For more information about the exhibit, please visit: https://www.lbi.org/exhibitions/schames-exhibit/

As we prepare our fifth season of Exile, we’re looking back at our favorite episodes from seasons 1-4. Each re-release brings back a unique, fascinating, and often heart-wrenching story from the Leo Baeck Institute Archives.

Robert Bachrach is a buttoned-up doctor and dedicated researcher. Leo Hochner is a bon-vivant and art connoisseur who breeds small dogs. Both bachelors, they are part of a close network of friends from Vienna who are scattered across the globe after the Nazis take power in Austria. When Robert takes his life in New York after a humiliating arrest under New York’s anti-gay laws, he directs his final words to Leo, who was still trapped in Nazi-occupied Budapest. We follow the traces they left in the LBI archives to uncover an incredible story of heartbreak and heroism. For Robert, escaping the Nazis didn’t mean an end to discrimination, persecution, or fear.

Learn more www.lbi.org/bachrach-hochner. 

Exile is a production of the Leo Baeck Institute, New York and Antica Productions.

 It’s narrated by Mandy Patinkin. This episode was produced by Nadia Medhi.

Our executive Producers are Laura Regehr, Rami Tzabar, Stuart Coxe, and Bernie Blum. Our associate producer is Emily Morantz. Research and translation by Isabella Kempf. Voice acting by Isabella Kempf, Cyrus Lane, and Manuel Mairhofer. Sound design and audio mix by Philip Wilson. Theme music by Oliver Wickham.

Special thanks to Anna Lvovsky, Brian Ferree, Hannes Sulzenbacher, Clarissa Hochner, and Diana Bulman. Thanks also to Victor Sattler, who wrote about Robert and LAY-oh as part of the LBI’s literary project, “Stolpertexte”, and whose essay lent our episode its title and opening scene.

This episode of Exile is made possible in part by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, which is supported by the German Federal Ministry of Finance and the Foundation Remembrance, Responsibility and Future.

As we prepare our fifth season of Exile, we’re looking back at our favorite episodes from seasons 1-4. Each re-release brings back a unique, fascinating, and often heart-wrenching story from the Leo Baeck Institute Archives.

Leo Fuks is a born performer. So when, in 1936, a vaudeville impresario shows up to recruit him, 10-year-old Leo is more than happy to join his troupe, and his parents reluctantly agree. As Leo, now known as Jackie Gerlich, travels the world and dips his toes into Hollywood, his family is left behind to grapple with the terror of rising antisemitism in Vienna. After years without contact, Leo’s mother is shocked to see her son dancing on screen in The Wizard of Oz—and she resolves to do everything she can to get her son back. 

Learn more at www.lbi.org/gerlich.

Exile is a production of the Leo Baeck Institute, New York and Antica Productions.

It’s narrated by Mandy Patinkin. This episode was produced by Emily Morantz.

Our executive Producers are Laura Regehr, Rami Tzabar, Stuart Coxe, and Bernie Blum. Our associate producer is Emily Morantz. Research and translation by Isabella Kempf. Voice acting by Cyrus Lane. Sound design and audio mix by Philip Wilson. Theme music by Oliver Wickham.

Special thanks to the Bentley Historical Library and the Syracuse University Special Collections Research Centre.

This episode of Exile is made possible in part by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, which is supported by the German Federal Ministry of Finance and the Foundation Remembrance, Responsibility and Future.

As we prepare our fifth season of Exile, we’re looking back at our favorite episodes from seasons 1-4. Each re-release brings back a unique, fascinating, and often heart-wrenching story from the Leo Baeck Institute Archives.

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.

As we prepare our fifth season of Exile, we’re looking back at our favorite episodes from seasons 1-4. Each re-release brings back a unique, fascinating, and often heart-wrenching story from the Leo Baeck Institute Archives.

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. 

As we prepare our fifth season of Exile, we’re looking back at our favorite episodes from seasons 1-4. Each re-release brings back a unique, fascinating, and often heart-wrenching story from the Leo Baeck Institute Archives.

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.

As we prepare our fifth season of Exile, we’re looking back at our favorite episodes from seasons 1-4. Each re-release brings back a unique, fascinating, and often heart-wrenching story from the Leo Baeck Institute Archives.

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.