“In order to rebuild one’s life one has to be strong and an optimist.” 11Arendt, Hannah, 1943: We Refugees, Menorah Journal.
People do not only flee in order to escape any kind of danger to life and limb. At the same time, future is always inherent in flight, a look ahead, in which the hope of a safe arrival is combined with the individual will for a new beginning and concrete visions for the future. This momentum bears the potential of radical freedom through mobility, which is inscribed in this concept of the future itself. What lies before us does not necessarily arise from the past or is determined by it, but rather builds on the individual to proactively participate in shaping his or her own and collective not-yet.
However, this migrant time continuum is often confronted with almost insurmountable obstacles of the present. Refugees often find themselves for years in a state of uncertainty, forced inactivity in overcrowded reception centers and suffer from legal discrimination, racism and the indoctrinated feeling of being obliged to act in a way that their new environment expects from them. If the hope for a new beginning is lost due to obstacles experienced or a lack of perspectives, this often has fatal psychological consequences for those affected. Thus, the possibilities for a new beginning and the building up of an existence often have extremely different and uncontrollable starting conditions, which depend on temporal, spatial, political and individual criteria. Social access through language, education, community and mutual cultural recognition remains essential. The striving for social recognition is always fatally intertwined with the danger of having to give up a self-determined life and self-image that is independent of unclear criteria of integration.
“We are (and always were) ready to pay any price in order to be accepted by society.” 22Arendt, Hannah, 2007: We Refugees in The Jewish Writings, New York: Schocken Books, p. 273.
Thousands of Jewish refugees tried to survive in Vilnius in the early 1940s and to prepare for their onward journey or possible emigration to Palestine. Just like them, refugees in Europe today are often in a state of uncertainty for years. This raises the question of whether state immigration restrictions allow for a future stay in the host city with a view towards starting over. The behavior of the host society towards refugees here is crucial.
Thousands of Jewish refugees tried to survive in the Vilnius of the early 1940s, preparing for their onward journey or possible emigration to Palestine, America or other places promising security. Like them, refugees in Europe, such as in Palermo, are now often in a state of uncertainty and waiting for years. The question arises whether state immigration restrictions will allow them to remain in the city of refuge in the future with the prospect of a new beginning. Knowing that they could be forced to flee further or be deported every day, it is difficult to build a future in the place of refuge. Nevertheless, under the given conditions, they try everything possible to build the secure and fulfilling life they were heading for through education, networking and work.
Mustapha F. came to Sicily from Gambia. He had to spend several months in different reception camps until he came to Palermo. Since then he has been going to school, learning Italian and, like many others, working part-time (often several jobs and usually without an employment contract).
With this cinematic meditation on Hannah Arendt's Paris years, We Refugees Archive pays tribute to its eponym. Arendt's essay "We Refugees" sprang from her experiences as a refugee in Paris.
The Hungarian communist, writer, journalist and antifascist activist Paul-Adolphe Löffler (1901-1979) describes Paris in his diary as a dazzling place of longing, which, however, regularly disappoints him. As a refugee with forged papers, he arrives by train at Gare de l'Est, where the city immediately robs him of his illusions: Paris seems less beautiful and sunny than expected, but the hope for a brighter future remains.
"Asylum is only a marginal part of my life. I don't live to get it." The musician Bahila H. comes from Syria and now lives in Berlin. She is studying architecture at the Brandenburg Technical University Cottbus-Senftenberg, continues to make music and hopes for a life in Berlin away from traditions and the suppression of opinions.
Alaa M. and her husband came to Germany in 2015. They have built a new life in Berlin, their twins were born in exile. Alaa is a self-confident woman in Berlin who has to fight many prejudices. She does not accept that people judge her by her appearance.
In the documentary "Asylum on the Bosporus" Adelheid Scholz and Cornelius Bischof talk about their experiences with their family, in the internment camp and in the Nazi youth camp in the 1930s in Istanbul from a current perspective. In the We Refugees Archive, some excerpts from the documentary are selected to show the former refugee children's confrontation with their own memories.
Dina is a young artist from Aleppo and works as a graphic designer in Istanbul. After the war started in Syria, she decided to start a new life in Turkey, together with her brother and mother. She started from scratch with a new life in Turkey, but then she finished her studies as one of the best students in her school.
