This list documents a selection of names, “nationalities”, arrival dates and places of origin of refugees who arrived in Vilnius in 1939.
In this letter, Lessie Sachs Wagner describes her current living situation and the difficulty of finding time to focus on her work. She is…
In her work “A Jewish Refugee in New York” Kadya Molodowsky presents the life of the twenty-year-old refugee from Lublin Rivke Zilberg in New…
In her 1984 memoirs, Susanne Friedmann-Kirsch (born 1926) describes her family’s flight migration – a “three-year odyssey” – from Vienna after the Anschluss in…
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 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 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…
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 interview, the political refugee and activist Sami[1. name changed] from Syria talks about his new beginning and initial challenges in the US.…
Traugott Fuchs, in protest against his dismissal by the Nazis and out of political convictions, followed his teacher Leo Spitzer into exile in Turkey,…
Kefah Ali Deeb came to Berlin in 2014 and spent six years writing a taz column about her old home country Syria and 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.…
In this interview, Alexandra Sadownik reports what it means for her to be a Jew in Germany and where she lives her Jewish identity.
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 the documentary “Asylum on the Bosporus” Adelheid Scholz and Cornelius Bischof talk about their experiences with their family, in the internment camp and…
Itzel Tzab was born in La Libertad, Petén in Guatemala. She grew up in rural poverty, where her family experienced deadly assaults by violent…
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…
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 the letter of May 8, 1936, Ernst Loewy tells his parents about his life in the Kwuzah (Kibbutz). The initial anticipation gives way…
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 the course of the National Socialist racial policy, Hertha Nathorff lost her license to practice medicine in 1934 and her medical license in…
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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…
Harry Asher- originally Georg Auscher – born in Vienna in 1907. In 1920 the family moved to Czechoslovakia, where his parents came from. At…
An unknown author writes in a DP camp magazine about the shortcomings of just having a single term for all displaced persons.
In March 1933, Ernst Eduard Hirsch was dismissed from his position as a tenured judge in Frankfurt am Main and as a private lecturer…
Kadija J. talks about the difficulties she faces within the Italian education system.
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 March 1933, Ernst Eduard Hirsch was dismissed from his position as a tenured judge in Frankfurt am Main and as a private lecturer…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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 open letter from the Moria camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, Parwana Amiri, a young Afghan refugee, describes how the fear,…
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…
Nazeeha Saeed, a journalist from Bahrain who lives in Paris and Berlin since 2016, talks about how she came to call herself a “journalist…
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…
Ummuahmde fled the war in Syria in 2012, together with her family. Since then they live in Istanbul and run a small shop there.…
Hannah Arendt describes the circumstances of her escape from the internment camp Gurs.
Diawara B. tells of the futility of his integration efforts in the hostile Italian immigration system – especially in view of the “security decree”.
Aliou B. left Guinea alone at the age of thirteen. On his way via Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Libya, he experienced hunger, mistreatment…
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…
During his exile in Istanbul, Fritz Neumark received a questionnaire from the German Consulate General in Istanbul reflecting Nazi racial policies. Whether he filled…
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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 his poetic essay, Karam Alhamad describes his thoughts about belonging and feelings to Berlin. He feels as a Syrian in Berlin only in…
Igiaba Sciego, actually Alì Omar Scego, from Somalia tells about the loss of his name in Italy.
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…
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…
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 November 1939, a group of Polish-Jewish refugee writers and journalists formed the “Committee to Collect Material about the Destruction of Polish Jewry 1939”…
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…
Giulia di Carlo worked in a reception centre in Palermo and describes from her perspective the situation for refugees in the city.
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 essay, Widad Nabi reflects critically on belonging as reality or illusion, her experiences and feelings in Germany, and on exile not as…
In an interview with the We Refugees Archive Team, political refugee Eric talks about his active support of the Venezuelan community in New York,…
On 22 June 1941, Herman Kruk writes about the National Socialists’ invasion of Vilnius and his decision to stay in Vilnius despite all.
In this Interview, Alexandra Sadownik rembers how it was when her family arrived in Germany in 1998. For several years, Alexandra lived in a…
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…
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 August 1938, Max Diamant receives an identity card that allowes him to stay in France as a refugee.
In his letter to the architect Walter Gropius, Martin Wagner reflects on how the Neues Bauen (New Building) can be rescued into better times…
Marrie S. talks about what education means to him and how Palermo has become his home through the people who supported him.
