Search results for ""author charmian brinson""

The exodus of men, women and children fleeing from the Nazi regime was one of the largest diasporas the world has ever seen. It sparked an international refugee crisis that changed society and continues to shape our culture and community today. The years between 1933 and 1945, the Nazi era in Germany, and the war years, 1939 to 1945, were a time of destruction, upheaval and misery throughout Europe and beyond. Displacement and death, whether in war or civilian life, became everyday experiences, for young and old alike. Families were torn apart by enforced emigration or deportation. Parents were separated from their children, husbands from wives, brothers from sisters. Interned in camps that spread across the globe from Shanghai to the United States of America to the Isle of Man, they became strangers in a foreign land and often the only link they had to their former lives were letters exchanged with friends and family. These scarce postal communications, therefore, assumed huge significance in the lives of both sender and receiver, one that is hard to imagine today in the age of instant communication. Fleeing from the Führer is an unusual collection of correspondence that shows the incredible nature of this worldwide emigration and the indomitable spirit of these refugees. Each postcard, envelope and item of ephemera tells its own unique story and is reproduced in full colour, making this a fascinating resource for anyone wanting to understand this poignant part of our international history.

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The Austrian Centre was established in London in 1939 by Austrians seeking refuge from Nazi Germany, of whom 30,000 had reached Britain by the outbreak of World War II. It soon developed into a comprehensive social, cultural and political organisation with a theatre and a weekly newspaper of its own. A Communist-influenced organisation, it also followed a distinct political agenda. In the first book on the cultural and political life of Austrian refugees in Britain, "Out of Austria" assesses and evaluates the Austrian Centre's activities and achievements, while also examining the Austrians' often fraught relations with their British hosts. It gives a fascinating insight into such figures as Sigmund Freud, who became the Centre's Honorary President during his final months and the poet Erich Fried, then an unknown seventeen-year-old, k and sheds light on the interaction of politics and culture against the background of exile in wartime Britain.

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