over a loud noise. This word…
Majid comes from the Darfur region in Sudan and belongs to the ethnic group of the fur people. He fled to Turkey via Libya…
Dina is 27 years old and comes from Aleppo. Here she talks about her escape, her hopes and the things she had to leave…
Benzion Benshalom tells of the harsh winter of 1939/40, which made life even harder for refugees in Vilnius and led to tragedies at the…
Polish-Jewish refugee journalists and writers having dinner in their dormitory in Sadowa Street 9, 1939/40.
Mustapha F. tells of the difficult situation in which refugees in Italy find themselves.
In this interview, the political activist and refugee Sami[1. name changed] talks about his decision to leave Syria and come to the United States.…
In her essay, Behista Kofi tries to describe the breaks between her life in Kabul as a student and volunteer, the flight and the…
Paydar H. is a Kurd from Aleppo in Syria. After the bombing of the city in 2013, he fled to Istanbul via Afrin in…
Poem by Mascha Kaléko, written in Israel in 1960’s
Kefah Ali Deeb came to Berlin in 2014 and spent six years writing a taz column about her old home country Syria and her…
Ernst E. Hirsch reflects on his privileged emigration to Istanbul with the help of the Notgemeinschaft deutscher Wissenschaftler im Ausland (Emergency Society of German…
Fé Garcia Petit talks about how she started working when she was twelve to support her parents financially.
In his letter to the architect Walter Gropius, Martin Wagner reflects on how the Neues Bauen (New Building) can be rescued into better times…
Ibrar Mirzai about integration, arrival and the feelings of exiles
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…
Abdul S. – name changed, is an exiled professor of epidemiology at Kabul University of Medical Science and the first Afghan scholar to accept a…
A Poem about the sea as a space of flight by Jehan Bseiso.
In March 1933, Ernst Eduard Hirsch was dismissed from his position as a tenured judge in Frankfurt am Main and as a private lecturer…
Literary “love letter” by Widad Nabi to Berlin
Kadija J. about the thankfulness for the support she received in Palermo.
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…
In an interview, Widad Nabi describes what the words home and future mean to her.
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, Iranian Political Exilee and Coordinator of the Committee on Forced Migration at Columbia University Kian…
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…
International human mobility. From the migration as suffering to mobility as an inalienable human right
IIn excerpts from the diary Berlin-New York Aufzeichnungen 1933 bis 1945, Hertha Nathorff vividly describes the expulsion from her homeland, which was incomprehensible to…
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Syrian photographer Alaa Hassan looks at the city of Istanbul – as a city of refuge and transit for other Syrian refugees, as a…
On the night of September 5-6, 1939, just a few days after the German attack on Poland, a group of Jewish journalists and writers…
Hertha Nathorff, née Einstein (1895-1993) was a German pediatrician, psychotherapist and social worker. With the help of American relatives, she managed to emigrate to…
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…
Why A. escaped Somalia
Paydar H. is a Kurd from Aleppo in Syria. After the bombing of the city in 2013, he fled to Turkey at the age…
In diary entries from 1929 and 1934, the writer and journalist Paul-Adolphe Löffler (1901-1979) described his living conditions, characterized by precariousness and unemployment, which…
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…
At the age of 14, Mahdi A. decided to leave Iran and flee to Europe. He tells why he decided to flee, about the…
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…
An unknown author describes the barriers that stand in the way of those who want to emigrate.
Nacibullah came to Turkey from Afghanistan as a 16-year-old in 2018 without his family. He continues to live and work in Istanbul without papers…
Paydar H. is a Kurd from Aleppo in Syria. After the bombing of the city in 2013, he fled to Istanbul via Afrin in…
In excerpts from the diary Berlin-New York Aufzeichnungen 1933 bis 1945, Hertha Nathorff vividly describes the destruction of her life and the expulsion from…
Because of his political and journalistic activities, İsa Artar came under state pressure and police observation in Turkey. Before he was sentenced to a…
Joint Funding Agreement for the “Project for Investigating the Destruction of Jewish Population in Poland and its Current Situation” of the YIVO, 20 November…
After he was prohibited from working in Nazi Germany in 1937 because of his Jewish origins and his social democratic commitment, Franz Hillinger fled…
Even in exile, holders of a German passport could not escape anti-Semitic persecution. Fritz Neumark, for example, had to have a “J” stamped into…
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…
Martin Wagner, former city planner of Berlin, who went into exile in Turkey from 1935 and worked as an urban planning consultant for the…
In this open letter from the Moria camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, Parwana Amiri, a young Afghan refugee, describes how the fear,…
Paydar H. is a Kurd from Aleppo in Syria. After the bombing of the city in 2013, he fled to Turkey at the age…
An interview with refugee activist Bashir Zakaria on Berlin Oranienplatz conducted in 2013, in which he tells the story of his flight and arrival…
In this interview, Alexandra Sadownik reports on her relationship with the Russian language and what it was like for her to learn German. As…
Diawara B. talks about the shocking experiences he made after his arrival in a reception camp in Sicily and the support he received on…
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 August 1938, Max Diamant receives an identity card that allowes him to stay in France as a refugee.
