EXILE News

New Kindertransportees Study ‘important and timely’

Wednesday 6 April 2022
With the dwindling number of Kindertransportees alive today, the living memory of this rescue operation is being transformed into cultural memory, a trend noticeable in the publication of popular Kindertransport fiction since the beginning of the 21st century. This change in memory invites the following questions: how is the child refugee’s experience remembered, represented and reimagined in literature? And, consequently, what understanding of the Kindertransport is being transmitted to the following generations?

Richard A. Dove

Monday 24 January 2022
With great sadness, the Research Centre for German & Austrian Exile Studies at the IMLR announces the passing on 17 January 2022 of their friend and long-serving colleague, Richard Dove.

Just Published: Émigré Voices (Exile Yearbook)

Wednesday 15 December 2021
Volume 21 of the Research Centre for German & Austrian Exile Studies' Yearbook has just been published. Entitled  Émigré Voices , the editors present twelve oral history interviews with men and women who came to Britain as Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria in the late 1930s. Many of the interviewees rose to great prominence in their chosen career, such as author and illustrator Judith Kerr, actor Andrew Sachs, photographer and cameraman Wolf Suschitzky, violinist Norbert Brainin, and publisher Elly Miller. 

Andreas W. Mytze

Monday 18 October 2021
Friends and colleagues at the Research Centre for German & Austrian Exile Studies were saddened to learn of the recent passing of Andreas Mytze. As editor of the journal europäische Ideen , which he founded in 1973, his contacts with East German dissidents earned him a Stasi dossier. He moved from Berlin to London, where for many years he cultivated contacts with former refugees from Nazism and contributed significantly to research into the literary culture of the German-speaking exiles. An obituary can be found at  https://buchmarkt.de/menschen/andreas-w-mytze/

The Anomaly of ‘Enemy Aliens’ Working in WW2 Propaganda

Thursday 17 June 2021
It is little known that much of Britain’s wartime propaganda was prepared and delivered by foreigners, not least those officially designated as ‘enemy aliens’, and despite the problems that arose, such as internment, deportation and espionage, the relationship between the British authorities and the refugees proved to be mutually beneficial.

Gisela Holfter awarded the 'Bundesverdienstkreuz' for her Contribution to Irish-German Relations

Wednesday 3 March 2021
Gisela Holfter, Associate Professor of German at the University of Limerick and Director of the Centre for Irish-German Studies, has been awarded the prestigious Bundesverdienstkreuz by the Federal Republic of Germany. This award, equivalent to the Order of Merit, is awarded for political, economic, social and intellectual achievements, and is the highest recognition in Germany for services to the common good.

Audio Walk 'On the Trail of 1930s Refugees in Bloomsbury' Launched

Friday 13 November 2020
The Institute is delighted to announce that the audio walk ‘On the Trail of 1930s Refugees in Bloomsbury’ is now available. Bloomsbury's cheap boarding houses and Bohemian reputation made the area a magnet for refugees from Nazi Europe, and it was from here that support for the refugees was coordinated. In turn the refuges contributed to the British anti-Nazi propaganda war, and activists plotting the downfall of the Nazis were spied on by MI5 agents.

Clare George Discusses 'Laterndl' Project on BBC

Thursday 21 November 2019
Dr Clare George, Miller Project archivist at the Institute of Modern Languages Research (IMLR)/Senate House Library (SHL), discusses her research into the Laterndl , the Austrian political cabaret theatre established by a group of exile actors and writers from Nazi-occupied Austria during the Second World War, on BBC Radio 3’s Free Thinking programme,.

Pages