Oskar Maria Graf was stateless for twenty-four years, from his expatriation from the German Reich on 30 March 1934 until he was conferred American citizenship in 1958. Although he was tolerated in the US and Czechoslovakia, the countries of his exile, he was unable to travel to other countries and could not expect to be let back into these countries after he had left them. Because the US denied him a re-entry permit after 1945, he had to wait until 1958 before he could return to Europe for the first time since his departure.

Graf also lived in Czechoslovakia for four years without papers or a residence permit until he acquired an alien’s passport. Although the country, which had been a refuge for countless exiles since 1933, pursued the most liberal asylum policies in Europe, it behaved cautiously towards politically active emigrants like Graf because of the pressure from Germany.

Graf received his emigration passport, valid for one year only, as he was busy planning his emigration to another country of asylum. He possibly only received the passport for this reason. The only entries are the stamps of the Prague airport Praha-Ruzyně and the Rotterdam harbour police from the day of his journey from Rotterdam to New York on 12 July 1938. Oskar Maria Graf received the affidavit for application for asylum in the US from his siblings Nanndl and Lorenz, who had already emigrated to the US.