Exile

Known for her candid talk and blunt advice about sex, Dr. Ruth Westheimer is the world’s most renowned psychosexual therapist. But beneath her joyful demeanor is a chaotic story about her youth—a girl named Karola Ruth Siegel left orphaned and stateless. How does she harness all of this uncertainty - and the sexual awakenings of adolescence - to make it in the world? Dr. Ruth shared her diary for the first time with the Leo Baeck Institute – and with all of you – for this episode of Exile. We are grateful for her generosity with her time and her story – and for the decades of sound advice.  Learn more at www.lbi.org/westheimer. Exile is a production of the Leo Baeck Institute, New York | Berlin and Antica Productions.  It’s narrated by Mandy Patinkin.  Executive Producers include Katrina Onstad, Stuart Coxe, and Bernie Blum. Senior Producer is Debbie Pacheco. Produced by Brian Rice. Associate Producers are Hailey Choi and Emily Morantz. Research and translation by Isabella Kempf. Sound design and audio mix by Philip Wilson, with help from Cameron McIver. Additional sound by Violet Lucca. Theme music by Oliver Wickham. Voice acting by Lucy Hill. Special thanks to Cliff Rubin, Barbara Schmutzler for translating Dr. Ruth’s diaries, Dr. Ruth and Ben Yagoda for All in a Lifetime, and Soundtrack New York. 

Joseph Roth and Stefan Zweig are two of the most celebrated Austrian writers of their time. Despite their contrasting lives and demeanors, they become fast friends and develop a brotherly bond. But when Hitler comes into power, tensions loom over their friendship. In the end, both men can’t save each other from hopelessness in exile. After his death in Paris in 1939, a group of Joseph Roth’s friends collected his meager belongings from his hotel room. His belongings eventually ended up with Roth’s French translator. Among the papers were manuscripts, correspondence, and hundreds of photographs. These materials now form the basis of the Joseph Roth Collection in the LBI Archives. Learn more at www.lbi.org/roth.   Exile is a production of the Leo Baeck Institute, New York | Berlin and Antica Productions.  It’s narrated by Mandy Patinkin.  Executive Producers include Katrina Onstad, Stuart Coxe, and Bernie Blum. Senior Producer is Debbie Pacheco. Produced by Anthony Cantor. Associate Producers are Hailey Choi and Emily Morantz. Research and translation by Isabella Kempf. Sound design and audio mix by Philip Wilson, with help from Cameron McIver. Theme music by Oliver Wickham. Voice acting by Rodrigo Fernandez-Stoll and Blair Williams. Special thanks to Volker Weidermann and his book Summer Before the Dark, Hermann Kesten’s Joseph Roth Briefe: 1911-1939, Michael Hofmann’s Joseph Roth: A Life in Letters, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, and Soundtrack New York. The photo of Joseph Roth and Stefan Zweig in Ostend, Belgium was taken by Lotte Altmann. 

When a young Eva Kollisch arrives as a refugee in New York in 1940, she finds a community among socialists who share her values and idealism. She soon discovers ‘the cause’ isn’t as idyllic as it seems. Little does she know this is the beginning of a lifelong commitment to activism and her determination to create radical change in ways that include belonging, love and one's full self. In addition to Eva Kollisch’s memoirs Girl in Movement (2000) and The Ground Under My Feet (2014), LBI’s collections include an oral history interview with Eva conducted in 2014 and the papers of Eva’s mother, poet Margarete Kolllisch, which document Eva’s childhood experience on the Kindertransport. Learn more at www.lbi.org/kollisch.  Exile is a production of the Leo Baeck Institute, New York | Berlin and Antica Productions.  It’s narrated by Mandy Patinkin.  Executive Producers include Katrina Onstad, Stuart Coxe, and Bernie Blum. Senior Producer is Debbie Pacheco. Associate Producers are Hailey Choi and Emily Morantz. Research and translation by Isabella Kempf. Sound design and audio mix by Philip Wilson, with help from Cameron McIver. Theme music by Oliver Wickham. Voice acting by Natalia Bushnik.  Special thanks to the Kollisch family for the use of Eva’s two memoirs, “Girl in Movement” and “The Ground Under My Feet”, the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College and their “Voices of Feminism Oral History Project”, and Soundtrack New York.

