AJR Journal | July 2020
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VOLUME 20 NO.7 JULY 2020 JOURNAL The Association of Jewish Refugees ROUTES TO Fleeing from France FREEDOM France makes our headlines twice 2020 is an extraordinary year for anniversaries. The 75th this month, and not just because we still can’t travel there. Our lead story anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz in January, the 75th focuses on the huge wave of refugees anniversary of VE-Day in May, and, a few days ago, the 80th from France while an article on page 9 looks at the kindertransports that left anniversary of the Fall of France. France for the United States. Other articles are based on recent online events hosted by the AJR, and on some fascinating stories about the late relatives of some of our members. We hope you enjoy this issue and that you are staying well and enjoying the little bit more freedom that is gradually being afforded to us as lockdown slowly eases. News ....................................................3 & 20 Born to Care ................................................. 4 Letter from Israel .......................................... 5 Marc Chagall, Marcel Duchamp, Claude Lévi-Strauss and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Letters to the Editor ...................................6-7 were among the large and distinguished group of French artists, writers and Art Notes...................................................... 8 intellectuals who fled to America to spend the war. Sending children across the pond ................. 9 My cousin Otto .....................................10-11 In six weeks from 10 May 1940 bills. At one point, Wilder was staying Great Britain rules the waves ...................... 12 German forces conquered Belgium, the in the same cheap boarding-house as Revisiting emotional visits........................... 13 Netherlands and France. They occupied Peter Lorre and the great film composer, Austrian social workers in exile ................... 14 Paris unopposed on 14 June. On 22 Franz Waxman. Our Sacha .................................................. 15 June the French surrendered and the Obituaries .................................................. 16 Vichy regime led by Marshal Pétain Paris wasn’t safe for long. In 1939-40 Looking for................................................. 17 replaced the Third Republic. there was a huge wave of refugees Reviews .................................................18-19 from France. Few came to Britain. Most France played a fascinating part in the escaped to the United States. These history of refugees during the 1930s included some of the most famous artists Please note that the views expressed and 1940s. First, it was one of the main and intellectuals of the mid-20th century. throughout this publication are not centres of emigration after the rise necessarily the views of the AJR. of the Nazis and then the Anschluss. Many became what one might call, Brecht and his wife passed through ‘birds of passage’: people who fled from AJR Team Paris in 1933, meeting up briefly with France to Britain and America after Chief Executive Michael Newman Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya. The film the German invasion, but returned to Finance Director David Kaye director Robert Siodmak directed the France after the war. They chose to Heads of Department Community & Volunteer Services Carol Hart last Jewish-made movie to open in return for several reasons. First, unlike HR & Administration Karen Markham Nazi Germany. Goebbels accused him in central and east Europe, there were Educational Grants & Projects Alex Maws of being a ‘corrupter of the German homes and families to return to. Many Social Work Nicole Valens family’ and he got on the next train to were non-Jews. Paris was not subject AJR Journal Paris. Billy Wilder left for Paris a few to the destruction of cities like Berlin or Editor Jo Briggs days after the Reichstag fire, taking Warsaw. Second, unlike east Europe, Editorial Assistant Lilian Levy with him $1,000 in hundred-dollar Continued on page 2 Contributing Editor David Herman 1 AJR Journal | July 2020 Fleeing from France in 1940. He and his mother returned to Interestingly, few of these were Jewish. Egypt after the war, and later came to They nearly all went back after the war. (cont.) Britain, just before the Suez Crisis in 1956. Their story is superbly told by Jeffrey there was no Communist takeover Mehlman in his book, Émigré New after the Soviet invasion. There was The critic George Steiner was born in York: French Intellectuals in Wartime more freedom of expression in France. Paris in 1929. ‘I was from Paris,’ he said Manhattan, 1940-1944 (2001). Universities, publishers and art galleries in 1986. ‘It was our concierge, who welcomed back artists and intellectuals. informed the Gestapo first who the Jews Among the French refugees who went were and how to get them.’ His family to America, only Lévi-Strauss was Among those who fled France for escaped to New York just in time. Steiner transformed by exile. New York opened Britain in 1940 were the physicists, was one of two Jewish children at his him to new ideas. In 1942 he met Roman Hans Halban and Lew Kowarski. school in Paris who survived the war. Jakobson, another European Jewish Halban was Austrian, Kowarski was refugee, and he discovered structural born in Russia. Both had worked at the And then there were those who never linguistics. The other key influence was Collège de France from 1937-40. They escaped. The parents of George Clare the Surrealists. Together with Breton left France for Falmouth on a British (author of Last Waltz in Vienna) died at and Max Ernst, he visited small antique collier with 26 cans of heavy water Auschwitz. Walter Benjamin, one of the shops on Third Avenue, shopping for and then worked at the Cavendish great cultural critics and essayists of the objects from the Pacific Northwest. Laboratory in Cambridge. 20th century, failed to cross the Pyrenees Through Breton, writes Mehlman, Lévi- into Spain and committed suicide on the Strauss learnt ‘the art of unexpected Arthur Koestler had been arrested French side of the border. juxtaposition.’ From Jakobson, he in France in September 1939 and learnt about systems and structures. was interned as a political prisoner What is striking about those who came Structuralism was born. in Le Vernet concentration camp to Britain is how young they were. until January 1940. He described his Many were in their 20s and early 30s. Curiously, most of the great names experiences there in Scum of the Earth Being so young meant they could learn of French culture stayed behind: (1941), his first book written in English. English (unlike poor Alfred Kerr) and Aragon and Artaud, Bataille, Camus On his release he joined the French have a full career in their new homeland and Cocteau, Colette and de Beauvoir, Foreign Legion, but deserted in 1941 (unlike Adler who never adjusted to the Genet and Gide, Matisse and Sartre. It and returned to England via Lisbon. British art scene). There was something was those who stayed in Paris who set else, too. Many of them found a dual the agenda. Life, of sorts, went on and On his way from the south to Paris he voice: part-English, part-European. Not left many of the refugees behind. For might have passed my father, the Polish just in terms of language, but also in French refugees, just as for refugees artist Josef Herman, who was going in terms of the tradition they identified from central and east Europe, exile was exactly the opposite direction. He had with. Josipovici was as happy writing rarely straightforward. met up with a young American woman, about Proust as he was about Jonathan June Peach July, who was touring France Swift; Steiner was as interested in David Herman and gave him a lift to La Rochelle. He was Racine as in Shakespeare. mistaken for a Polish airman and dragged onto a boat and ended up in Britain. Many never settled in Britain. Kerr and Adler died almost immediately. The WHY NOT CONVERT He was one of a number of east physicists, Kowarski and Halban, JL YOUR OLD CINE Europeans who left France for Britain. Talmon moved to Israel, Steiner and FILMS Others included the Polish painter, Koestler kept on the move. AND PUT THEM Jankel Adler, the Croatian sculptor, Oscar ON DVDS Nemon who left Paris for England in But only a small handful left France FREE OF CHARGE? 1939, and the great Polish historian of for Britain. A much larger and more ideas, JL Talmon. distinguished group spent the war Contact Alf Buechler at [email protected] or tel 020 8554 5635 or 07488 774 414 in America. It is an extraordinary Alfred Kerr, Weimar Germany’s leading list: intellectuals including Claude theatre critic, and his family, including Lévi-Strauss, the founder of French his daughter Judith, left Berlin in 1933 structuralism; the author, Antoine Write Your Life Story and came to Paris via Zurich. He was de Saint-Exupéry (The Little Prince); Record a Family History not successful in Paris. He wrote to his artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Max Whether you have begun writing, friend, Albert Einstein, “The articles I Ernst and Marc Chagall; film-makers, researched your ancestors, or wrote in French may have won over a Jean Renoir and René Clair; the never put pen to paper, we offer few readers, but they earned me very composers Nadia Boulanger and Darius a personalised service to help little.” The family moved on to London. Milhaud. Apart from the film-makers you preserve your precious who went straight to Hollywood, most memories for future generations. The writer and literary critic, Gabriel stayed on the East Coast. The range www.wordsbydesign.co.uk Josipovici, had a more circuitous is fascinating. Artists and physicists, [email protected] experience. He was born in Vichy France writers and film directors. 01869 327548 2 AJR Journal | July 2020 VA VA ZOOM Even before ‘Lockdown’ became the details of meetings are advertised in our feel it has been very important for AJR, official it was obvious we Monday e-newsletters.