The “Jüdische Jugendhilfe” (Jewish Youth Aid) was founded on 30 January 1933 out of a group of Zionist youth organisations. It organised the emigration…
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 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…
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.…
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,…
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…
On the night of September 5 to September 6, 1939, only a few days after the German attack on Poland, a group of Jewish…
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, Eric, a political refugee from Venezuela, talks about being a refugee and homesick in New…
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…
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 an interview with the We Refugees Archive Team, Chinese human rights activist and political exilee Teng Biao talks about being a refugee as…
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 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 a diary entry from September 1939, the poet Mascha Kaléko (1907-1975) reflects on the outbreak of the war in Europe and her own…
Benzion Benshalom writes about his euphoria after attending a Zionist assembly in Vilnius for the first time.
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…
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…
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, political refugee and scholar Hasan relates the reasons for why they decided to flee. The…
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Photo series by Bolesława and Edmund Zdanowscy
In an interview, Hussam Al Zaher, founder of the kohero magazine (former ‘Refugee Magazine’), talks about the importance the city of Hamburg has for…
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 this letter to her ex-husband Günther Anders from May 1941, Hannah Arendt gives an overview of her arrival experience in New York.
Abdul S. – name changed, is an exiled professor of epidemiology at Kabul University of Medical Science and the first Afghan scholar to accept a…
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…
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 her interview with Günter Gaus, Arendt talks about the reasons that led her to flee to Paris.
The history of the Asile de Nuit, Asile de Jour et Créche Israelites (Jewish night asylum, day asylum and day nursery) dates back to…
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…
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…
An unknown author describes the barriers that stand in the way of those who want to emigrate.
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, refugee and South Asian LGBTQ+ activist Barbara Khan talks about her identity as a trans-refugee…
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…
Alaa Muhrez talks about her experiences of arriving and everyday life in exile, about questions of identity and experiences of exclusion.
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 an audio contribution from 1983, Max Diamant tells how he was able to cross the Rhine to France unnoticed by ship.
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.
In an interview with the We Refugees Archive team, political refugee and scholar Hasan discusses their identity as a refugee and the support networks…
Internal Communication between the Vilnius Delegation of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the New York Headquarters.
On June 10, 1933, refugees from Germany decided to found the Association des Emigrés Allemands en France (Association of German Emigrants in France) in…
On 8 February, 1940, Pese R. entered the office of the “Committee to Collect Material about the Destruction of Polish Jewry, 1939” in Vilnius,…
In an interview with the We Refugees Archive team, political refugee and scholar Hasan discusses their relationship to their mother tongue and the notion…
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These pictures show arrival and support structures for refugees from the Czech Republic and Germany in Paris in 1938 and 1939.
On November 27, 1939, Motel Grajer, a Yeshivah student from Markuszów, Poland, who had escaped the Germans to Vilnius, gave an interview to the…
Mohammad talks in an interview about his arrival in Germany, about expectations and memories – about comparing and forgetting. And about Berlin: a city…
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 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…
Fé Garcia Petit tells of workers resistance, solidarity and sexism.
Benzion Benshalom wrote in the winter of 1939/40 about the desperate atmosphere and the sad cityscape in Vilnius.
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 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, the political refugee and activist Sami[1. name changed] from Syria, talks about his American identity…
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…
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…
Yurdanus shares two recipes from her home country and tells her story of flight.
Conversation with Giovanni from Ethiopia.
Poem by Mascha Kaléko (ca. 1938)
Why A. escaped Somalia
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…
Dina is 27 years old and comes from Aleppo. Here she talks about her escape, her hopes and the things she had to leave…
Lessie Sachs Wagner has applied for financial aid from the American Guild for German Cultural Freedom and in this letter she is denied her…
In an interview with the We Refugees Archive Team, Iranian Political Exilee and Coordinator of the Committee on Forced Migration at Columbia University Kian…
Alfred Rosenthal describes his departure from Germany to Palestine in 1933 not as an escape but as emigration. Before emigrating from Israel to the…
The newspaper article “Jews must preserve the German language” appeared in the New York exile newspaper Aufbau on Dec. 27, 1940. In it, the…
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…
M. talks about her volunteer work: her tasks in a welfare and social institution and her commute by public transport. While doing so she…
In her famous interview with Günter Gaus, Hannah Arendt talks about her time in Paris, where she had fled from Nazi Germany in 1933…
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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.
