On 31 October 1940, the Polish writer Józef Wittlin arrived with his family in Lisbon. There he made contact with Hermann Kesten, whose initiative it had been to place him on a list for an emergency visa from the Emergency Rescue Committee.

Wittlin, who like Joseph Roth had studied in Galician Lviv, was in close contact with many German writers and translators. He had translated several novels by his friend Roth into Polish. The German edition of his magnum opus, the novel Salz der Erde (Salt of the Earth) was published in 1937 with a preface by Joseph Roth and released by the Amsterdam publisher Allert de Lange.

During his eleven-week stay in Lisbon, Józef Wittlin wrote a total of six letters to Hermann Kesten before he left for the United States, probably on 17 January. In the letters he talks about his existential concerns, setbacks in obtaining the necessary papers, the serious illness of his eight-year-old daughter, his encounters with other emigrants such as Kesten’s sister and the writer Hans Natonek and his anxiety of the uncertain future in the United States.