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…
Françoise and Marie Lopez talk about the gradual migration of their parents to France.
Ismael Xol was born in Xolcuay, El Quiché in Guatemala and crossed the border into the United States at just 15 years old. Ismael…
At the age of 14, Mahdi A. decided to leave Iran and flee to Europe. He tells why he decided to flee, about the…
In this interview, Alexandra Sadownik reports what it means for her to be a Jew in Germany and where she lives her Jewish identity.
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…
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, the writer Widad Nabi speaks about what Berlin means to her.
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,…
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 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…
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…
Diawara B. talks about the shocking experiences he made after his arrival in a reception camp in Sicily and the support he received on…
Diawara B. talks about the so-called “Security Decree” passed by the Italian government.
On September 21, 1933, Dr. Fritz Neumark was appointed to the University of Istanbul, three weeks after his letter of dismissal due to the…
Joint Funding Agreement for the “Project for Investigating the Destruction of Jewish Population in Poland and its Current Situation” of the YIVO, 20 November…
Herman Kruk writes in his diary about his flight from Warsaw to Vilnius, September 1939.
In her famous interview with Günter Gaus, Hannah Arendt talks about her time in Paris, where she had fled from Nazi Germany in 1933…
Kadija J. has lived in Palermo for over two years. In the interview, she talks about her reasons to come to Europe, her visions…
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…
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…
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…
Fatima D. is from Gambia and came to Palermo in May 2017. She is one of many refugee minors who came unaccompanied by adults.…
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 an interview with the We Refugees Archive team, Eric, a political refugee from Venezuela, talks about being a refugee and homesick in New…
On the night of September 5 to September 6, 1939, only a few days after the German attack on Poland, a group of Jewish…
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…
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 an interview with the We Refugees Archive team, political refugee and scholar Hasan talks about starting over in the United States and the…
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.…
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…
Abdul S.– name changed, is an exiled professor of epidemiology at Kabul University of Medical Science and the first Afghan scholar to accept a…
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…
Alaa Muhrez talks about the new friendships she has made in Berlin and about the potential as well as difficulty when it comes to…
Letter from the Nothmann family from the reception camp in Berlin-Wittenau to relatives.
Nazeeha Saeed, a journalist from Bahrain who lives in Paris and Berlin in exile since 2016, speaks about her journalistic work in Bahrain and…
The DP theatre group “Baderech” announces its formation.
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…
Nazeeha Saeed, a journalist from Bahrain who lives in exile in Paris and Berlin since 2016, speaks about the discrimination against minorities and the…
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…
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…
Benzion Benshalom writes about his euphoria after attending a Zionist assembly in Vilnius for the first time.
Paydar H. is a Kurd from Aleppo in Syria. After the bombing of the city in 2013, he fled to Istanbul via Afrin in…
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…
In the course of the National Socialist racial policy, Hertha Nathorff lost her license to practice medicine in 1934 and her medical license in…
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…
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 excerpts from the diary Berlin-New York Aufzeichnungen 1933 bis 1945, Hertha Nathorff describes her inconceivable displacement from her homeland and the destruction of…
Nazeeha Saeed, a journalist from Bahrain who lives in Paris and Berlin since 2016, talks about how she came to call herself a “journalist…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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 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…
Somayeh Rasouli, who fled to Berlin from Afghanistan, reports on the difficulties that arise with “little prospect to remain” in building a new life…
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…
Nazeeha Saeed was harassed by state authorities because of her journalistic activities in Bahrain. In this excerpt she describes how she arrived at the…
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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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…
Marrie S. talks about what love in the form of solidarity, support, and rescue means to him.
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…
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 an interview, Hussam Al Zaher, founder of the kohero magazine (former ‘Refugee Magazine’), talks about the importance the city of Hamburg has for…
Maaza Mengiste’s short story describes traumatic experiences of flight with many mythological allusions.
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…
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…
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…
Conversation with Giovanni from Ethiopia.
Alaa Muhrez on the reasons for her flight from Syria and Egypt, the decision for Germany and what she learned to appreciate about Berlin.
An unknown author writes in a DP camp magazine about the shortcomings of just having a single term for all displaced persons.
