Exile

To Samson Schames, art is everything. When fleeing the Nazis lands him in an English internment camp for enemy aliens, he doesn’t let the squalid conditions curb his creativity—in fact, he thrives. Using the debris of destruction as material for his work, Samson cultivates an artistic vision that captures the horrors of war unlike any other.  Learn more at www.lbi.org/schames . Exile is a producti...

In 1943, 13-year-old Zuzana Justman and her family are sent to Theresienstadt, a transit camp and ghetto in occupied Czechoslovakia. While the Nazis claim Theresienstadt was a model ghetto with a thriving cultural life, Zuzana and her family face starvation, illness, and fear of the mysterious transports that take her loved ones away, never to return.  Learn more at www.lbi.org/justman . Exile is...

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 Jackie Gerlich, travels the world and dips his toes into Hollywood, his family is left behind to grapple with the terror of rising antisemitism in Vienna. After years without contact, Leo’s mo...

Exiled from her comfortable life in Vienna and left to fend for herself on the Kindertransport, Lily Renee Wilhelm has no idea what her future holds. She ends up in New York and, on a whim, applies to a comic book illustration job. She endures rampant sexism in the boys’ club atmosphere of the comics industry, but soon makes a name for herself as the illustrator of Senorita Rio, a comic series abo...

In the Holy Roman Empire in the early 1500s, there was a campaign to burn all Jewish books. A legal scholar named Johannes Reuchlin wrote a pamphlet called Augenspiegel that convinced the powers-that-be that these texts had historical and scholarly value. Historian and author Erika Rummel joins Mark to tell this remarkable tale, which features everything from political power grabs to bribery to a...

You may have heard of the transit camp Theresienstadt as a place of hope and resilience throughout the Holocaust. But the music, art , and recipes found in the Czech ghetto  after the war only tell one part of the story. Today, historian Anna Hájková, author of The Last Ghetto: An Everyday History of Theresienstadt, joins Mark to discuss the complexities of life at Theresienstadt, including class...

In 1933, Joseph Goebbels said that the Nazis could never have taken power without the radio. Heidi Tworek is a professor of history at the University of British Columbia and author of News From Germany: The Competition to Control World Communications, 1900-1945. On this episode, she joins Mark to tell the incredible story of how the Nazis broadcast their propaganda not just in Germany, but around...

In the 1960s, artist Eva Hesse found herself at the center of the iconic New York contemporary art scene. A Jewish refugee who escaped Austria on the Kindertransport as a toddler, Hesse went on to become an icon of post minimalist art.    Elisabeth Sussman is a curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art . She’s written and edited books about Hesse, and has curated exhibitions of her work. On th...

On this episode, we bring you two stories of people who unexpectedly unearthed their personal histories with the help of LBI and its archive.    Danny Shot, a poet from the Bronx, stumbled across a familiar face at an LBI exhibit—and discovered the double life of a mysterious relative. And Elliot Aronstam, a Brooklyn native, found himself literally buried in letters in a script he couldn’t read. L...

The archive and library at LBI contains over 2000 memoirs. On this episode, Mark and literary critic Ruth Franklin, author of A Thousand Darknesses: Lies and Truth in Holocaust Fiction , discuss the line between fact and fiction in memoir writing and the evolution of Holocaust memoirs from first hand accounts to books written by second and third generation authors.    LBI Presents is a production...

Among the hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees who flooded out of Nazi Germany were countless artists, writers, and musicians . Alexis Rodda, an opera singer and music researcher, has devoted her career to studying just one of them: a composer named Egon Lustgarten. Today, Alexis and Mark discuss how exile impacted Lustgarten’s music—and how starting over in a new world changed a whole communi...

The archive at the Leo Baeck Institute, New York is a real treasure trove. You’ll find everything from Albert Einstein’s childhood hot chocolate cups to amulets meant to protect you from demons. In this episode, Mark talks to Markus Krah, LBI’s Executive Director, on why preserving and showcases these amazing artifacts is more important than ever. But first, archivist Michael Simonson takes us on...