The lawyer and university lecturer Ernst Eduard Hirsch (1902-1985), like thousands of others, had to leave Germany after the Nazi rise to power. His new life began in Istanbul, where he was able to advance his academic career and later felt like a Turkish civil servant.
Human rights lawyer Esin B. talks about the living conditions of refugees in Istanbul and newly created immigration regulations in Turkey, which are compatible with international human rights, but bring legal problems.
This film describes the arrival of Hannah Arendt - a Jewish, German-American political theorist and publicist - in New York and her reflections on flight and helping people start over.
In this film, refugee South Asian LGBTQ+ activist Barbara Khan talks about her migration from Pakistan and her life in New York as a trans woman.
Fatima D. goes to school and receives training as a musician at the conservatory. Her future dream is to become a singer and musician. Her wish came about through a spontaneous encounter with a drum teacher who saw her playing the djembé.
Emmanuel comes from Ghana and has lived in Palermo since 1992. In the 27 years he has worked in various professions. Emmanuel could no longer pursue his profession as an industrial mechanic in Palermo and took a job as a night watchman in a flower shop.
Among the more than 10,000 Jews who were stranded in Vilnius in the fall of 1939 there was the librarian and political activist Herman Kruk from Warsaw. His exceptional diary records and press reports sketch a mosaic of the heterogenous society of refugees in Vilnius since the beginning of the war.
Kadija J. has lived in Palermo for over two years. In the interview, she talks about her reasons to come to Europe, her visions…
In an interview with the We Refugees Archive Team, Iranian Political Exilee and Coordinator of the Committee on Forced Migration at Columbia University Kian…
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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…
İsa Can Artar and Daryna Axxi Degtiarova depict the objects of refugees that have a special meaning for them in the photo series “Home…
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…
Paydar H. is a Kurd from Aleppo in Syria. After the bombing of the city in 2013, he fled to Turkey at the age…
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…
In an interview with the We Refugees Archive Team, Iranian Political Exilee and Coordinator of the Committee on Forced Migration at Columbia University Kian…
Raymonde, Marceline and Bonifacia Sanchez talk about the role of Spanish and French in their lives, their role as mediators between and facilitators for…
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…
Conversation with Giovanni from Ethiopia.
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 essay, Behista Kofi tries to describe the breaks between her life in Kabul as a student and volunteer, the flight and the…
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…
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…
Aliou B. left Guinea alone at the age of thirteen. On his way via Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Libya, he experienced hunger, mistreatment…
Ummuahmde fled the war in Syria in 2012, together with her family. Since then they live in Istanbul and run a small shop there.…
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 this interview, Alexandra Sadownik reports what it means for her to be a Jew in Germany and where she lives her Jewish identity.
In the letter of May 8, 1936, Ernst Loewy tells his parents about his life in the Kwuzah (Kibbutz). The initial anticipation gives way…
Traugott Fuchs, in protest against his dismissal by the Nazis and out of political convictions, followed his teacher Leo Spitzer into exile in Turkey,…
Fé Garcia Petit talks about how she started working when she was twelve to support her parents financially.
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…
Hilda Epstein was a German nurse born in Karlsruhe into a religious Jewish family. She learned infant care in Heidelberg, and later moved to…
Alaa Muhrez talks about her experiences of arriving and everyday life in exile, about questions of identity and experiences of exclusion.
Itzel Tzab was born in La Libertad, Petén in Guatemala. She grew up in rural poverty, where her family experienced deadly assaults by violent…
In an interview with the We Refugees Archive Team, Iranian Political Exilee and Coordinator of the Committee on Forced Migration at Columbia University Kian…
Kefah Ali Deeb came to Berlin in 2014 and spent six years writing a taz column about her old home country Syria and her…
Poem by Mascha Kaléko
Abdul S. – name changed, is an exiled professor of epidemiology at Kabul University of Medical Science and the first Afghan scholar to accept a…
Kadija J. talks about the difficulties she faces within the Italian education system.