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…
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…
Nadège is 34 and comes from Cameroon. Two years ago, she fled to Turkey because she was in danger in her home country due…
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…
Adrián Cruz is from Guatemala City in Guatemala. He fled to the United States when he was 17 years old. He comes from a…
On June 19 and 20 [1936], an international conference of German emigrants was held in Paris, where the statutes of the Association des Emigrés…
Even great political theorists sometimes have to write CVs. Also Hannah Arendt. It proves how crucially her experiences and work in Paris influenced her…
Ummuahmde fled the war in Syria in 2012, together with her family. Since then they live in Istanbul and run a small shop there.…
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…
Ummuahmed fled the war in Syria in 2012, together with her family. Since then, she lives in Istanbul. In this interview passage, she talks…
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…
Raymonde, Marceline and Bonifacia Sanchez talk about the role of Spanish and French in their lives, their role as mediators between and facilitators for…
On November 27, 1939, Motel Grajer, a Yeshivah student from Markuszów, Poland, who had escaped the Germans to Vilnius, gave an interview to the…
First Alaa Muhrez and her husband moved to a village near Leipzig, then they moved to Berlin. Alaa describes experiences of discrimination that she…
Poem by Mascha Kaléko
George Edel, a Jewish doctor from Vienna (who converted to Christianity), tells of the flight preparations in the wake of the annexation of Austria…
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…
Paydar H. is a Kurd from Aleppo in Syria. After the bombing of the city in 2013, he fled to Turkey at the age…
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…
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…
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…
In an interview with the We Refugees Archive team, political refugee and scholar Hasan relates the reasons for why they decided to flee. The…
Alfred Rosenthal describes his departure from Germany to Palestine in 1933 not as an escape but as emigration. Before emigrating from Israel to the…
Mahdi A. describes his initial helplessness after his arrival in Berlin, what the city means to him now and his plans for the future.
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 an interview with the We Refugees Archive team, political refugee Eric talks about his new start in New York, financial difficulties, finding housing,…
In his novel Exile, Lion Feuchtwanger describes the grim situation of the German refugee community living in Paris.
Diawara B. and the Mayor of Palermo, Leoluca Orlando, talk about the possibilites of Palermo as a city of reception.
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.
Aliou B. left Guinea alone at the age of thirteen. On his way via Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Libya, he experienced hunger, mistreatment…
Diawara B. tells of the futility of his integration efforts in the hostile Italian immigration system – especially in view of the “security decree”.
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…
8
Traugott Fuchs, in protest against his dismissal by the Nazis and out of political convictions, followed his teacher Leo Spitzer into exile in Turkey,…
Majid comes from the Darfur region in Sudan and belongs to the ethnic group of the fur people. He fled to Turkey via Libya…
A letter from Emanuel Ringelblum to Raphael Mahler
4
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…
The financial scientist Fritz Neumark talks about homesickness and his not easy decision to return to Germany after 16 years of exile in Istanbul,…
Benzion Benshalom tells of the hardships of everyday life of the refugees in Vilnius and their worries about the measures taken by the Lithuanian…
Aliou B. left Guinea alone at the age of thirteen. On his way via Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Libya, he experienced hunger, mistreatment…
After he was prohibited from working in Nazi Germany in 1937 because of his Jewish origins and his social democratic commitment, Franz Hillinger fled…
In this letter Anna Seghers vouches for Lothar Freud and Lukas Lehman to receive aid from the American Guild for German Cultural Freedom, so…
Mohammad talks in an interview about his arrival in Germany, about expectations and memories – about comparing and forgetting. And about Berlin: a city…
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…
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…
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 Anna Seghers asks Prince Löwenstein why he has not gotten back to her, even though he said that he would get…
Kefah Ali Deeb reflects on her arrival, integration expectations and her experiences in a refugee shelter.
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…
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…
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 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…
H. comes from Somalia and lives in Italy today. Together with other Somali refugees he took part in a round table discussion of the…
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.…
Alaa Muhrez talks about her experiences of arriving and everyday life in exile, about questions of identity and experiences of exclusion.
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 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 an interview with the We Refugees Archive team, Iranian Political Exilee and Coordinator of the Committee on Forced Migration at Columbia University Kian…
K. talks about the term “contingent refugees” and her own experience of flight from her childhood perspective.
Bertolt Brecht’s poem on the difference between emigration and exile
On an unusually bright morning in Berlin I was sitting alone, sipping a cup of coffee and hesitating over a loud noise. This word…
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…
In an audio contribution from 1983, Max Diamant tells how he was able to cross the Rhine to France unnoticed by ship.
