The plight of those who fled from the Nazis to France worsened dramatically with the beginning of the Second World War and the occupation of France. To escape from there to the United States required a visa and also proof of future employment. The agent and co-founder of the European Film Fund, Paul Kohner, who received numerous requests for help in Hollywood, found a way of allowing numerous writers entry into the United States: he used his contacts to the studio bosses of Warner Bros., Metro Goldwyn Mayer and Columbia and persuaded them to issue work contracts in the 'Writer's Department' for a year - for a payment of $100 a week.

This was the way in which various writers including Heinrich Mann, Friedrich Torberg, Alfred Döblin, Walter Mehring and Alfred Polgar came to America.

In an interview for the documentary film about Paul Kohner, the agent Robert Lantz (who founded an agency in the 1950s in New York) recalls Kohner's efforts for the German-speaking writers and these contracts, which were indeed honoured: the emigrants actually came to work in the writing workshops of the studios and worked with moderate success on films.