Letters Franz Werfel and his wife Alma Mahler-Werfel sent to Werfel's parents accompany their road into exile in the years 1938 to 1942 without mentioning the hardships, hunger and constant fear. Instead, in this letter from 23 July 1940, the lines bespeak the intimacy within the family: “It is still impossible to know anything, to foresee anything. We send you both thousands of hugs. Yours truly, Franz”. (ed. trans.)

In her first marriage, Alma Mahler-Werfel had been married to the composer and opera director Gustav Mahler. With this letter to her mother-in-law, she now asks her not to include his name. Mahler, like Werfel himself, had been a Jew who converted to Catholicism. This request was presumably related to the ceasefire between Germany and France of 22 June 1940. Since then, the French postal service was subject to the German occupying authority and thus every letter liable to be censored. German-speaking emigrants had long since ceased being safe in France and were interned or deported as enemy foreigners.

Franz and Alma Werfel, who since 1938 had lived primarily in Sanary-Sur-Mer, planned their emigration to the US from May 1940. On their way through southern France, they found refuge in Lourdes. With a Sauf-Conduit (safe conduct pass) to Marseille, from there they succeeded in reaching Cerbère and eventually Spain after an arduous journey over the Pyrenees, then continued on to Portugal before sailing to the US in autumn 1940.