In August 1940, the local office of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee summarized the situation of Jewish refugees in Istanbul and the state…
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…
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 the interview, the queer activist, human rights journalist and refugee L. [1. they wish to remain anonymous] presents their reflections on the topics:…
In this Interview, Alexandra Sadownik rembers how it was when her family arrived in Germany in 1998. For several years, Alexandra lived in a…
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…
Hilda Epstein was a German nurse born in Karlsruhe into a religious Jewish family. She learned infant care in Heidelberg, and later moved to…
International human mobility. From the migration as suffering to mobility as an inalienable human right
Fatima D. tells of her escape through the desert.
In an interview with the We Refugees Archive team, political refugee Eric discusses his decision to leave Venezuela and to come to United States.…
Nazeeha Saeed, a journalist from Bahrain who lives in Paris and Berlin in exile since 2016, speaks about her visions for the future: As…
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…
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…
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…
3
These pictures show arrival and support structures for refugees from the Czech Republic and Germany in Paris in 1938 and 1939.
An unknown author describes the barriers that stand in the way of those who want to emigrate.
Khatereh Rahmani describes her attempt, despite separation from her family and uncertainty about the future, to build her new life and everyday life in…
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…
Martin Wagner, former city planner of Berlin, who went into exile in Turkey from 1935 and worked as an urban planning consultant for the…
Kadija J. talks about the difficulties she faces within the Italian education system.
Issam Alnajm’s poem is an ode to Bochum, where Issam found a “new home” after his arrival in Germany in 2015.
The German architect and urban planner Bruno Taut had come to Turkey from his first exile in Japan in 1935 as the head of…
Benno Simoni describes how he grew up and lived as a Jew in the GDR and – until the building of the Berlin Wall…
In this letter from September 1938 Anna Seghers thanks Prince Löwenstein for his help and explains how she plans to write her next book.
Giulia di Carlo worked in a reception centre in Palermo and describes from her perspective the situation for refugees in the city.
Social Democratic politician Elsbeth Weichmann (1900-1988) describes the network of refugees in Paris in the 1930s and 1940s.
Itzel Tzab was born in La Libertad, Petén in Guatemala. She grew up in rural poverty, where her family experienced deadly assaults by violent…
K. moved to Germany from Russia as a child with her family as part of a contingent program for Jewish people. Here, she talks…
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…
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, Alexandra Sadownik reports on her relationship with the Russian language and what it was like for her to learn German. As…
The German architect and urban planner Bruno Taut had come to Turkey from his first exile in Japan in 1935 as the head of…
Because of his political and journalistic activities, İsa Artar came under state pressure and police observation in Turkey. Before he was sentenced to a…
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…
Barry Chukudi is from Nigeria, from Biafra. He fled to Turkey in 2013 due to the violence of the Nigerian military in the struggle…
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…
In his poetic essay, Karam Alhamad describes his thoughts about belonging and feelings to Berlin. He feels as a Syrian in Berlin only in…
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…
4
Photo series by Bolesława and Edmund Zdanowscy
Isabel Alonso Martin tells of her arduous journey to France – transit into a new life.
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…
5
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…
Fé Garcia Petit tells of workers resistance, solidarity and sexism.
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…
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 letter, Lessie Sachs Wagner describes her current living situation and the difficulty of finding time to focus on her work. She is…
In this interview, Alexandra Sadownik tells the motivations of why her family decided to migrate from Uzbekistan to Germany in 1998 and what difficulties…
Poem by Mascha Kaléko (ca. 1938)
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 July 1940, Fritz Neumark received notification in Istanbul that he and his family had been expatriated.
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…
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…
K. talks about the reactions of others at school and at the citizen office to her Jewish identity.
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…
An interview with refugee activist Bashir Zakaria on Berlin Oranienplatz conducted in 2013, in which he tells the story of his flight and arrival…
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…
On June 10, 1933, refugees from Germany decided to found the Association des Emigrés Allemands en France (Association of German Emigrants in France) in…
In her interview with Günter Gaus, Arendt talks about the reasons that led her to flee to Paris.
