EXCERPT FROM INTRODUCTION:
"No other immigration in American history has given us such a tremendous proportion of talent as the German-Austrian immigration of 1938."(1) An extravagant statement indeed, but one that is supported by Anthony Heilbut's Exiled in Paradise, (2) in which he documents the many well-known artists, scientists, psychoanalysts, Hollywood figures, and other luminaries who came to the United states and prospered. A more modest claim would assert that the refugees fleeing Hitler's Reich during the 1930s were unlike any previous immigrant group. They tended to be middle and upper class, highly educated, cultured, and cosmopolitan. The number of professionals among them was unprecedented; likewise the many independent proprietors, government officials, and other white-collar workers. The men and women of the Gruppe represent a microcosm of that immigration, albeit not of its "illustrious." As in the larger group, the skills and talents of these people, intended for expression in their homeland, were diverted to the United States.