THE EXILES

The moving story of émigrés who fled from the Nazis

An intriguing cast of Jewish actors, academics and artists who enriched London’s cultural landscape during the 1930s are brought together in this exploration of life in the capital for creatives who fled their homes in Germany, Austria and Hungary in fear amidst the Nazis’ growing persecution of Jewish people and political opponents.

Focusing on the year 1934, the book examines how this, sometimes interlinking, group of people attempted to make London their new home and navigated its cultural spaces in the hopes of sustaining careers that had been left behind along with family and friends. The individuals included in The Exiles – most of whom were Jewish – are likely little known among the British public today yet as the author and scholar Daria Santini demonstrates, they all left their imprint on London.

Author Daria Santini Publisher Bloomsbury Academic Price £27 Released Out now

The Austrian actress Elisabeth Bergner – who mesmerised audiences with her unique acting style – became a household name in the West End in 1934. In the same year, Hungarian Stefan Lorant launched the pioneering magazine Weekly Illustrated, which placed images at the heart of its storytelling, and six staff of Hamburg’s Warburg Institute – which is today one of the globe’s most significant centres for the study of the interaction of ideas, images and society – moved its vast library to London.

Santini sympathetically and perceptively draws out her cast’s personalities and circumstances, revealing the difficulties some faced in adjusting to life in the capital, while a London sparkling with culture but framed by a growing unease is vividly brought to life.