In his letter from early January 1938 Paul Zech congratulated his former Berlin writer-colleague Alfred Kerr on his 70th birthday on 25 December 1937. He wrote all the way from Argentina to the UK, from one place of exile to another, namely London.

Zech reported little of his own living conditions in Buenos Aires. Instead, he referred back to their shared experience of literary life in Berlin from 1910 to 1933 when Zech was one of the young Expressionist writers and Kerr was one of the patrons and role models. Kerr had discussed the work of the new generation in the newspapers Der Tag and Das Berliner Tageblatt, and in the magazine Pan. Now it was Paul Zech's turn to pay tribute to the life's work of the older man and to recall the vibrant time in Berlin.

Alfred Kerr did not celebrate his 70th birthday in London. He also wrote as a travel writer and, as Max Herrmann-Neisse reported, went on a Mediterranean cruise.  

Paul Zech, who had fled to Buenos Aires in 1933, regularly wrote literary articles for Argentine newspapers such as Das andere Deutschland, Argentinisches Tage- und Wochenblatt and the Yiddish magazine Di Presse in which his article about Alfred Kerr was also to appear. Despite his prodigious creativity he felt isolated in exile and lived in poor conditions. He broached the subjects of flight and emigration in 1938 in his autobiographical novel Michael M. irrt durch Buenos Aires which was published posthumously in 1984.