In 1933, Nazis steal the art collection of a prominent German-Jewish publishing family, the Mosses. Decades after the war, the family is still trying to do what they can to get it back. But a beloved sculpture, the Three Dancing Maidens, is still missing…and it might be hiding in plain sight.  The LBI Library and Archives contain extensive materials on generations of the Mosse family and their legacy in Germany and beyond. They include personal papers of the publisher and philanthropist Rudolf Mosse and other Mosse family members. One of the Mosse newspapers - the CV Zeitung has been digitized in partnership with the University of Frankfurt. Learn more at www.lbi.org/mosse.  Exile is a production of the Leo Baeck Institute, New York | Berlin and Antica Productions.  It’s narrated by Mandy Patinkin.  Executive Producers include Katrina Onstad, Stuart Coxe, and Bernie Blum. Senior Producer is Debbie Pacheco. Produced by Anthony Cantor. Associate Producers are Hailey Choi and Emily Morantz. Research and translation by Isabella Kempf. Sound design and audio mix by Philip Wilson, with help from Cameron McIver. Theme music by Oliver Wickham.   Special thanks to Eric J. Bartko of the Mosse Art Restitution Project (MARP), Dr. Meike Hoffmann at the Mosse Art Research Initiative (MARI), Wally Mersereau, Nordkurier, and Soundtrack New York.

In the early days of World War II, artist Hans Jacoby and his wife, Emma, are desperate to flee Germany. Most of the world has shut its doors to European Jews, yet there’s one surprising exception: Shanghai. Along with thousands of other Jews, they arrive in Shanghai, believing they’re safe. But even this far from home, they can’t escape the horrors of the war.  Hans Jacoby brought his handwritten diaries from Shanghai to the US, where they found their way into the LBI Archives along with some of his artworks, photographs, and other mementos of his time in China. The Archives also include the personal papers, artworks, and newspapers published by dozens of other Jewish refugees in Shanghai that provide vivid insights into the struggles of this community. Learn more at www.lbi.org/jacoby. Exile is a production of the Leo Baeck Institute, New York | Berlin and Antica Productions.  It’s narrated by Mandy Patinkin.  Executive Producers include Katrina Onstad, Stuart Coxe, and Bernie Blum. Senior Producer is Debbie Pacheco. Produced by Ed Hatton. Associate Producers are Hailey Choi and Emily Morantz. Research and translation by Isabella Kempf. Sound design and audio mix by Philip Wilson, with help from Cameron McIver. Additional sound by Michael Hough. Theme music by Oliver Wickham. Voice acting by Alexander Crowther.  Special thanks to Patrick Cranley of Historic Shanghai, the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum, and Soundtrack New York.

In Nazi-occupied Austria, a young man named Kurt Kleinmann comes up with a plan to escape: write to Americans - strangers - who share his last name and ask for help to get a visa. Just as he begins to lose hope, he gets a response from New Yorker Helen Kleinman. Little does he know, Helen will save his life…and capture his heart.  The Kurt and Helen Kleinmann Collection in the Leo Baeck Institute Archives includes Helen and Kurt’s entire correspondence - hundreds of letters - from 1938 and 1939, plus telegrams and other material documenting Kurt’s emigration. Learn more at www.lbi.org/kleinmann. Exile is a production of the Leo Baeck Institute, New York | Berlin and Antica Productions.  It’s narrated by Mandy Patinkin.  Executive Producers include Katrina Onstad, Stuart Coxe, and Bernie Blum. Senior Producer is Debbie Pacheco. Produced by Emily Morantz. Associate Producer is Hailey Choi. Research and translation by Isabella Kempf. Sound design and audio mix by Philip Wilson, with help from Cameron McIver. Theme music by Oliver Wickham. Voice acting by Heather Hedley and David Walpole. Special thanks to Len and Joanne Deutchman and the whole Kleinman(n) family, and to Soundtrack New York. 

Exile, Season 2, is coming soon. Another batch of compelling stories of Jewish lives under the shadow of fascism - drawn from the Leo Baeck Institute’s vast archive. Narrated by award-winning actor Mandy Patinkin.  Starting February 14, episodes are released weekly every Tuesday. The Leo Baeck Institute, New York | Berlin is a research library and archive focused on the history of German-speaking Jews.  Antica Productions produces award-winning non-fiction podcasts, films and series which inform and inspire audiences around the world.