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,…
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 this Interview, Alexandra Sadownik rembers how it was when her family arrived in Germany in 1998. For several years, Alexandra lived in a…
The Austrian writer Joseph Roth (1894-1939) did not wait long and left Berlin shortly after Hitler’s seizure of power. By February 1933, he was…
Ummuahmde fled the war in Syria in 2012, together with her family. Since then they live in Istanbul and run a small shop there.…
The German architect and urban planner Bruno Taut had come to Turkey from his first exile in Japan in 1935 as the head of…
The Austrian-Jewish (later Czechoslovakian) writer, journalist and reporter Egon Erwin Kisch (1885-1948), with his literary reportage “Notizen aus dem Pariser Ghetto” (Notes from the…
In 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 an interview with Sender Freies Berlin on 1 June 1956, the poet Mascha Kaléko (1907-1975) looks back on her first years of emigration…
Dina is 27 years old and comes from Aleppo. She lost her home because of the war and does not know if she will…
On June 4, 1938, the German architect and urban planner Bruno Taut, opened a retrospective of his work at the Istanbul Academy of Arts.…
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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…
Diawara B. and the Mayor of Palermo, Leoluca Orlando, talk about the possibilites of Palermo as a city of reception.
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…
Paydar H. is a Kurd from Aleppo in Syria. After the bombing of the city in 2013, he fled with his brother to Turkey…
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…
Nazeeha Saeed, a journalist from Bahrain who has been living in Berlin since 2019, talks about what opportunities the new home gives, how one…
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 this letter Anna Seghers asks Prince Löwenstein why he has not gotten back to her, even though he said that he would get…
Edith Hillinger, born in Berlin in 1933, fled with her parents from Nazi Germany to Istanbul in 1937. Her father Franz Hillinger worked in…
Isa Artar talks about his experiences as well as identity problems after arriving in exile.
In his poetic essay, Karam Alhamad describes his thoughts about belonging and feelings to Berlin. He feels as a Syrian in Berlin only in…
The DP theatre group “Baderech” announces its formation.
Paydar H. is a Kurd from Aleppo in Syria. After the bombing of the city in 2013, he fled to Turkey at the age…
Even great political theorists sometimes have to write CVs. Also Hannah Arendt. It proves how crucially her experiences and work in Paris influenced her…
Fé Garcia Petit tells of workers resistance, solidarity and sexism.
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…
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 an interview with the We Refugees Archive Team, Chinese human rights activist and political exilee Teng Biao talks about how he arrived in…
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…
H. comes from Somalia and lives in Italy today. Together with other Somali refugees he took part in a round table discussion of the…
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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 (born November 1, 1911 in Bayreuth) was a German-American poet, writer and journalist. She is one of the authors whose writing career…
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…
Erdal Yılmaz, his name has been changed, talks about his life in Istanbul and uses his own experience to deal with different phases of…
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 excerpts from the diary Berlin-New York Aufzeichnungen 1933 bis 1945, Hertha Nathorff vividly describes the destruction of her life, which was incomprehensible to…
Mahdi A. describes his initial helplessness after his arrival in Berlin, what the city means to him now and his plans for the future.
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 his letter to Ernst May from 1935, the former Berlin city planner Martin Wagner, who went to Istanbul exile in 1935, reports on…
Because of his political and journalistic activities, İsa Artar came under state pressure and police observation in Turkey. Before he was sentenced to 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…
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…
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…
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,…
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 an interview with the We Refugees Archive team, Eric, a political refugee from Venezuela, talks about being a refugee and homesick 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,…
Social Democratic politician Elsbeth Weichmann (1900-1988) describes the network of refugees in Paris in the 1930s and 1940s.
In her famous interview with Günter Gaus, Hannah Arendt talks about her time in Paris, where she had fled from Nazi Germany in 1933…
Hannah Arendt tells her ex-husband Günther Anders about the circumstances of her escape from Lisbon and her arrival 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…
This memorandum clarifies the creation of the German Academy of Arts and Sciences together with the American Guild for German Cultural Freedom in New…
Nazeeha Saeed was harassed by state authorities because of her journalistic activities in Bahrain. In this interview excerpt she speaks about how she settled…
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 her essay, Alaa Muhrez not only describes her own reflections on the topics of “homesickness”, “identity” and “exile”, but also takes up the…
Khatereh Rahmani describes her attempt, despite separation from her family and uncertainty about the future, to build her new life and everyday life in…
The financial scientist Fritz Neumark talks about homesickness and his not easy decision to return to Germany after 16 years of exile in Istanbul,…
In an interview with the We Refugees Archive team, Iranian Political Exilee and Coordinator of the Committee on Forced Migration at Columbia University Kian…
Kefah Ali Deeb came to Berlin in 2014 and spent six years writing a taz column about her old home country Syria and her…
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…
Angelines Koulikoff reports about the difficulties as a Spanish citizen to find work.