Adrián Cruz is from Guatemala City in Guatemala. He fled to the United States when he was 17 years old. He comes from a…
Dina is 27 years old and comes from Aleppo. She lost her home because of the war and does not know if she will…
Hamdi shares a recipe from her home country Somalia and retells her story of flight and arrival.
In his letter to Ernst May from 1935, the former Berlin city planner Martin Wagner, who went to Istanbul exile in 1935, reports on…
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…
On 24 June 1941, Kruk writes about his discouragement regarding his futile attempts to leave Vilnius for the USA shortly after the German attack…
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…
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,…
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 an interview with the We Refugees Archive team, refugee and South Asian LGBTQ+ activist Barbara Khan relates the reasons for why she decided…
Fé Garcia Petit tells about her uncle’s arrival experience in Paris in the early 1920s.
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 work “A Jewish Refugee in New York” Kadya Molodowsky presents the life of the twenty-year-old refugee from Lublin- Rivke Zilberg in New…
In this letter, the former Berlin city planner Martin Wagner, who went to Istanbul exile in 1935, reports on his first time in Istanbul,…
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 interview, the queer activist, human rights journalist and refugee L. [1. they wish to remain anonymous] presents their reflections on the topics:…
Ernst E. Hirsch reflects on his privileged emigration to Istanbul with the help of the Notgemeinschaft deutscher Wissenschaftler im Ausland (Emergency Society of German…
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…
Paydar H. is a Kurd from Aleppo in Syria. After the bombing of the city in 2013, he fled to Turkey at the age…
K. was eight years old when she moved to Germany from Russia in 2000 with her parents and two older brothers as part 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…
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Istanbul became a place of refuge for thousands of Russian refugees who left the Soviet territories for political…
Nazeeha Saeed, a journalist from Bahrain who lives in Paris and Berlin in exile since 2016, speaks about her visions for the future: As…
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 interview, Alexandra Sadownik tells the motivations of why her family decided to migrate from Uzbekistan to Germany in 1998 and what difficulties…
Paydar H. is a Kurd from Aleppo in Syria. After the bombing of the city in 2013, he fled to Istanbul via Afrin in…
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 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…
International human mobility. From the migration as suffering to mobility as an inalienable human right
Kadija J. about the thankfulness for the support she received in Palermo.
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 Syrian-Kurdish writer Widad Nabi has been living in Germany for 5 years. She does not see any distance between her and her German…
This memorandum clarifies the creation of the German Academy of Arts and Sciences together with the American Guild for German Cultural Freedom in New…
Ismael Xol was born in Xolcuay, El Quiché in Guatemala and crossed the border into the United States at just 15 years old. Ismael…
In this letter Friederike Ergas describes the living situation of her friends Jenny Schaffer Bernstein and Otto Bernstein who urgently need financial support from…
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…
Ibrar Mirzai about integration, arrival and the feelings of exiles
In a courageous essay, Tooba Saima tells of her childhood in Pakistan, her arranged marriage, her exploitation by her husband’s family in Manchester, her…
İsa Can Artar and Daryna Axxi Degtiarova depict the objects of refugees that have a special meaning for them in the photo series “Home…
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Photo series by Bolesława and Edmund Zdanowscy
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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 expulsion from her homeland, which was incomprehensible to…
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 the chaos of war, Moyshe Mandelman (1895-1963) made it to Vilnius in 1940. He was particularly impressed by the local Jewish aid networks…
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…
K. talks about the reactions of others at school and at the citizen office to her Jewish identity.
Isa Artar talks about his experiences as well as identity problems after arriving in exile.
Majid Bolat comes from the Darfur region in Sudan and belongs to the ethnic group of the Fur people. He fled to Turkey via…
Herman Kruk writes about his pain facing the catastrophic war situation in his chosen hometown Warsaw.
A Poem about the sea as a space of flight by Jehan Bseiso.
Alaa Muhrez on the reasons for her flight from Syria and Egypt, the decision for Germany and what she learned to appreciate about Berlin.
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…
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…
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…
Malek [1. name changed] describes the psychological stress that the asylum process in the U.S. triggered in him.
In a letter from 1946, Fred Stein describes the flight story of his family in detail to his friends and relatives. After Fred 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. On his photographic wanderings he…
In this interview, Alexandra Sadownik reports on her relationship with the Russian language and what it was like for her to learn German. As…
H. comes from Somalia and lives in Italy today. Together with other Somali refugees he took part in a round table discussion of the…
The DP theatre group “Baderech” announces its formation.
