"‘Immigrants,’ as we were coined, always seemed to me a mistaken denotation, as we did not leave our homes to find a new country to live in. We did not leave our country of our own free will... What we did was escape – we were ousted, exiled."
Thus reflected Berthold Brecht on his flight from Germany in February 1933, similar to that of other German intellectuals in the wake of Hitler's rise to power in January that year.
A photograph portrays a handsome man donning a fine sports suit, with an adorable girl wearing a dress typical for the period, the relaxed air of a family holiday in a summer vacation town about them. The year is 1934; the place – Sanary-sur-mer, a Mediterranean coastal town on the French Riviera. The individuals in the photograph are Mario Stahl and Judith Kerr. Despite their appearance, the two shared Brecht's fate: they were forced refugees – German Jews and opponents of the Nazi regime that were condemned and expelled from German society.
Along their escape route, many of the exiles passed through Zurich and Paris. They met as brothers in fate – not just as intellectuals, but also as former Berliners who shared a common language. Stahl, an artist born in 1908 and a student of Käthe Kollwitz and Emil Orlik, documented these meetings with his delicate pencil. Intellectuals from the literary and theatrical circles, musicians, filmmakers, artists –every one of them influential and prominent in their forte, found themselves exiled in a foreign land, at a crossroads demanding a decision: where to now?
They first found safe harbor in the countries bordering Germany; however, as the danger increased, many continued on in search of calmer shores, far from the eye of the storm. Those depicted in the drawings are a faithful reflection of the meandering journeys of many. Miraculously, only two of the wanderers perished in the Holocaust (Paul Morgan and Theodor Wolff). Of the rest, a mere handful set their sights on Eretz Israel (Else Lasker-Schüler, Arnold Zweig, Hermann Vallentin) or Britain (Sybille Binder, Lucie Mannheim); the majority settled down in two scenic coastal towns, separated by the expanses of the Atlantic. Many of those who managed to obtain US visas (Marianne Oswald, Moriz Rosenthal, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Max Simon Ehrlich, Alfred Döblin, Claire Goll, Emil Ludwig, Ludwig Hardt, Felix Bressart and Albert Bassermann) joined the diverse community of Pacific Palisades, California, a pastoral town in the mountains with a vista of the Pacific Ocean. Here, the Jewish writer Lion Feuchtwanger, himself a refugee, established a gathering place and a dwelling, Villa Aurora, home to a community of German émigrés. Of those German-speaking exiles remaining in Europe, most directed their steps to the coastal town in the French Riviera, Sanary-sur-mer.
Here, too, was the destination of Stahl. Despite his elegant appearance, a drawing of his living quarters speaks of a very modest existence, appropriate to the hard times that had befallen him. From the South of France, Stahl fled to Italy, where he survived the Holocaust. At the end of the war, he immigrated to Sweden, the birthplace of his future wife. In the town of Malmö, Stahl gradually gained renown as a painter, holding numerous exhibitions. In 1975, aged 67, Mario Stahl passed away, leaving behind a set of drawings dating back to the time of his escape from Nazi Germany.
His son, Dr. Matthias Stahl, orphaned from his father at the age of 14, knew only a little of his father's fate, as Mario chose not to share stories and memories from the time of the Holocaust. Dr. Stahl's proposal to donate his father's drawings to Yad Vashem was enthusiastically welcomed, as this collection of drawings sheds light on a unique group: they were people of distinction, connections and means, who did not share the cruel fate of European Jewry in general, or German Jewry in particular. Nonetheless, they stand witness to the rich culture that was annihilated with the murder of their brethren – an unfathomable loss to human civilization.
First published in Yad Vashem Jerusalem magazine, #66, July 2012
