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Reading

In cooperation with Akademie der Künste, Berlin

The biographies of artists and intellectuals who had to flee Germany under Nazism were shaped by persecution and departure, by existential concerns, a sense of unrootedness and speechlessness in the face of the abrupt loss of their familiar cultural spaces, their work, and their ordinary lives. What fears did they have, and what did they experience during their flight and in their countries of exile? How did they interact with one another? Were they able to continue their artistic work in a foreign country?

Examples from the Exile Archive at Berlin’s Akademie der Künste will be presented, with texts by artists and intellectuals such as Vicki Baum, Bertolt Brecht, Walter Benjamin, Tilla Durieux, Hanns Eisler, George Grosz, Elisabeth Hauptmann, Friedrich Hollaender, Alfred Kerr, Heinrich Mann, Anna Seghers, Bruno Taut, Helene Weigel, and Arnold Zweig. This reading of correspondence, diaries, notebooks, and manuscripts can bring their situation abroad and their thoughts on flight and exile alive.

Free admission

Location: Werkstatt Exilmuseum
Fasanenstr. 24, 10719 Berlin

The building is unfortunately not barrierfree.

Anna Seghers (left), Gisl and Egon Erwin Kisch in Versailles,
August 1935 © Anne Radvanyi