Ummuahmde fled the war in Syria in 2012, together with her family. Since then they live in Istanbul and run a small shop there.…
Ummuahmde fled the war in Syria in 2012, together with her family. Since then they live in Istanbul and run a small shop there.…
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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,…
Raymonde, Marceline and Bonifacia Sanchez talk about the role of Spanish and French in their lives, their role as mediators between and facilitators for…
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 an interview with the We Refugees Archive team, political refugee Eric discusses his decision to leave Venezuela and to come to United States.…
Poem by Mascha Kaléko
A letter from Emanuel Ringelblum to Raphael Mahler
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…
Alaa Muhrez talks about her experiences in searching a job in Berlin.
In an interview with the We Refugees Archive Team, Chinese human rights activist and political exilee Teng Biao talks about how he arrived in…
Diawara B. talks about the so-called “Security Decree” passed by the Italian government.
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 a letter from 1946, Fred Stein describes in detail the story of his family’s escape to his friends and relatives via Paris and…
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
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…
Because of his political and journalistic activities, İsa Artar came under state pressure and police observation in Turkey. Before he was sentenced to 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…
On June 19 and 20 [1936], an international conference of German emigrants was held in Paris, where the statutes of the Association des Emigrés…
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 work “A Jewish Refugee in New York” Kadya Molodowsky presents the life of the twenty-year-old refugee from Lublin Rivke Zilberg in New…
George Edel, a Jewish doctor from Vienna (who converted to Christianity), tells of his flight from Zagreb to Paris and of his stay in…
Hannah Arendt tells her ex-husband Günther Anders about the circumstances of her escape from Lisbon and her arrival in New York.
First Alaa Muhrez and her husband moved to a village near Leipzig, then they moved to Berlin. Alaa describes experiences of discrimination that she…
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 her essay, Nazeeha Saeed critically examines the concept of “homeland” and analyzes the connotations that can go along with it, such as loyalty…
An interview with refugee activist Bashir Zakaria on Berlin Oranienplatz conducted in 2013, in which he tells the story of his flight and arrival…
Selafet Hizarçi came to Germany from Turkey in 1969, where she immediately began to work, learn the language and started a family. As part…
Aliou B. left Guinea alone at the age of thirteen. On his way via Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Libya, he experienced hunger, mistreatment…
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…
Nazeeha Saeed, a journalist from Bahrain who lives in exile in Paris and Berlin since 2016, speaks about the discrimination against minorities and the…
Mahdi A. talks in an interview about the initial difficulties in meeting his classmates in Berlin and how he dealt with the experience of…
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…
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…
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…
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 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 the excerpt from his work “Schicksalsreise” (Journey of Destiny), Alfred Döblin tells of his continued flight from Paris as soon as news of…
Barry Chukudi is from Nigeria, from Biafra. He fled to Turkey in 2013 due to the violence of the Nigerian military in the struggle…
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 letter, the German architect and city planner Martin Wagner who emigated to Istanbul in 1935, asks Ernst Jäckh, who lives in London…
In a radio interview from 1959, Arendt speaks about the political and legal situation of refugees in the 1930s and the differences between immigration…
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 an interview with the We Refugees Archive team, political refugee Eric talks about his new start in New York, financial difficulties, finding housing,…
K. talks about the term “contingent refugees” and her own experience of flight from her childhood perspective.
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 diary entry in New York on June 20, 1941, the poet Mascha Kaléko (1907-1975) describes the many, mainly material, worries as a…
Letter from the Nothmann family from the reception camp in Berlin-Wittenau to relatives.
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…
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…
In an audio contribution from 1983, Max Diamant tells how he organized escape aid from Lisbon in cooperation with the Emergency Rescue Committee led…
Bertolt Brecht’s poem on the difference between emigration and exile
Poem by Mascha Kaléko, written in Israel in 1960’s
In her essay, Alaa Muhrez not only describes her own reflections on the topics of “homesickness”, “identity” and “exile”, but also takes up the…
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…
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…
Hilda Epstein was a German nurse born in Karlsruhe into a religious Jewish family. She learned infant care in Heidelberg, and later moved to…
Kefah Ali Deeb reflects on her arrival, integration expectations and her experiences in a refugee shelter.
Paydar H. is a Kurd from Aleppo in Syria. After the bombing of the city in 2013, he fled to Istanbul via Afrin 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…
Joint Funding Agreement for the “Project for Investigating the Destruction of Jewish Population in Poland and its Current Situation” of the YIVO, 20 November…
In July 1940, Fritz Neumark received notification in Istanbul that he and his family had been expatriated.