Many Jews scrambled to leave 1930s Germany and Austria, and ended up all over the world. Mark and historian Hasia Diner dive into the complexities of immigration during one of the most tumultuous moments of the 20th century - highlighting less discussed destinations like Shanghai, the Dominican Republic, and Kenya. LBI Presents is a production of the Leo Baeck Institute, New York | Berlin and Anti...

Love is one of the great constants of human history—and German Jews are no exception. LBI’s archive contains countless memoirs, letters , and diaries that demonstrate the complex romantic lives of German Jews going back centuries. In this episode, Mark Oppenheimer sits down with Christian Bailey, the author of German Jews in Love: A History. They touch on the transition from arranged marriages to...

LBI Presents is a new podcast from the Leo Baeck Institute, New York. It’s hosted by author and journalist Mark Oppenheimer. Mark chats with key experts as we dive into LBI’s vast archive and explore the remarkable lives and histories of German-speaking Jews…beyond the stories you already know. Join us as we bring history to life—and better understand ourselves through the lens of the past.  Start...

This marks the end of our second season of Exile . But if you happen to be in New York, please join us starting March 22, 2023 for the companion exhibit,  Unpacking Exile . Explore the letters, personal documents, books and pictures that helped us tell these stories.  Exile is a production of the Leo Baeck Institute , New York | Berlin and Antica Productions . 

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 Karola Ruth Siegel left orphaned and stateless. How does she harness all of this uncertainty - and the sexual awakenings of adolescence - to make it in the world? Dr. Ruth shared her diary for...

Joseph Roth and Stefan Zweig are two of the most celebrated Austrian writers of their time. Despite their contrasting lives and demeanors, they become fast friends and develop a brotherly bond. But when Hitler comes into power, tensions loom over their friendship. In the end, both men can’t save each other from hopelessness in exile. After his death in Paris in 1939, a group of Joseph Roth’s frien...

When a young Eva Kollisch arrives as a refugee in New York in 1940, she finds a community among socialists who share her values and idealism. She soon discovers ‘the cause’ isn’t as idyllic as it seems. Little does she know this is the beginning of a lifelong commitment to activism and her determination to create radical change in ways that include belonging, love and one's full self. In addition...

In 1933, Nazis steal the art collection of a prominent German-Jewish publishing family, the Mosses. Decades after the war, the family is still trying to do what they can to get it back. But a beloved sculpture, the Three Dancing Maidens, is still missing…and it might be hiding in plain sight.  The LBI Library and Archives contain extensive materials on generations of the Mosse family and their leg...

In the early days of World War II, artist Hans Jacoby and his wife, Emma, are desperate to flee Germany. Most of the world has shut its doors to European Jews, yet there’s one surprising exception: Shanghai. Along with thousands of other Jews, they arrive in Shanghai, believing they’re safe. But even this far from home, they can’t escape the horrors of the war.  Hans Jacoby brought his handwritten...

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, he gets a response from New Yorker Helen Kleinman. Little does he know, Helen will save his life…and capture his heart.  The Kurt and Helen Kleinmann Collection in the Leo Baeck Institute...

Exile, Season 2, is coming soon. Another batch of compelling stories of Jewish lives under the shadow of fascism - drawn from the Leo Baeck Institute’s vast archive. Narrated by award-winning actor Mandy Patinkin.  Starting February 14, episodes are released weekly every Tuesday. The Leo Baeck Institute , New York | Berlin is a research library and archive focused on the history of German-speaking...

As a highly trained German-Jewish physician with an interest in heredity and physical anthropology, William Nussbaum studied under some of the leading proponents of race science and eugenics at the University of Berlin. When the Nazis rise to power, rather than quit his inquiries, he launches a bold project to use the methods of race science to disprove Nazi racial theories. The Gestapo tolerates...

When controversial Berlin artist Lene Schneider-Kainer flees the safe confines of her posh marriage and life to retrace Marco Polo’s legendary voyage—with her new lover, a celebrity novelist —the adventure she seeks isn’t the one she gets. The scandalous choice turns her into a permanent exile, always seeking. The Art & Objects Collection of the Leo Baeck Institute in New York contains hundreds of...