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 the course of the National Socialist racial policy, Hertha Nathorff lost her license to practice medicine in 1934 and her medical license in…
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,…
Malek [1. name changed] describes the psychological stress that the asylum process in the U.S. triggered in him.
Nazeeha Saeed, a journalist from Bahrain who lives in Paris and Berlin in exile since 2016, speaks about her visions for the future: As…
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 her text, Sahar Reza describes the role of languages in her life as a refugee for almost 30 years. She describes her struggles…
Mohammad talks in an interview about his arrival in Germany, about expectations and memories – about comparing and forgetting. And about Berlin: a city…
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…
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 expectations of refugees who come to Germany are high: they should integrate, learn the language, build a new life for themselves and at…
In an interview with the We Refugees Archive team, refugee and South Asian LGBTQ+ activist Barbara Khan discusses the question of home, homesickness and…
Alice Salomon’s life is described in this statement and the reasons she requires financial assistance from the American Guild for Cultural Freedom. The statement…
On 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…
Internal Communication between the Vilnius Delegation of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the New York Headquarters.
Benno Simoni describes how he grew up and lived as a Jew in the GDR and – until the building of the Berlin Wall…
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 the documentary “Asylum on the Bosporus” Adelheid Scholz and Cornelius Bischof talk about their experiences with their family, in the internment camp and…
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…
In a letter from 1946, Fred Stein describes the flight story of his family in detail to his friends and relatives. After Fred and…
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…
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 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…
Diawara B. talks about the so-called “Security Decree” passed by the Italian government.
In an interview with the We Refugees Archive team, refugee and South Asian LGBTQ+ activist Barbara Khan talks about her identity as a trans-refugee…
George Edel, a Jewish doctor from Vienna (who converted to Christianity), tells of his flight from Zagreb to Paris and of his stay in…
In August 1938, Max Diamant receives an identity card that allowes him to stay in France as a refugee.
Alaa Muhrez on the reasons for her flight from Syria and Egypt, the decision for Germany and what she learned to appreciate about Berlin.
Literary “love letter” by Widad Nabi to Berlin
Majid comes from the Darfur region in Sudan and belongs to the ethnic group of the Fur people. He fled to Turkey via Libya…
The newspaper article “Jews must preserve the German language” appeared in the New York exile newspaper Aufbau on Dec. 27, 1940. In it, the…
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…
Hilda Epstein was a German nurse born in Karlsruhe into a religious Jewish family. She learned infant care in Heidelberg, and later moved to…
After a short stay in Rome, Istanbul became a city of transit for Liselotte Dieckmann (1902–1994), a German scholar of German Studies. She lived…
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…
Somayeh Rasouli, who fled to Berlin from Afghanistan, reports on the difficulties that arise with “little prospect to remain” in building a new life…
Maaza Mengiste’s short story describes traumatic experiences of flight with many mythological allusions.
Polish-Jewish refugee journalists and writers having dinner in their dormitory in Sadowa Street 9, 1939/40.
On 22 June 1941, Herman Kruk writes about the National Socialists’ invasion of Vilnius and his decision to stay in Vilnius despite all.
The reporter Ismail Einashe describes the situation of new arrivals in Palermo, especially the unaccompanied minors, and tells of his own family experiences of…
An unknown author describes the barriers that stand in the way of those who want to emigrate.
In her essay, Kseniia Tsybulska describes her escape from Kyiv and reflects on her feelings of homesickness after her arrival. How can she live…
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…
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…
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 the interview, the queer activist, human rights journalist and refugee L. [1. they wish to remain anonymous] presents their reflections on the topics:…
Fred (Fritz) Grubel (in Germany formerly Grüber) worked in the administration of the Jewish Community in Leipzig, his responsibilities included organizing the emigration 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…
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…
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…
Mustapha F. tells of the difficult situation in which refugees in Italy find themselves.
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 24 June 1941, Kruk writes about his discouragement regarding his futile attempts to leave Vilnius for the USA shortly after the German attack…
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 an interview with the We Refugees Archive Team, political refugee Eric talks about his active support of the Venezuelan community in New York,…
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 June 10, 1933, refugees from Germany decided to found the Association des Emigrés Allemands en France (Association of German Emigrants in France) in…
In this interview, Alexandra Sadownik reports on her relationship with the Russian language and what it was like for her to learn German. As…
Barry Chukudi is from Nigeria, from Biafra. He fled to Turkey in 2013 due to the violence of the Nigerian military in the struggle…
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…
Fé Garcia Petit tells about her uncle’s arrival experience in Paris in the early 1920s.
