Anthony Grenville

In Émigré Voices Lewkowicz and Grenville 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 the author and illustrator Judith Kerr, the actor Andrew Sachs, the photographer and cameraman Wolf Suschitzky, the violinist Norbert Brainin, and the publisher Elly Miller. The narratives of the interviewees tell of their common struggles as child or young adult refugees who had to forge new lives in a foreign country and they illuminate how each interviewee dealt with the challenges of forced emigration and the Holocaust. The voices of the twelve interviewees provide the reader with a unique and original source, which gives direct access to the lived multifaceted experience of the interviewees and their contributions to British culture.

While much has been written about British attitudes to the Jewish refugees from Hitler who fled to this country after 1933, little attention has been paid to the ways in which those refugees perceived and depicted their (often somewhat reluctant) hosts. From their impressions on arrival, through the tumultuous events of World War II and mass internment, and on into the long period of integration after 1945, Anthony Grenville expertly traces the development of refugee responses to their new homeland. Drawing on a wide range of novels, autobiographies, memoirs, diaries and letters by Jewish refugees, he recreates the course of a complex and sometimes fraught relationship, but one that ultimately arrived at a largely settled resolution. Anthony Grenville is Chair of the Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies, University of London, and was Consultant Editor of the Association of Jewish Refugees Journal, 2006-17.

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, and sheds light on the interaction of politics and culture against the background of exile in wartime Britain.

While much has been written about British attitudes to the Jewish refugees from Hitler who fled to this country after 1933, little attention has been paid to the ways in which those refugees perceived and depicted their (often somewhat reluctant) hosts. From their impressions on arrival, through the tumultuous events of World War II and mass internment, and on into the long period of integration after 1945, Anthony Grenville expertly traces the development of refugee responses to their new homeland. Drawing on a wide range of novels, autobiographies, memoirs, diaries and letters by Jewish refugees, he recreates the course of a complex and sometimes fraught relationship, but one that ultimately arrived at a largely settled resolution. Anthony Grenville is Chair of the Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies, University of London, and was Consultant Editor of the Association of Jewish Refugees Journal, 2006-17.

Between 1933 and the outbreak of war in 1939, over 60,000 Jewish refugees from Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia fled to Britain, and some 50,000 settled there. No previous historical study of this group of immigrants exists, though they form one of the most high-profile groups of refugees to have come to Britain in the twentieth century, both as survivors of the Nazi terror and as high-achieving contributors to British society. Author Anthony Grenville focuses on the first quarter-century of their settlement in Britain. He covers new ground by drawing on a rich source of contemporary material - the previously untapped monthly journal of the Association of Jewish Refugees, AJR Information, which started in January 1946. The journal is the only contemporary source that provides material for a full-scale history of these refugees when they established themselves permanently in Britain, how they adapted to British society and developed their distinctive 'Continental' identity and culture that characterized them in their adopted homeland.

Between 1933 and the outbreak of war in 1939, over 60,000 Jewish refugees from Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia fled to Britain, and some 50,000 settled there. No previous historical study of this group of immigrants exists, though they form one of the most high-profile groups of refugees to have come to Britain in the twentieth century, both as survivors of the Nazi terror and as high-achieving contributors to British society. Author Anthony Grenville focuses on the first quarter-century of their settlement in Britain. He covers new ground by drawing on a rich source of contemporary material - the previously untapped monthly journal of the Association of Jewish Refugees, AJR Information, which started in January 1946. The journal is the only contemporary source that provides material for a full-scale history of these refugees when they established themselves permanently in Britain, how they adapted to British society and developed their distinctive 'Continental' identity and culture that characterized them in their adopted homeland.