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…
Kefah Ali Deeb came to Berlin from Syria in 2014. In her text, she describes the first few weeks after her arrival, which were…
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…
Nazeeha Saeed was harassed by state authorities because of her journalistic activities in Bahrain. In this interview excerpt she speaks about how she settled…
Because of his political and journalistic activities, İsa Artar came under state pressure and police observation in Turkey. Before he was sentenced to a…
George Edel, a Jewish doctor from Vienna (who converted to Christianity), tells of his flight from Zagreb to Paris and of his stay in…
Paydar H. is a Kurd from Aleppo in Syria. After the bombing of the city in 2013, he fled with his brother to Turkey…
Barry Chukudi is from Nigeria, from Biafra. He fled to Turkey in 2013 due to the violence of the Nigerian military in the struggle…
Kadija J. on her reasons for coming to Europe.
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 expulsion from her homeland, which was incomprehensible to…
In an interview with the We Refugees Archive team, political refugee and scholar Hasan discusses their identity as a refugee and the support networks…
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 a diary entry in New York on June 20, 1941, the poet Mascha Kaléko (1907-1975) describes the many, mainly material, worries as a…
In the excerpt from his work “Schicksalsreise” (Journey of Destiny), Alfred Döblin tells of his continued flight from Paris as soon as news of…
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…
A Poem about the sea as a space of flight by Jehan Bseiso.
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 interview with the We Refugees Archive team, political refugee and scholar Hasan discusses their relationship to their mother tongue and the notion…
This memorandum clarifies the creation of the German Academy of Arts and Sciences together with the American Guild for German Cultural Freedom in New…
Yurdanus shares two recipes from her home country and tells her story of flight.
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 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…
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…
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…
Hannah Arendt describes the circumstances of her escape from the internment camp Gurs.
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…
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…
Ilija Trojanow, who fled with his parents from Bulgaria to Germany in 1971 and whose life is marked by experiences of migration, deals in…
K. was eight years old when she moved to Germany from Russia in 2000 with her parents and two older brothers as part of…
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 March 1933, Ernst Eduard Hirsch was dismissed from his position as a tenured judge in Frankfurt am Main and as a private lecturer…
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…
Marrie S. talks about what education means to him and how Palermo has become his home through the people who supported him.
In an interview with the We Refugees Archive Team, Iranian Political Exilee and Coordinator of the Committee on Forced Migration at Columbia University Kian…
Isa Artar talks about his experiences as well as identity problems after arriving in exile.
In her text, Sahar Reza describes the role of languages in her life as a refugee for almost 30 years. She describes her struggles…
On 20 November 1939, the YIVO in Vilnius approached the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee with a funding request for the “Project of Investigations…
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,…
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Istanbul became a place of refuge for thousands of Russian refugees who left the Soviet territories for political…
The newspaper article “Jews must preserve the German language” appeared in the New York exile newspaper Aufbau on Dec. 27, 1940. In it, the…
Kefah Ali Deeb came to Berlin in 2014 and spent six years writing a taz column about her old home country Syria and her…
The expectations of refugees who come to Germany are high: they should integrate, learn the language, build a new life for themselves and at…
Majid comes from the Darfur region in Sudan and belongs to the ethnic group of the Fur people. He fled to Turkey via Libya…
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 to her ex-husband Günther Anders from May 1941, Hannah Arendt gives an overview of her arrival experience in New York.
Poem by Mascha Kaléko, written in Israel in 1960’s
Mustapha F. tells of the difficult situation in which refugees in Italy find themselves.
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…
In this letter, the German architect and city planner Martin Wagner who emigated to Istanbul in 1935, asks Ernst Jäckh, who lives in London…
Ummuahmde fled the war in Syria in 2012, together with her family. Since then they live in Istanbul and run a small shop there.…
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…
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…
Nazeeha Saeed, a journalist from Bahrain who has been living in Berlin since 2019, talks about what opportunities the new home gives, how one…
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…
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Photo series by Bolesława and Edmund Zdanowscy
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…
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 his letter to the architect Walter Gropius, Martin Wagner reflects on how the Neues Bauen (New Building) can be rescued into better times…
On 8 February, 1940, Pese R. entered the office of the “Committee to Collect Material about the Destruction of Polish Jewry, 1939” in Vilnius,…
Because of his political and journalistic activities, İsa Artar came under state pressure and police observation in Turkey. Before he was sentenced to a…
Igiaba Sciego, actually Alì Omar Scego, from Somalia tells about the loss of his name in Italy.