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…
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…
Angelines Koulikoff reports about the difficulties as a Spanish citizen to find work.
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 November 16, 1939, Owsiej Bułkin was the seventh refugee stranded in Vilnius who gave a report to the Komitet tsu zamlen materialn vegn…
Because of his political and journalistic activities, İsa Artar came under state pressure and police observation in Turkey. Before he was sentenced to a…
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…
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…
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…
On June 4, 1938, the German architect and urban planner Bruno Taut, opened a retrospective of his work at the Istanbul Academy of Arts.…
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…
Khatereh Rahmani describes her attempt, despite separation from her family and uncertainty about the future, to build her new life and everyday life in…
Diawara B. and the Mayor of Palermo, Leoluca Orlando, talk about the possibilites of Palermo as a city of reception.
After he was prohibited from working in Nazi Germany in 1937 because of his Jewish origins and his social democratic commitment, Franz Hillinger fled…
Polish-Jewish refugee journalists and writers having dinner in their dormitory in Sadowa Street 9, 1939/40.
In an interview, the writer Widad Nabi speaks about what Berlin means to her.
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…
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…
Mustapha F. talks about his first time in a reception camp and his experiences of the reception in Palermo. He reports about his lack…
Erdal Yılmaz, his name has been changed, talks about his life in Istanbul and uses his own experience to deal with different phases of…
In this interview, Alexandra Sadownik shares what home means to her and where she feels at home. She tells what she particularly likes about…
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…
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 interview with the We Refugees Archive team, political refugee and scholar Hasan talks about starting over in the United States and the…
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 undated diary entries, the writer and journalist Paul-Adolphe Löffler (1901-1979) writes about his favorite places in Paris – mostly places of the French…
Benno Simoni describes how he grew up and lived as a Jew in the GDR and – until the building of the Berlin Wall…
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 an interview with the We Refugees Archive team, refugee and South Asian LGBTQ+ activist Barbara Khan discusses the question of home, homesickness and…
Nazeeha Saeed was harassed by state authorities because of her journalistic activities in Bahrain. In this interview excerpt she speaks about how she settled…
Social Democratic politician Elsbeth Weichmann (1900-1988) describes the network of refugees in Paris in the 1930s and 1940s.
Mustapha F. tells of the difficult situation in which refugees in Italy find themselves.
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 letter of May 27, 1938, to the Latin and Greek teacher Johannes Oeschger, the German Romance scholar and literary scholar Erich Auerbach…
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…
Majid comes from the Darfur region in Sudan and belongs to the ethnic group of the fur people. He fled to Turkey via Libya…
Fatima D. is from Gambia and came to Palermo in May 2017. She is one of many refugee minors who came unaccompanied by adults.…
The German architect and urban planner Bruno Taut had come to Turkey from his first exile in Japan in 1935 as the head 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…
Herman Kruk writes in his diary about his flight from Warsaw to Vilnius, September 1939.
Abdul S.– name changed, is an exiled professor of epidemiology at Kabul University of Medical Science and the first Afghan scholar to accept 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…
George Edel, a Jewish doctor from Vienna (who converted to Christianity), tells of the flight preparations in the wake of the annexation of Austria…
In this letter Anna Seghers vouches for Lothar Freud and Lukas Lehman to receive aid from the American Guild for German Cultural Freedom, so…
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…
On 20 November 1939, the YIVO in Vilnius approached the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee with a funding request for the “Project of Investigations…
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…
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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…
Paydar H. is a Kurd from Aleppo in Syria. After the bombing of the city in 2013, he fled with his brother to Turkey…
Nazeeha Saeed, a journalist from Bahrain who lives in Paris and Berlin in exile since 2016, speaks about her journalistic work in Bahrain and…
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 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…
The expectations of refugees who come to Germany are high: they should integrate, learn the language, build a new life for themselves and at…
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 her essay, Behista Kofi tries to describe the breaks between her life in Kabul as a student and volunteer, the flight and the…
Issam Alnajm’s poem is an ode to Bochum, where Issam found a “new home” after his arrival in Germany in 2015.
Isabel Alonso Martin tells of her arduous journey to France – transit into a new life.
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…
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…
On an unusually bright morning in Berlin I was sitting alone, sipping a cup of coffee and hesitating over a loud noise. This word…
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 an interview, Widad Nabi describes what the words home and future mean to her.
