Exile

Rabbi Leo Baeck looms large in German-Jewish history, but he began his career as a smalltown rabbi in present-day Poland. Baeck quickly earned a reputation for moral clarity and quiet resolve, even in the face of a powerful opposition. As World War I gave way to the rise of the Nazis, the pressures on German Jewry intensified, and Baeck was thrust into an impossible role: guiding a community through its most dangerous and devastati...

In 1933, German author Lion Feuchtwanger wrote the first ever novel about the experience of Jews under Hitler. The book became a global sensation. When he finally received an offer in 1938 to adapt his most popular book for the screen in Stalin’s Russia, he jumped at the chance. The film was a success, but the decision would come to haunt him when he lived in California during the Red Scare.

The Lion Feuchtwanger Collection in the ...

In the late 1930s, one of the few places in Berlin that still allowed Jewish visitors was the Zoological Garden, which was established with the support of many Jewish donors. As antisemitic laws took over elsewhere, the Zoo remained a space for community and childhood joy. Eventually, however, even the Zoo would betray the Jews. Sixty years later, one man with fond memories of the zoo realized that an injustice had occurred against...

Hannah Arendt’s life was shaped by exile. The German-Jewish thinker was forced to flee Nazi Germany as a young woman, and her experience of statelessness impacted her academic and political pursuits for the rest of her life. Independent and single-minded from an early age, Hannah’s intense commitment to her own moral responsibility carried her through anti-Nazi activism, years of exile, and a controversy that shook up the German-Je...

In 1930s New York, there was only one publication that fully covered the worsening situation for Jews in Europe: the Aufbau. With a daring approach to journalism, editor Manfred George transformed the tiny newsletter of a German-Jewish social club into a lifeline for a worldwide community of refugees. His paper also reported on the atrocities unfolding in Hitler’s Germany long before the mainstream press. The Aufbau held together a...

In 1937, a young Austrian-Jewish actor named Hedwig Kiesler left Europe to pursue her dream in America. Within months, she became one of the biggest stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood: Hedy Lamarr. Known as “the most beautiful woman in the world,” Hedy’s unforgettable face and mysterious allure would take her far in the film industry – but that wasn’t her only success story. In fact, her greatest achievement was an invention that...

This episode is dedicated to the memory of Winnie Meyer-Ricard, the eldest daughter of Vera Haymann and Herbert Meyer-Ricard.

After nightfall in German-occupied Amsterdam, a small group of friends risked their lives to engage in a unique form of resistance: puppet theater. Behind the darkened windows of a safe-house, marionettes built by graphic designers Vera Haymann and Herbert Meyer-Ricard acted out biting satires of the bitter ...

As we prepare our fifth season of Exile, we’re looking back at our favorite episodes from seasons 1-4. Each re-release brings back a unique, fascinating, and often heart-wrenching story from the Leo Baeck Institute Archives.

Robert Bachrach is a buttoned-up doctor and dedicated researcher. Leo Hochner is a bon-vivant and art connoisseur who breeds small dogs. Both bachelors, they are part of a close network of friends from Vienna w...

As we prepare our fifth season of Exile, we’re looking back at our favorite episodes from seasons 1-4. Each re-release brings back a unique, fascinating, and often heart-wrenching story from the Leo Baeck Institute Archives.

Leo Fuks is a born performer. So when, in 1936, a vaudeville impresario shows up to recruit him, 10-year-old Leo is more than happy to join his troupe, and his parents reluctantly agree. As Leo, now known as Ja...

As we prepare our fifth season of Exile, we’re looking back at our favorite episodes from seasons 1-4. Each re-release brings back a unique, fascinating, and often heart-wrenching story from the Leo Baeck Institute Archives.

Known for her candid talk and blunt advice about sex, Dr. Ruth Westheimer is the world’s most renowned psychosexual therapist. But beneath her joyful demeanor is a chaotic story about her youth—a girl named Kar...

As we prepare our fifth season of Exile, we’re looking back at our favorite episodes from seasons 1-4. Each re-release brings back a unique, fascinating, and often heart-wrenching story from the Leo Baeck Institute Archives.

In Nazi-occupied Austria, a young man named Kurt Kleinmann comes up with a plan to escape: write to Americans - strangers - who share his last name and ask for help to get a visa. Just as he begins to lose hope...

As we prepare our fifth season of Exile, we’re looking back at our favorite episodes from seasons 1-4. Each re-release brings back a unique, fascinating, and often heart-wrenching story from the Leo Baeck Institute Archives.

At the height of his fame, a shirtless, barefooted Albert Einstein escapes the bustle of Berlin for a simpler life. The best thinkers of the time gather at his beloved summer house in Caputh to laze by the wate...

As we prepare our fifth season of Exile, we’re looking back at our favorite episodes from seasons 1-4. Each re-release brings back a unique, fascinating, and often heart-wrenching story from the Leo Baeck Institute Archives.

A young, Jewish librarian in New York named Florence Mendheim risks her life to spy on the growing Nazi movement in America. She passes herself off as a Nazi sympathizer, documenting the movement’s nefarious ac...

At the dawn of the 1930s, Germany is a physics powerhouse, where great minds like Albert Einstein and Max Planck have revolutionized the scientific landscape. But a talented young physicist named Trude Goldhaber struggles to make her voice heard in a male-dominated field. Trude perseveres, despite the pressures of antisemitism and misogyny all around her. Forced to work in the shadow of her scientist husband, she contributes to res...

For Karl Adler, there is nothing more powerful than music. While recovering from an injury sustained as a soldier in World War I, Karl pursues his goal of changing the way music is taught in Germany. And for a while, he’s successful – until a former student (and member of Hitler’s Brownshirts) falsely reports him for sexual harassment. Forced to start over, Karl devotes himself to creating a new cultural association for German Jews...

The Simson family business has been manufacturing everything from firearms to vehicles for decades. But when the Nazis take over, they’re not happy to learn that a Jewish family is supplying weapons to the German army. After a new law forces the Simsons to relinquish their company to the Nazis, the family flees to the United States. Fifty years later, a Simson descendent makes his way back to Germany – and finds out what became of ...

Hilde Mosse comes from one of the wealthiest families in Berlin and stands to inherit an enormous fortune. But she longs for something more meaningful than the luxurious lifestyle her family provides. So Hilde decides to pursue her dream of becoming a doctor. As the Nazis take power in Germany and the Mosse family is forced to flee, Dr. Hilde Mosse lands in New York having nearly lost everything.. She finds her calling treating the...