In this open letter from the Moria camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, Parwana Amiri, a young Afghan refugee, describes how the fear,…
Fé Garcia Petit talks about how she started working when she was twelve to support her parents financially.
In her essay, Widad Nabi reflects critically on belonging as reality or illusion, her experiences and feelings in Germany, and on exile not as…
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…
Leo Glueckselig was born in 1914 in Vienna, in the 2nd district. In 1938, immediately after the “Anschluss” of Austria to the Reich, Glueckselig…
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 this letter Friederike Ergas describes the living situation of her friends Jenny Schaffer Bernstein and Otto Bernstein who urgently need financial support from…
Alaa Muhrez talks about her experiences in searching a job in Berlin.
Angelines Koulikoff reports about the difficulties as a Spanish citizen to find work.
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…
Aliou B. left Guinea alone at the age of thirteen. On his way via Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Libya, he experienced hunger, mistreatment…
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 letter of May 8, 1936, Ernst Loewy tells his parents about his life in the Kwuzah (Kibbutz). The initial anticipation gives way…
In his letter to Ernst May from 1935, the former Berlin city planner Martin Wagner, who went to Istanbul exile in 1935, reports on…
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 an interview with the We Refugees Archive team, refugee and South Asian LGBTQ+ activist Barbara Khan discusses the question of home, homesickness and…
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…
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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…
In an interview with the We Refugees Archive Team, Iranian Political Exilee and Coordinator of the Committee on Forced Migration at Columbia University Kian…
Fé Garcia Petit tells about her uncle’s arrival experience in Paris in the early 1920s.
This list documents a selection of names, “nationalities”, arrival dates and places of origin of refugees who arrived in Vilnius in 1939.
Hamdi shares a recipe from her home country Somalia and retells her story of flight and arrival.
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 an interview with the We Refugees Archive Team, political refugee Eric talks about his active support of the Venezuelan community in New York,…
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…
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 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, Alexandra Sadownik shares what home means to her and where she feels at home. She tells what she particularly likes about…
In an interview with the We Refugees Archive team, refugee and South Asian LGBTQ+ activist Barbara Khan relates the reasons for why she decided…
Dina is 27 years old and comes from Aleppo. Here she talks about her escape, her hopes and the things she had to leave…
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…
Dina is 27 years old and comes from Aleppo. She lost her home because of the war and does not know if she will…
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…
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 this excerpt, Hertha describes how she was forced to leave her job as head doctor of the Women’s and Counseling Center.
Majid Bolat comes from the Darfur region in Sudan and belongs to the ethnic group of the Fur people. He fled to Turkey via…
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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The pictures from his daughter’s private archive show Max Diamant (1906-1992) with family and friends in Paris, Mexico and Germany.
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 Syrian-Kurdish writer Widad Nabi has been living in Germany for 5 years. She does not see any distance between her and her German…
The history of the Asile de Nuit, Asile de Jour et Créche Israelites (Jewish night asylum, day asylum and day nursery) dates back to…
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 interview, the queer activist, human rights journalist, and refugee L. [1. they wish to remain anonymous] talks about their experiences of discrimination…
Fred (Fritz) Grubel (in Germany formerly Grüber) worked in the administration of the Jewish Community in Leipzig, his responsibilities included organizing the emigration of…
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…
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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…
On 24 June 1941, Kruk writes about his discouragement regarding his futile attempts to leave Vilnius for the USA shortly after the German attack…
Selafet Hizarçi came to Germany from Turkey in 1969, where she immediately began to work, learn the language and started a family. As part…
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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…
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, Chinese human rights activist and political exilee Teng Biao talks about how he arrived in…
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…
Lessie Sachs Wagner has applied for financial aid from the American Guild for German Cultural Freedom and in this letter she is denied her…
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 this interview, the political refugee and activist Sami[1. name changed] from Syria talks about his new beginning and initial challenges in the US.…
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 an interview, Widad Nabi describes what the words home and future mean to her.
