Lyonel Feininger
Born on July 17, 1871Died on January 13, 1956PainterLeaving Germany was hard for Lyonel Feininger. On June 11, 1937, shortly before his 66th birthday, the painter boarded the Europa steam ship with his wife Julia.
Lion Feuchtwanger
Born on 7 July 1884Died on 21 December 1958Writer, PublicistLion Feuchtwanger heard about the Nazi assumption of power while he was in the USA for a lecture tour. He decided not to return to Germany.
Herbert Fiedler
Born on 17 September 1891Died on 27 February 1962PainterHerbert Fiedler fled the Nazi tyranny from Berlin to Amsterdam with the Swiss painter, and his future wife, Amrey (Annemarie) Balsiger, at the end of 1934 which took him up to the invasion of the Netherlands on 10 May 1940.Being German in a foreign country, artistic freedom, mental solitude in the bygone artist village of Laren from the beginning of February 1935 until he was forced to move to Amsterdam in early November 1940, was all expressed in his journal and letters to his friend from the Dresden Art Academy 1910-1912, George Grosz in New York.
Hans Günter Flieg
Born on 3 July 1923PhotographerAfter Jews were almost completely deprived of rights within the German Reich, Hans Günter Flieg, just 16 years old, left Chemnitz with his family in 1939 and headed for Brazil.
Bruno Frank
Born on 13 June 1887Died on 20 June 1945WriterWriter Bruno Frank left Germany immediately after the Reichstag fire of February 1933. As a Jew and a democrat, he abhorred National Socialism.
Chanan Frenkel
Born on 22 July 1905Died on 30 April 1957ArchitectAfter breaking off his apprenticeship as a sales clerk in Leipzig and ending an unfinished training course in a Berlin second-hand book store, Chanan Frenkel went for three years on Hakhshara (English “preparation”) at the age of 20. He was becoming increasingly interested in Zionism and was preparing to emigrate to Palestine.
Gisèle Freund
Born on 19 December 1908Died on 31 March 2000PhotographerGrowing up in the home of an art collector, Gisèle Freund began to take an interest in photography early on. She received her first camera from her father at the age of 15, thus laying the foundations for a career as a famous photographer.
Alexander Moritz Frey
Born on 29 March 1881Died on 24 January 1957WriterAlexander Moritz Frey became well known in the 1910s and 1920s for his ghost stories and the novel Solneman der Unsichtbare [Solneman the Invisible] (1914), another example of the fantasy genre. He later enjoyed greater success with the anti-war novel Die Pflasterkästen [The Cross Bearers] (1929), which appeared as part of a series with Erich Maria Remarque’s Im Westen nichts Neues [All Quiet on the Western Front] and is based on Frey’s experiences in the battlefield during World War I.
Kurt Gerron
Born on 11 May 1897Died on 28 October 1944ActorThe multi-faceted actor and director Kurt Gerron was a much-lauded film, theatre and cabaret star of the Weimar Republic. In 1928 he sang the song Die Moritat von Mackie Messer (The Ballad of Mack the Knife) in the first performance of Bertolt Brecht’s Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera).
Valeska Gert
Born on 11 January 1892Died between 15 and 18 March 1978Actress, DancerIn 1936, when Valeska Gert went into exile in London, she could look back on an impressive career. She came from a Jewish family in Berlin, received her training in theatre from Maria Moissi, and was engaged in the Deutsches Theater Berlin and the Münchner Kammerspiel.