As a highly trained German-Jewish physician with an interest in heredity and physical anthropology, William Nussbaum studied under some of the leading proponents of race science and eugenics at the University of Berlin. When the Nazis rise to power, rather than quit his inquiries, he launches a bold project to use the methods of race science to disprove Nazi racial theories. The Gestapo tolerates his research – briefly – but it is a eugenics-informed immigration policy in the United States that threatens to keep him from his youngest child. The William & Lotte Nussbaum Collection in the Archives of the Leo Baeck Institute in New York includes correspondence between William and Lotte, William’s paintings and poetry, as well as records of the "Working Group for Jewish Genetic Research and Eugenics." It’s all online at www.lbi.org/nussbaum. Exile is a production of the Leo Baeck Institute, New York | Berlin and Antica Productions.  It’s narrated by Mandy Patinkin.  Executive Producers include Katrina Onstad, Stuart Coxe, and Bernie Blum. Senior Producer is Debbie Pacheco. Associate Producers are Hailey Choi, Jacob Lewis, and Emily Morantz. Research and translation by Isabella Kempf. Sound design and audio mix by Philip Wilson. Theme music by Oliver Wickham.  Thank you to Outloud Audio, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the National Archives and Records Administration, Veronika Lipphardt and Alexandra Weinschenker for sharing their research. And to the Nussbaum family for being so generous with additional materials.

When controversial Berlin artist Lene Schneider-Kainer flees the safe confines of her posh marriage and life to retrace Marco Polo’s legendary voyage—with her new lover, a celebrity novelist —the adventure she seeks isn’t the one she gets. The scandalous choice turns her into a permanent exile, always seeking. The Art & Objects Collection of the Leo Baeck Institute in New York contains hundreds of stunning watercolors by Lene from her 1920s trip. Her travel diaries of that voyage were translated into English by volunteers Ruth Heiman and Irene Miller. You can view all these materials, along with a scrapbook of clippings documenting Lene’s travels, at www.lbi.org/schneider-kainer.  Exile is a production of the Leo Baeck Institute, New York | Berlin and Antica Productions.  It’s narrated by Mandy Patinkin.  Executive Producers include Debbie Pacheco, Stuart Coxe and Bernie Blum. Senior Producer is Katrina Onstad. Produced by Alexis Green. Associate Producers are Jacob Lewis, Hailey Choi, and Emily Morantz. Research and translation by Isabella Kempf. Sound design and audio mix by Philip Wilson with help from Cameron McIver. Theme music by Oliver Wickham. Voice acting by Isabel Kanaan.  Thank you to Outloud Audio, Sabine Dahmen and her German language book on Lene Schneider-Kainer that included Bernhard Kellermann’s letter, Behrooz’s translator Lida Nosrati,  and to Behrooz Abbasi for providing us with music from his film, “Lene, 1927 Bandar Abbas”.

It’s 1940. Western Europe is collapsing under Hitler’s onslaught. Famous Jewish dramaturg Kurt Hirschfeld flees to Switzerland. He forms a theatre collective that uses the stage to bravely rage against Hitler’s relentless war machine. But is it safe to be so daring, even after escaping Germany? The Kurt Hirschfeld Collection in the Archives of the Leo Baeck Institute in New York includes Kurt’s correspondence, notebooks, director's scripts, photos, and set designs. The entire collection can be viewed at www.lbi.org/hirschfeld. Exile is a production of the Leo Baeck Institute, New York | Berlin and Antica Productions.  It’s narrated by Mandy Patinkin.  Executive Producers include Kathleen Goldhar, Stuart Coxe, Katrina Onstad, and Bernie Blum. Senior Producers are Kevin Sexton and Debbie Pacheco. Associate Producers are Hailey Choi, Jacob Lewis, and Emily Morantz. Research and translation by Isabella Kempf. Sound design and audio mix by Mitchell Stuart with help from Philip Wilson. Theme music by Oliver Wickham. Thank you to Outloud Audio, CBS News, German Federal Archives Film Collection and Transit Film GmbH, NBC News Archives, and Suhrkamp Verlag. 

