Exile Centre Triennial Conferences
The Research Centre has organised conferences since the 1990s on various topics relating to German and Austrian exile from Nazism, and continues to do so at approximately three-year intervals. A selection of the papers given at these conferences are now published in the Yearbook of the Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies, published by Brill.
The last conference was held in September 2023, taking as its theme the refugees in trade, industry and engineering.
Refugees from Nazism to Britain in Trade, Industry and Engineering
13–14 September 2023
The conference focused on refugees from Nazism to Britain in trade, industry and engineering, a subject which has so far not received general scrutiny even though local stories of refugee enterprises have been published. Papers given at the conference included subjects such as the Trading Estates in Special Areas of Britain in the 1930s and the refugee enterprises established there, the implications of internment on refugee industrialists, the significant technological contribution by the refugees to the war effort as well as many individual accounts of businesses transferred from Germany and other countries under Nazi threat to Britain. That these industrialists were major providers of employment, foreign currency and innovation in industry has so far been insufficiently acknowledged.
Programme [PDF]
Selected papers from the conference will be published as vol. 24 of the Yearbook of the Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies, edited by Anna Nyburg and Charmian Brinson.
Previous Conferences
The Second and Third Generation
9–11 March 2021
It has long been recognised that the experiences of refugees from National Socialism, their persecution, incarceration, hiding, emigration, resettlement, further migration, trauma and later lives has had an impact on their children and grandchildren.
The 2021 conference (held online) explored the experiences of the descendants of refugees from National Socialism in all its facets and different expressions, focusing both on the relationship between the generations as well as the specific differences between generations.
Programme [PDF]
Presenter Bibliographies [PDF]
A selection of the papers given at the conference is being published as vol. 23 of the Yearbook of the Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies.
Some of the presentations given at the conference are available as podcasts (click the category listed below):
1. A New Field? and 2. Citizenship
Andrea Hammel (Aberystwyth): 'My experience began in the womb' to 'Too much O Weyhing': Researching the Second-Generation Experience
Anita Grosz (Aberystwyth): A Comparative Study of the Kindertransport Second Generation in the UK and the USA
Dani Kranz (Beer Sheva): The Long Haul of Displacement and Refuge: Post-1945 German Legalese that Covers the Category German, Access to German Citizenship and Discontent amongst Refugees from Germany and their Descendants
3. Literature
Yannick Gnipep-oo Pembouong (Trier): Ambivalenz als Darstellungsmittel der Vaterfigur in der Literatur jüdischer Autoren der Zweiten und Dritten Generation
Stephanie Homer (London): 'Frag sie nicht, frag sie nie': Investigating the Experience of the Second and Third Generations, Intergenerational Conflict and Resolution in Renate Ahrens's Kindertransport Novel Das gerettete Kind
4. Art
Monica Bohm-Duchen (London): Chasing Shadows: The Uses of Photography in the Work of Second-Generation Visual Artists in the UK
Rachel Dickson (Ben Uri Museum and Art Gallery, London): Helga Michie, Ruth Rix and Rebecca Swift: Reflections on Art in Exile across Three Generations, through the Exhibition Staircase (2000)
5. Film
Sue Vice (Sheffield): Filming her Mother: Chantal Akerman as Second-Generation Artist
Odeya Kohen Raz (Sapir Academic College/Israel Open University/Tel Aviv University): Arnon Goldfinger's The Flat (2011): Ethics and Aesthetics in Third-Generation Holocaust Cinema
Emigration from Nazi-Occupied Europe to British Overseas Territories after 1933
13–15 September 2017
This conference focused on exiles and forced migration to the British colonies and dominions in Africa or Asia and the Commonwealth countries. Papers dealt with aspects such as legal status and internment, rescue and relief, identity and belonging, the Central European encounter with the colonial and post-colonial world, memories and generations or knowledge transfers and cultural representations in writing, painting, architecture, music and film-making.
Programme [PDF]
A selection of the papers was published as vol. 20 of the Yearbook of the the Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies
Exile and Gender
17–18 September 2014
This conference examined concepts of gender and sexuality in exile in a wide range of texts by both well-known and lesser known authors, and considered the life and work of exiled women politicians, academics and artists, examining the ways – both positive and negative – in which their exile affected them.