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…
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 a diary entry from September 1939, the poet Mascha Kaléko (1907-1975) reflects on the outbreak of the war in Europe and her own…
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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…
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…
Erdal Yılmaz, his name has been changed, talks about his life in Istanbul and uses his own experience to deal with different phases of…
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…
In her essay, Behista Kofi tries to describe the breaks between her life in Kabul as a student and volunteer, the flight and the…
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 March 1933, Ernst Eduard Hirsch was dismissed from his position as a tenured judge in Frankfurt am Main and as a private lecturer…
In August 1938, Max Diamant receives an identity card that allowes him to stay in France as a refugee.
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…
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…
Malek [1. name changed] describes the psychological stress that the asylum process in the U.S. triggered in him.
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…
Herman Kruk writes about his pain facing the catastrophic war situation in his chosen hometown Warsaw.
During his exile in Istanbul, Fritz Neumark received a questionnaire from the German Consulate General in Istanbul reflecting Nazi racial policies. Whether he filled…
Kefah Ali Deeb came to Berlin in 2014 and spent six years writing a taz column about her old home country Syria and her…
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 an audio contribution from 1983, Max Diamant tells how he organized escape aid from Lisbon in cooperation with the Emergency Rescue Committee led…
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…
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Photo collection by the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
In a letter from 1946, Fred Stein describes the flight story of his family in detail to his friends and relatives. After Fred and…
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…
Harry Asher- originally Georg Auscher – born in Vienna in 1907. In 1920 the family moved to Czechoslovakia, where his parents came from. At…
Hannah Arendt tells her ex-husband Günther Anders about the circumstances of her escape from Lisbon and her arrival in New York.
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,…
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…
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 the documentary “Asylum on the Bosporus” Adelheid Scholz and Cornelius Bischof talk about their experiences with their family, in the internment camp and…
UNITED for Intercultural Action has been “collecting reliable data on refugee deaths related to Fortress Europe since 1993 in the ‘List of Deaths’”.
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 her essay, Nazeeha Saeed critically examines the concept of “homeland” and analyzes the connotations that can go along with it, such as loyalty…
Official letter from the Prussian Minister for Science, Art and National Education, dated September 1, 1933, to Fritz Neumark concerning his withdrawal from teaching…
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.
On June 4, 1938, the German architect and urban planner Bruno Taut, opened a retrospective of his work at the Istanbul Academy of Arts.…
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…
Selafet Hizarçi came to Germany from Turkey in 1969, where she immediatly began to work, learn the language and lateron started a family. Within…
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 work “A Jewish Refugee in New York” Kadya Molodowsky presents the life of the twenty-year-old refugee from Lublin- Rivke Zilberg in New…
Kadija J. about the thankfulness for the support she received in Palermo.
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…
Polish-Jewish refugee journalists and writers having dinner in their dormitory in Sadowa Street 9, 1939/40.
In her essay, Alaa Muhrez not only describes her own reflections on the topics of “homesickness”, “identity” and “exile”, but also takes up the…
Literary “love letter” by Widad Nabi to Berlin
On November 16, 1939, Owsiej Bułkin was the seventh refugee stranded in Vilnius who gave a report to the Komitet tsu zamlen materialn vegn…
Internal Communication between the Vilnius Delegation of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the New York Headquarters.
Why A. escaped Somalia
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…
Mahdi, who decided to flee Iran at the age of fourteen and has been living in Berlin ever since, tells where and from whom…
The reporter Ismail Einashe describes the situation of new arrivals in Palermo, especially the unaccompanied minors, and tells of his own family experiences of…
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…
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.…
Internal communications between the Vilnius delegation of the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the New York Headquarters.
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 this letter, the former Berlin city planner Martin Wagner, who went to Istanbul exile in 1935, reports on his first time in Istanbul,…
Mahdi A. talks in an interview about the initial difficulties in meeting his classmates in Berlin and how he dealt with the experience of…
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 an interview with the We Refugees Archive Team, Chinese human rights activist and political exilee Teng Biao talks about being a refugee as…
“For me, even the air is political”: In an interview, Hussam Al Zaher talks about the founding of kohero Magazine, an online magazine for…
Ibrar Mirzai about integration, arrival and the feelings of exiles
Majid comes from the Darfur region in Sudan and belongs to the ethnic group of the fur people. He fled to Turkey via Libya…
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”…