Kadija J. on her reasons for coming to Europe.
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…
Aliou B. left Guinea alone at the age of thirteen. On his way via Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Libya, he experienced hunger, mistreatment…
“For me, even the air is political”: In an interview, Hussam Al Zaher talks about the founding of kohero Magazine, an online magazine for…
The reporter Ismail Einashe describes the situation of new arrivals in Palermo, especially the unaccompanied minors, and tells of his own family experiences of…
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,…
UNITED for Intercultural Action has been “collecting reliable data on refugee deaths related to Fortress Europe since 1993 in the ‘List of Deaths’”.
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…
Barry Chukudi is from Nigeria, from Biafra. He fled to Turkey in 2013 due to the violence of the Nigerian military in the struggle…
Marrie S. talks about what love in the form of solidarity, support, and rescue means to him.
Ummuahmed fled the war in Syria in 2012, together with her family. Since then they live in Istanbul and run a small shop there.…
Fatima D. tells of her escape through the desert.
In her text, Sahar Reza describes the role of languages in her life as a refugee for almost 30 years. She describes her struggles…
Even great political theorists sometimes have to write CVs. Also Hannah Arendt. It proves how crucially her experiences and work in Paris influenced her…
In an interview with the We Refugees Archive Team, Iranian Political Exilee and Coordinator of the Committee on Forced Migration at Columbia University Kian…
Mahdi A. describes his initial helplessness after his arrival in Berlin, what the city means to him now and his plans for the future.
Françoise and Marie Lopez talk about the gradual migration of their parents to France.
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 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…
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…
Selafet Hizarçi came to Germany from Turkey in 1969, where she immediatly began to work, learn the language and lateron started a family. Within…
Traugott Fuchs, in protest against his dismissal by the Nazis and out of political convictions, followed his teacher Leo Spitzer into exile in Turkey,…
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…
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…
The financial scientist Fritz Neumark talks about homesickness and his not easy decision to return to Germany after 16 years of exile in Istanbul,…
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…
In August 1940, the local office of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee summarized the situation of Jewish refugees in Istanbul and the state…
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…
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…
Because of his political and journalistic activities, İsa Artar came under state pressure and police observation in Turkey. Before he was sentenced to 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…
In this interview, the queer activist, human rights journalist, and refugee L. [1. they wish to remain anonymous] talks about their experiences of discrimination…
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…
Nazeeha Saeed, a journalist from Bahrain who has been living in Berlin since 2019, talks about what opportunities the new home gives, how one…
Edith Hillinger, born in Berlin in 1933, fled with her parents from Nazi Germany to Istanbul in 1937. Her father Franz Hillinger worked in…
Alaa Muhrez talks about the new friendships she has made in Berlin and about the potential as well as difficulty when it comes to…
In this excerpt, Hertha describes how she was forced to leave her job as head doctor of the Women’s and Counseling Center.
Maaza Mengiste’s short story describes traumatic experiences of flight with many mythological allusions.
Internal communications between the Vilnius delegation of the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the New York Headquarters.
In his novel Exile, Lion Feuchtwanger describes the grim situation of the German refugee community living in Paris.
Itzel Tzab was born in La Libertad, Petén in Guatemala.She grew up in rural poverty, where her family experienced deadly assaults by violent neighbors.…
In excerpts from the diary Berlin-New York Aufzeichnungen 1933 bis 1945, Hertha Nathorff vividly describes the destruction of her life, which was incomprehensible to…
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…
Leo Glueckselig was born in 1914 in Vienna, in the 2nd district. In 1938, immediately after the “Anschluss” of Austria to the Reich, Glueckselig…
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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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…
Literary “love letter” by Widad Nabi to Berlin
Fé Garcia Petit talks about how she started working when she was twelve to support her parents financially.
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 this interview, the political refugee and activist Sami[1. name changed] from Syria, presents his thoughts and experiences on the topics: Support Networks for…
The German architect and urban planner Bruno Taut had come to Turkey from his first exile in Japan in 1935 as the head of…
Edith Hillinger, born in Berlin in 1933, fled with her parents from Nazi Germany to Istanbul in 1937. Her father Franz Hillinger worked in…
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Syrian photographer Alaa Hassan looks at the city of Istanbul – as a city of refuge and transit for other Syrian refugees, as 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…
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…
Kadija J. has lived in Palermo for over two years. In the interview, she talks about her reasons to come to Europe, her visions…