Programme [PDF]
Papers from the conference were published in two volumes of the Yearbook of the Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies: vol. 17, focusing on Literature and the Press; and vol. 18 on Politics, Education and the Arts.
German-Speaking Exile in the Performing Arts in Britain
14–16 September 2011
This conference took as its subject the contribution of German-speaking refugees from Nazism to the performing arts in Britain, examining their role in broadcasting, theatre, film and dance from 1933 to the present day. Among the artists evaluated are writer Bruno Adler, journalist Edmund Wolf, and actor Martin Miller who contributed to the BBC German Service and, like Gerhard Hinze, made a career in the theatre transcending the barrier of language. In film, language problems could be mitigated by the technical possibilities of the medium (stars like Anton Walbrook received coaching in English), and technicians like cameraman Wolf Suschitzky helped establish the character of British film in the 1950s and 1960s. In dance theatre, language played little role, facilitating the influence in Britain of practitioners like Kurt Jooss and Sigurd Leeder.
Programme [PDF]
Papers from the conference were published as vol. 14 of the Yearbook of the Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies.
Exile in and from Czechoslovakia during the 1930s and 1940s
17–18 September 2008
This conference focused on a previously under-researched area, namely exile in and from Czechoslovakia in the years before the Second World War as well as during wartime and the post-war period. Papers considered the refugees from Germany and Austria who fled to Czechoslovakia in the 1930s, the refugees from Czechoslovakia, both German and Czech-speaking, who arrived in Britain in or around 1938 as refugees from Fascism, and those who fled from Communism in 1948.
Programme [PDF]
A selection of the papers was published as vol. 11 of the Yearbook of the Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies.
Austria in Exile
14–16 September 2005
The reality of the country Austrian refugees left, and the one to which some returned, was very different. This conference explored Austrian refugee representations of their homeland in the cultural production of Austrian exiles, including those projected by émigrés working in the British film industry and those portrayed in historical novels and literary works of notable authors such as Stefan Zweig, Elias Canetti and Robert Neumann.
Programme [PDF]
Papers from the conference were published as vol. 8 of the Yearbook of the Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies.
'Stimme der Wahrheit'
25–27 September 2002
For over sixty years the BBC German Service had been Britain's most authoritative voice to the German-speaking world, representing a virtual paradigm of British cultural and political attitudes towards Germany and Austria, and helping define their perceptions of Britain and the British. Notwithstanding the BBC's enormous cultural standing and influence, this conference was the first to evaluate the Corporation's German-language broadcasting since the BBC German Service was closed down in 1999.
Programme [PDF]
Papers from the conference were published as vol. 5 of the Yearbook of the Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies.
'Hitler's Gift to Britain'
18–20 September 1996
It has been said that women were more successful in rising to the challenges posed by exile: by nature more practical, they found it easier to learn a new language, they adapted more easily to a different culture and, above all, they were able to earn their living. The difficulties faced by women in exile, among them poverty and insecurity, formed one of the main themes of the second conference on German and Austrian exiles in Great Britain. For those who had previously enjoyed acclaim, such as Hermynia zur Mühlen, the anonymity of a life in exile brought added problems.
Programme [PDF]
Papers from the conference were published as Keine Klage über England? Deutsche und österreichische Exilerfahrungen in Großbritannien 1933–1945 (Munich: iudicium/London: IGS, 1998).
'Von Hitler vertrieben'
29 September–1 October 1993
Whilst the Research Centre's first conference on German and Austrian exile explored the work of individuals such as Anna Gmeyner, Otto Lehmann-Rußboldt, Robert Neumann, Franz Baermann Steiner, Wilhelm Stekel and Stefan Zwieg, it also considered the broader themes of German pacifists in British exile, German Lutheran congregations and the refugees from Nazi Germany, as well as the BBC production of Brecht's Furcht und Elend des Dritten Reiches.
Programme [PDF]
Papers from the conference were published as 'England? Aber wo liegt es?' Deutsche und österreichische Emigranten in Großbritannien 1933–1945 (Munich: iudicium/London: IGS, 1996).