At the height of his fame, a shirtless, barefooted Albert Einstein escapes the bustle of Berlin for a simpler life. The best thinkers of the time gather at his beloved summer house in Caputh to laze by the water, swap ideas, and gossip. There, he can escape the pressures of global fame, but his summer haven can’t keep him safe from the growing Nazi movement bubbling in Germany.  The Albert Einstein Collections in the Archives of the Leo Baeck Institute in New York include hundreds of Einstein’s personal photographs, many from Caputh, as well as the Guestbook from his summer home. After a few pages bearing the signatures of the friends and international luminaries who visited the Einsteins those short summers before 1933, most of the pages remain blank. You can see the Collections at www.lbi.org/caputh.  Exile is a production of the Leo Baeck Institute, New York | Berlin and Antica Productions.  It’s narrated by Mandy Patinkin.  Executive Producers include Katrina Onstad, Stuart Coxe, and Bernie Blum. Senior Producer is Debbie Pacheco. Produced by Emily Morantz. Associate Producer is Hailey Choi. Research and translation by Isabella Kempf. Sound design and audio mix by Philip Wilson with help from Cameron McIver. Additional sound by Kevin Caners. Theme music by Oliver Wickham. Voice acting by Jillian Rees-Brown.   Thank you to Outloud Audio; Erika Britzke of the Einstein Forum in Potsdam; Michael Grüning’s, “A House for Albert Einstein”; Friedrich Hernick’s “Einstein at Home” translated by Josef Eisinger; The Albert Einstein Archives at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; The New York Times; and the Max Planck Society.

Alice Urbach is the ‘Julia Child’ of Austria. When Hitler takes over, she flees, leaving everything behind, including the rights to her bestselling cookbook. Then the Nazis slap a German name on it. Decades after the War and Alice’s death, her granddaughters fight to restore her long-lost culinary legacy.  Along with Alice Urbach’s Cooking the Viennese Way!, the Library of the Leo Baeck Institute in New York has dozens of cookbooks by Jewish authors from the 19th and 20th centuries. Over 100  family collections in the archives include handwritten recipe books going back to the 18th century. You can access them at www.lbi.org/urbach. Exile is a production of the Leo Baeck Institute, New York | Berlin and Antica Productions.  It’s narrated by Mandy Patinkin.  Executive Producers include Katrina Onstad, Stuart Coxe, and Bernie Blum. Senior Producer is Debbie Pacheco. Produced by Alexis Green. Associate Producers are Hailey Choi, Jacob Lewis, and Emily Morantz. Research and translation by Isabella Kempf. Sound design and audio mix by Philip Wilson. Theme music by Oliver Wickham. Voice acting by Jillian Rees-Brown.  Thank you to Outloud Audio, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and the National Archives and Records Administration.  And a special thank you to Karina Urbach and her book, “Alice’s Book: How the Nazi’s Stole my Grandmother’s Cookbook.” Learn more at https://www.maclehosepress.com/titles/karina-urbach/alices-book/9781529416305/. 

A young, Jewish librarian in New York named Florence Mendheim risks her life to spy on the growing Nazi movement in America. She passes herself off as a Nazi sympathizer, documenting the movement’s nefarious activities. Everything is on the line—her family, her work and her life—to try to halt hate in its tracks. As Nazism becomes a gathering storm, will she get out of the spy game before she’s caught? The Florence Mendheim Collection in the Archives of the Leo Baeck Institute in New York contains: her reports and correspondence with the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue and the American Jewish Congress, American pro-Nazi and white supremacist propaganda she collected during her spy work, her personal letters, and some of Florence’s unpublished novels. Go to www.lbi.org/mendheim. Exile is a production of the Leo Baeck Institute, New York | Berlin and Antica Productions.  It’s narrated by Mandy Patinkin.  Executive Producers include Katrina Onstad, Stuart Coxe, and Bernie Blum. Senior Producer is Debbie Pacheco. Produced by Lisa Gabriele. Associate Producers are Hailey Choi, Jacob Lewis, and Emily Morantz. Research and translation by Isabella Kempf. Sound design and audio mix by Philip Wilson. Theme music by Oliver Wickham. Voice acting by Isabel Kanaan.  Thank you to Outloud Audio, WNYC Archives, the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives at Hebrew Union College, UCLA Film & Television Archive, the New York Times, and eFootage. 

Welcome to Exile, a podcast about Jewish lives under the shadow of fascism. Narrated by award-winning screen and stage actor, Mandy Patinkin. Untold stories and firsthand accounts drawn from intimate letters, diaries and interviews found in the Leo Baeck Institute’s vast archive. Each episode, a story of beauty and danger that brings history to life. Because the past is always present. Starting November 1, episodes are released weekly every Tuesday.

