arts in exile

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• 12 November 1938

  The French government passes laws which allow it to intern "undesirable foreigners".
• November 1938

  Christian aid organisations come together to form the Christian Council for Refugees from Germany and Central Europe in England
• November 1938

  The UK changes its asylum policies to make entry easier for refugees 
  Until now, refugees have hardly any chance at all of entering Britain, as they either have to prove that they have a certain amount of financial assets or a job. This changes after the annexation of the Sudetenland and Austria and the violent November Pogroms.
• December 1938

  The Philo-Atlas is published
  Shortly after the November Pogroms, the Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith issues this handbook which acts as an important first source of basic information on emigrating for Jews. 
• 21 January 1939

  France erects a "special transit camp" by decree in Rieucros, where "undesirable foreigners" are to be interned.
• 31 January 1939

  In an address to the Reichstag, Adolf Hitler decrees "the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe" in the event of war.
• Beginning of 1939

  The exhibition Living Art in England in aid of Czechoslovakian and Jewish Refugees, co-organised by the Oskar Kokoschka Association, takes place in London. Among the participants are John Heartfield and Oskar Kokoschka.
• February 1939

  Schacht-Rublee Plan, a.k.a. Rublee-Wohlthat Plan
  The director of the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees, George Rublee, offers the German government a draft agreement which would permit two-thirds of German Jews to emigrate within five years. However, the plan is not ratified, either by the Germans or the international side and ultimately becomes obsolete with the beginning of the Second World War and the systematic and mass murder of Jews by the Nazis from 1941 onwards.
• 15 February 1939

  An order from Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels decrees that art prizes can henceforward only be awarded with his permission.
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  Membership card of the writer Freimut Schwarz for the Free German League of Culture in Great Britain, 1943

  Deutscches Exilarchiv 1933-1945 der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek, estate of Freimut Schwarz, EB 95/192

  1. March 1939

  Establishment of the Free German League of Culture in London.