Exile

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.