With this cinematic meditation on Hannah Arendt's Paris years, We Refugees Archive pays tribute to its eponym. Arendt's essay "We Refugees" sprang from her experiences as a refugee in Paris.
The Hungarian communist, writer, journalist and antifascist activist Paul-Adolphe Löffler (1901-1979) describes Paris in his diary as a dazzling place of longing, which, however, regularly disappoints him. As a refugee with forged papers, he arrives by train at Gare de l'Est, where the city immediately robs him of his illusions: Paris seems less beautiful and sunny than expected, but the hope for a brighter future remains.
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…
In his novel Exile, Lion Feuchtwanger describes the grim situation of the German refugee community living in Paris.
Bertolt Brecht’s poem on the difference between emigration and exile
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…
Social Democratic politician Elsbeth Weichmann (1900-1988) describes the network of refugees in Paris in the 1930s and 1940s.
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…
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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…
Nazeeha Saeed was harassed by state authorities because of her journalistic activities in Bahrain. In this interview excerpt she speaks about how she settled…
On June 10, 1933, refugees from Germany decided to found the Association des Emigrés Allemands en France (Association of German Emigrants in France) in…
Fé Garcia Petit talks about how she started working when she was twelve to support her parents financially.
In a letter from 1946, Fred Stein describes the flight story of his family in detail to his friends and relatives. After Fred and…
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 her interview with Günter Gaus, Arendt talks about the reasons that led her to flee to Paris.
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…
George Edel, a Jewish doctor from Vienna (who converted to Christianity), tells of his flight from Zagreb to Paris and of his stay in…
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 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…
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…
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…
Fé Garcia Petit tells about her uncle’s arrival experience in Paris in the early 1920s.
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…
In this letter from September 1938 Anna Seghers thanks Prince Löwenstein for his help and explains how she plans to write her next book.
Even great political theorists sometimes have to write CVs. Also Hannah Arendt. It proves how crucially her experiences and work in Paris influenced her…
The history of the Asile de Nuit, Asile de Jour et Créche Israelites (Jewish night asylum, day asylum and day nursery) dates back to…
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…
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 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…
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…
In this letter to her ex-husband Günther Anders from May 1941, Hannah Arendt gives an overview of her arrival experience in New York.
Nazeeha Saeed was harassed by state authorities because of her journalistic activities in Bahrain. In this excerpt she describes how she arrived at the…
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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 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 an audio contribution from 1983, Max Diamant tells how he was able to cross the Rhine to France unnoticed by ship.
In the excerpt from his work “Schicksalsreise” (Journey of Destiny), Alfred Döblin tells of his continued flight from Paris as soon as news of…
On June 19 and 20 [1936], an international conference of German emigrants was held in Paris, where the statutes of the Association des Emigrés…
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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…
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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.
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…
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.
Isabel Alonso Martin tells of her arduous journey to France – transit into a new life.
Hannah Arendt tells her ex-husband Günther Anders about the circumstances of her escape from Lisbon and her arrival in New York.
Raymonde, Marceline and Bonifacia Sanchez talk about the role of Spanish and French in their lives, their role as mediators between and facilitators for…
In a letter from 1946, Fred Stein describes in detail the story of his family’s escape to his friends and relatives via Paris and…
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…
Hannah Arendt describes the circumstances of her escape from the internment camp Gurs.
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…
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…
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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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…
Angelines Koulikoff reports about the difficulties as a Spanish citizen to find work.
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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.
In her famous interview with Günter Gaus, Hannah Arendt talks about her time in Paris, where she had fled from Nazi Germany in 1933…
The Women’s International Zionist Organization (WIZO), the largest international charitable women’s organization in the world, in cooperation with other organizations and under the leadership…
In a 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…
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…
Fé Garcia Petit tells of workers resistance, solidarity and sexism.
In August 1938, Max Diamant receives an identity card that allowes him to stay in France as a refugee.
Nazeeha Saeed, a journalist from Bahrain who lives in Paris and Berlin since 2016, talks about how she came to call herself a “journalist…
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…
Ilija Trojanow, who fled with his parents from Bulgaria to Germany in 1971 and whose life is marked by experiences of migration, deals in…
Ilija Trojanow, who fled with his parents from Bulgaria to Germany in 1971 and whose life is marked by experiences of migration, deals in…
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…
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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…
In a radio interview from 1959, Arendt speaks about the political and legal situation of refugees in the 1930s and the differences between immigration…