Hitler's Exiles

Between 1933 and 1945, over 150,000 German-speaking refugees fled Hitler's persecution to resettle in the United States. Published to mark the 60th anniversary of Kristallnacht (November 9, 1998), this text is a composite, firsthand account of this historic migration, focusing on the ordinary people who took this voyage. From forgotten archives and little-known published sources, Mark M. Anderson has recaptured the voices of that perilous time. The text reveals what it was like to leave everything behind, to risk the uncertainty of escape and exile, to start afresh in a country that had little interest and less need for these new exiles.Featured are moving, personal stories of individuals such as Hertha Nathorff, a doctor's wife, who remembers her telephone ringing off the hook on Kristallnacht because so many of her husband's patients had suffered heart attacks; Ellen Schoenheimner, whose convoy of women and children were bombed by the Nazis while evacuating through France; Max Korman, who recounts the harrowing tale of a month spent aboard the ship St Louis, fleeing from Germany but not allowed to land in Cuba, Britain or the United States; and Kate Frankethal, a prominent doctor in Germany, who begins life anew in New York as an ice cream vendor. The book also includes reflections by famous intellectuals such as Hannah Arendt, Thomas Mann and Bertolt Brecht, who offer a trenchant and bitter look at the life of exiles in Hollywood.