Most studies of exiles and emigres from Nazi Germany have concerned the lives of outstanding scientists and scholars in various fields. This book is based on in-depth interviews with 34 men and women who had to flee from Germany and came to Britain between 1933 and 1940, focusing on "ordinary" people. Special attention is given to the social, educational and cultural backgrounds of the exiles, all of which were to play a crucial role in their new lives. Attention is also given to the historical and personal circumstances of their enforced departure, including family members who voluntarily or for other reasons stayed behind, often to perish ultimately in the Holocaust.

Based on interviews, this work is a thematic study of representative men and women who came to Britain from Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia as refugees from Nazism. Of the 34 interviewees, 23 are women and six are non-Jewish. The German-speaking emigration to Britain from 1933 through 1940 is often referred to as "Hitler's Gift" because of the many distinguished scholars and scientists it yielded. This book, with its many accounts of unsung achievement, for the first time shows the true dimensions of that gift.

Refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe in British Overseas Territories focusses on exiles and forced migrants in British colonies and dominions in Africa or Asia and in Commonwealth countries. The contributions deal with aspects such as legal status and internment, rescue and relief, identity and belonging, the Central European encounter with the colonial and post-colonial world, memories and generations or knowledge transfers and cultural representations in writing, painting, architecture, music and filmmaking. The volume covers refugee destinations and the situation on arrival, reorientation-and very often further migration after the Second World War-in Australia, Canada, India, Kenya, Palestine, Shanghai, Singapore, South Africa and New Zealand. Contributors are: Rony Alfandary, Gerrit-Jan Berendse, Albrecht Dumling, Patrick Farges, Brigitte Mayr, Michael Omasta, Jyoti Sabharwal, Sarah Schwab, Ursula Seeber, Andrea Strutz, Monica Tempian, Jutta Vinzent, Paul Weindling, and Veronika Zwerger.

In Emigre Voices Lewkowicz and Grenville present twelve oral history interviews with men and women who came to Britain as Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria in the late 1930s. Many of the interviewees rose to great prominence in their chosen career, such as the author and illustrator Judith Kerr, the actor Andrew Sachs, the photographer and cameraman Wolf Suschitzky, the violinist Norbert Brainin, and the publisher Elly Miller. The narratives of the interviewees tell of their common struggles as child or young adult refugees who had to forge new lives in a foreign country and they illuminate how each interviewee dealt with the challenges of forced emigration and the Holocaust. The voices of the twelve interviewees provide the reader with a unique and original source, which gives direct access to the lived multifaceted experience of the interviewees and their contributions to British culture.

Exile and Everyday Life focusses on the everyday life experience of refugees fleeing National Socialism in the 1930s and 1940s as well as the representation of this experience in literature and culture. The contributions in this volume show experiences of loss, strategies of adaptation and the creation of a new identity and life. It covers topics such as Exile in Shanghai, Ireland, the US and the UK, food in exile, the writers Gina Kaus, Vicki Baum and Jean Amery, refugees in the medical profession and the creative arts, and the Kindertransport to the UK.

This volume gives an extensive overview of current developments in the field of archival collections relating to German-speaking refugees located in Germany, Austria, the USA, Ireland and the UK. The contributions illustrate the three interlinked areas of refugee archives, Exile and Migration Studies research and related databases and other resources. The articles investigate their interrelationship as well as the future challenges facing all three areas by focussing on larger archival holdings as well as collections relating to individuals and organisations and more recently established electronic and online resources and finding aids. The volume is aimed at researchers and archival practioners alike and should be especially useful for anyone starting out in the field.

The Austrian Centre was established in London in 1939 by Austrians seeking refuge from Nazi Germany, of whom 30,000 had reached Britain by the outbreak of World War II. It soon developed into a comprehensive social, cultural and political organisation with a theatre and a weekly newspaper of its own. A Communist-influenced organisation, it also followed a distinct political agenda. In the first book on the cultural and political life of Austrian refugees in Britain, Out of Austria assesses and evaluates the Austrian Centre's activities and achievements, while also examining the Austrians' often fraught relations with their British hosts. It gives a fascinating insight into such figures as Sigmund Freud, who became the Centre's Honorary President during his final months and the poet Erich Fried, then an unknown seventeen-year-old, and sheds light on the interaction of politics and culture against the background of exile in wartime Britain.

Between 1933 and the outbreak of war in 1939, over 60,000 Jewish refugees fled to Britain from Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia. Some 50,000 settled there. No previous historical study of this group of immigrants exists, though they form one of the most high-profile groups of refugees to have come to Britain in the 20th century, both as survivors of the Nazi terror and as high-achieving contributors to British society. This book - now available in paperback - focuses on the first quarter-century of these Jewish refugees' settlement in Britain. It covers new ground by drawing on a rich source of contemporary material: the previously untapped monthly journal of the Association of Jewish Refugees - AJR Information. The journal is the only contemporary source that provides material for a full-scale history of these refugees when they established themselves permanently in Britain, as well as how they adapted to British society and developed their distinctive 'Continental' identity and culture that characterized them in their adopted homeland.