In the Holy Roman Empire in the early 1500s, there was a campaign to burn all Jewish books. A legal scholar named Johannes Reuchlin wrote a pamphlet called Augenspiegel that convinced the powers-that-be that these texts had historical and scholarly value. Historian and author Erika Rummel joins Mark to tell this remarkable tale, which features everything from political power grabs to bribery to a Middle Ages version of a flame war.   LBI Presents is a production of the Leo Baeck Institute, New York | Berlin and Antica Productions.    Hosted by Mark Oppenheimer.   Executive Producers include Laura Regehr, Stuart Coxe, and Bernie Blum. Senior Producer is Debbie Pacheco. Associate Producer is Emily Morantz. Associate audio editor is Cameron McIver. Sound design and audio mix by Philip Wilson. 

You may have heard of the transit camp Theresienstadt as a place of hope and resilience throughout the Holocaust. But the music, art, and recipes found in the Czech ghetto  after the war only tell one part of the story. Today, historian Anna Hájková, author of The Last Ghetto: An Everyday History of Theresienstadt, joins Mark to discuss the complexities of life at Theresienstadt, including class structure, the barter system, and most importantly, food.    LBI Presents is a production of the Leo Baeck Institute, New York | Berlin and Antica Productions.    Hosted by Mark Oppenheimer. Executive Producers include Laura Regehr, Stuart Coxe, and Bernie Blum. Senior Producer is Debbie Pacheco. Associate Producer is Emily Morantz. Associate audio editor is Cameron McIver. Sound design and audio mix by Philip Wilson.

In 1933, Joseph Goebbels said that the Nazis could never have taken power without the radio. Heidi Tworek is a professor of history at the University of British Columbia and author of News From Germany: The Competition to Control World Communications, 1900-1945. On this episode, she joins Mark to tell the incredible story of how the Nazis broadcast their propaganda not just in Germany, but around the world.   LBI Presents is a production of the Leo Baeck Institute, New York | Berlin and Antica Productions.  Hosted by Mark Oppenheimer. Executive Producers include Laura Regehr, Stuart Coxe, and Bernie Blum. Senior Producer is Debbie Pacheco. Associate Producer is Emily Morantz. Associate audio editor is Cameron McIver. Sound design and audio mix by Philip Wilson. 

In the 1960s, artist Eva Hesse found herself at the center of the iconic New York contemporary art scene. A Jewish refugee who escaped Austria on the Kindertransport as a toddler, Hesse went on to become an icon of post minimalist art.    Elisabeth Sussman is a curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art. She’s written and edited books about Hesse, and has curated exhibitions of her work. On this episode, Elisabeth and Mark discuss Hesse’s personal history, artistic style, and legacy.   LBI Presents is a production of the Leo Baeck Institute, New York | Berlin and Antica Productions.    Hosted by Mark Oppenheimer.   Executive Producers include Laura Regehr, Stuart Coxe, and Bernie Blum. Senior Producer is Debbie Pacheco. Associate Producer is Emily Morantz. Associate audio editor is Cameron McIver. Sound design and audio mix by Philip Wilson. 

On this episode, we bring you two stories of people who unexpectedly unearthed their personal histories with the help of LBI and its archive.    Danny Shot, a poet from the Bronx, stumbled across a familiar face at an LBI exhibit—and discovered the double life of a mysterious relative. And Elliot Aronstam, a Brooklyn native, found himself literally buried in letters in a script he couldn’t read. Luckily, LBI was able to decipher a family story he never thought he’d learn.    LBI Presents is a production of the Leo Baeck Institute, New York | Berlin and Antica Productions.    Hosted by Mark Oppenheimer. Executive Producers include Laura Regehr, Stuart Coxe, and Bernie Blum. Senior Producer is Debbie Pacheco. Associate Producer is Emily Morantz. Associate audio editor is Cameron McIver. Sound design and audio mix by Philip Wilson.

The archive and library at LBI contains over 2000 memoirs. On this episode, Mark and literary critic Ruth Franklin, author of A Thousand Darknesses: Lies and Truth in Holocaust Fiction, discuss the line between fact and fiction in memoir writing and the evolution of Holocaust memoirs from first hand accounts to books written by second and third generation authors.    LBI Presents is a production of the Leo Baeck Institute, New York | Berlin and Antica Productions.    Hosted by Mark Oppenheimer. Executive Producers include Laura Regehr, Stuart Coxe, and Bernie Blum. Senior Producer is Debbie Pacheco. Associate Producer is Emily Morantz. Sound design and audio mix by Philip Wilson.