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…
K. was eight years old when she moved to Germany from Russia in 2000 with her parents and two older brothers as part of…
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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,…
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…
Majid comes from the Darfur region in Sudan and belongs to the ethnic group of the fur people. He fled to Turkey via Libya…
On June 19 and 20 [1936], an international conference of German emigrants was held in Paris, where the statutes of the Association des Emigrés…
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…
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…
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 this letter from September 1938 Anna Seghers thanks Prince Löwenstein for his help and explains how she plans to write her next book.
Benzion Benshalom tells of the hardships of everyday life of the refugees in Vilnius and their worries about the measures taken by the Lithuanian…
In her essay, Nazeeha Saeed critically examines the concept of “homeland” and analyzes the connotations that can go along with it, such as loyalty…
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 his letter to the architect Walter Gropius, Martin Wagner reflects on how the Neues Bauen (New Building) can be rescued into better times…
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 March 1933, Ernst Eduard Hirsch was dismissed from his position as a tenured judge in Frankfurt am Main and as a private lecturer…
Benzion Benshalom writes about his euphoria after attending a Zionist assembly in Vilnius for the first time.
Ummuahmed 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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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…
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…
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.
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…
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 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 an interview with the We Refugees Archive team, refugee and South Asian LGBTQ+ activist Barbara Khan relates the reasons for why she decided…
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…
Marrie S. talks about what education means to him and how Palermo has become his home through the people who supported him.
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…
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…
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…
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…
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.…
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…
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…
Ismael Xol was born in Xolcuay, El Quiché in Guatemala and crossed the border into the United States at just 15 years old. Ismael…
On November 27, 1939, Motel Grajer, a Yeshivah student from Markuszów, Poland, who had escaped the Germans to Vilnius, gave an interview to the…
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…
Nazeeha Saeed, a journalist from Bahrain who lives in Paris and Berlin since 2016, talks about how she came to call herself a “journalist…
Nazeeha Saeed, a journalist from Bahrain who lives in Paris and Berlin in exile since 2016, speaks about her journalistic work in Bahrain and…
Harry Asher- originally Georg Auscher – born in Vienna in 1907. In 1920 the family moved to Czechoslovakia, where his parents came from. At…
Mahdi A. talks in an interview about the initial difficulties in meeting his classmates in Berlin and how he dealt with the experience of…
In an interview, Widad Nabi describes what the words home and future mean to her.
Alfred Rosenthal describes his departure from Germany to Palestine in 1933 not as an escape but as emigration. Before emigrating from Israel to the…
In this letter, Lessie Sachs Wagner describes her current living situation and the difficulty of finding time to focus on her work. She is…
In an interview with the We Refugees Archive Team, Chinese human rights activist and political exilee Teng Biao talks about being a refugee as…
Kefah Ali Deeb reflects on her arrival, integration expectations and her experiences in a refugee shelter.
In this letter to her ex-husband Günther Anders from May 1941, Hannah Arendt gives an overview of her arrival experience in New York.
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Photo series by Bolesława and Edmund Zdanowscy
A couple of months after her flight to New York, the poet Mascha Kaléko (1907-1975) describes her first impressions of the city in a…
The German architect and urban planner Bruno Taut had come to Turkey from his first exile in Japan in 1935 as the head of…
Ibrar Mirzai about integration, arrival and the feelings of exiles
Diawara B. talks about the shocking experiences he made after his arrival in a reception camp in Sicily and the support he received on…
In an interview with the We Refugees Archive team, political refugee and scholar Hasan talks about starting over in the United States and the…
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 this 1938 letter to Leonie Zuntz, Fritz Rudolf Kraus (1910–1991) describes his feelings about the exilic condition in Turkey. He wonders whether he…
Berlin-born Romance philologist, literary and cultural scholar Erich Auerbach (1892-1957), now considered the founder of the discipline of comparative literature thanks to Palestinian postcolonial…
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…
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 a radio interview from 1959, Arendt speaks about the political and legal situation of refugees in the 1930s and the differences between immigration…
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.…
Giulia di Carlo worked in a reception centre in Palermo and describes from her perspective the situation for refugees in the 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…