K. was eight years old when she moved to Germany from Russia in 2000 with her parents and two older brothers as part of…
Alaa Muhrez talks about the new friendships she has made in Berlin and about the potential as well as difficulty when it comes to…
Widad Nabi’s poem about languages that shape her identity, from which she was expelled, which she fears and in which she has to settle…
Hans Sahl (born Hans Salomon, 1902-1993) was a literary, film and theater critic during the Weimar Republic and, as an anti-fascist writer, translator and…
The Syrian-Kurdish writer Widad Nabi has been living in Germany for 5 years. She does not see any distance between her and her German…
During his exile in Istanbul, Fritz Neumark received a questionnaire from the German Consulate General in Istanbul reflecting Nazi racial policies. Whether he filled…
Nazeeha Saeed, a journalist from Bahrain who lives in Paris and Berlin in exile since 2016, speaks about her journalistic work in Bahrain and…
Ismael Xol was born in Xolcuay, El Quiché in Guatemala and crossed the border into the United States at just 15 years old. Ismael…
On the night of September 5-6, 1939, only a few days after the German attack on Poland, a group of Jewish journalists and writers…
The writer and journalist Paul-Adolphe Löffler (1901-1979) writes in his diary about his escape from Budapest to Paris and the immediate disappointment after his…
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…
In this interview, Alexandra Sadownik tells the motivations of why her family decided to migrate from Uzbekistan to Germany in 1998 and what difficulties…
In undated diary entries, the writer and journalist Paul-Adolphe Löffler (1901-1979) writes about his favorite places in Paris – mostly places of the French…
In this Interview, Alexandra Sadownik rembers how it was when her family arrived in Germany in 1998. For several years, Alexandra lived in a…
The reporter Ismail Einashe describes the situation of new arrivals in Palermo, especially the unaccompanied minors, and tells of his own family experiences of…
A 15-year-old boy writes in the DP camp newspaper Undser Lebn about his experiences in the war and his demand for the establishment of…
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 an interview with the We Refugees Archive team, the political refugee and activist Sami[1. name changed] from Syria, talks about his American identity…
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 the documentary “Asylum on the Bosporus” Adelheid Scholz and Cornelius Bischof talk about their experiences with their family, in the internment camp and…
In an interview with the We Refugees Archive team, Iranian Political Exilee and Coordinator of the Committee on Forced Migration at Columbia University Kian…
Hilda Epstein was a German nurse born in Karlsruhe into a religious Jewish family. She learned infant care in Heidelberg, and later moved to…
In an interview with the We Refugees Archive team, Eric, a political refugee from Venezuela, talks about being a refugee and homesick in New…
Nazeeha Saeed was harassed by state authorities because of her journalistic activities in Bahrain. In this excerpt she describes how she arrived at the…
In her memoir from 1984, Susanne Friedmann-Kirsch (born 1926) describes her family’s flight migration – a “three-year Odyssey” – from Vienna after the Anschluss…
Benzion Benshalom wrote in the winter of 1939/40 about the desperate atmosphere and the sad cityscape in Vilnius.
In an interview, Hussam Al Zaher, founder of the kohero magazine (former ‘Refugee Magazine’), talks about the importance the city of Hamburg has for…
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The German-Jewish artist Lili Rilik-Andrieux fled to Paris in 1938 and was interned in several camps after the German invasion of France. There she…
Nazeeha Saeed, a journalist from Bahrain who lives in Paris and Berlin in exile since 2016, tells about her worries in face of Europe’s…
In excerpts from the diary Berlin-New York Aufzeichnungen 1933 bis 1945, Hertha Nathorff describes her inconceivable displacement from her homeland and the destruction of…
Angelines Koulikoff reports about the difficulties as a Spanish citizen to find work.
Leo Glueckselig was born in 1914 in Vienna, in the 2nd district. In 1938, immediately after the “Anschluss” of Austria to the Reich, Glueckselig…
On the night of September 5-6, 1939, just a few days after the German attack on Poland, a group of Jewish journalists and writers…
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Fred Stein (1909-1967) began to make photography his profession after his escape from Nazi Germany to Paris in 1933. With a sensitive eye and…
Ummuahmde fled the war in Syria in 2012, together with her family. Since then they live in Istanbul and run a small shop there.…
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…
Else Pappenheim was an Austrian-American physician born in 1911 in Vienna to a Jewish family. She left Vienna in 1938 after the revocation of…
On 22 June 1941, Herman Kruk writes about the National Socialists’ invasion of Vilnius and his decision to stay in Vilnius despite all.
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Fred Stein (1909-1967) began to make photography his profession after his escape from Nazi Germany to Paris in 1933. On his photographic wanderings he…
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 an interview with the We Refugees Archive Team, Chinese human rights activist and political exilee Teng Biao talks about being a refugee as…
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…
Fé Garcia Petit tells about her uncle’s arrival experience in Paris in the early 1920s.
Herman Kruk writes about his pain facing the catastrophic war situation in his chosen hometown Warsaw.
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 audio contribution from 1983, Max Diamant tells how he organized escape aid from Lisbon in cooperation with the Emergency Rescue Committee led…
In June 2019, the organization Giocherenda held a three-day storytelling workshop with young refugees in the Centro Astalli, Italy’s Jesuit Refugee Service, in Palermo.…
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Photo series by Bolesława and Edmund Zdanowscy
Majid Bolat comes from the Darfur region in Sudan and belongs to the ethnic group of the Fur people. He fled to Turkey via…