B’nai B’rith
Jewish association, established in the USA in 1843, spread across the entire world today. It carries out welfare work among other activities.
Bachmann, Ingeborg
1926-1973, Austrian writer considered tob e one oft he most important German-language writers of the 20th century
Banat
A region in Europe that stretches today over Romania (two-thirds of the surface area), Serbia and Hungary. In the 18th century mainly German settlers moved there, who were also referred to as the “Danube Swabians”. The population mix today has been greatly changed by a mass exodus.
Bar Mizwah
For girls Bat Mitzwah, describes the Jewish coming of age ritual.
Barker, Ernest
1874 – 1960, political scientist, professor at Cambridge University
Benjamin, Walter
1892 – 1940, German philosopher, literary critic and translator. His essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction and Das Passagen-Werk (The Arcades Project) which remained a fragment, both written in Parisian exile in 1935, are probably his most famous works.
Bermann Fischer, Brigitte
1905-1991, German typesetter and calligraphist. After their return from exile she managed alongside her husband, Gottfried Bermann, the Bermann Fischer Verlag.
Bermann-Fischer, Gottfried
(1897-1995), publisher, managed the S. Fischer publishing house after the death of its founder Samuel Fischer; 1936 move to Vienna along with the publishing house, 1938 on to Stockholm
Bermann, Gottfried
1897-1995, studied medicine, but entered the publishing house his father-in-law at the latter’s request in 1925 and also assumed the name Fischer after getting married. He retired in 1963.
Bernhard, Georg
(1875-1944), publicist, editor and head of Vossische Zeitung, Berlin, from 1909 to 1930. He founded the Pariser Tageblatt in 1933 in Paris, which he ran under the name Pariser Tageszeitung until 1938; in 1941 he went into exile in the USA
Bértaux, Felix
1881-1948, French scholar of German, translator and writer, had contact to numerous German writers and was a close friend of Heinrich Mann
Berufsverbot [occupational ban]
The Berufsverbot denotes a governmental order that forbids persons and groups of persons from pursuing their occupation. In addition to artists, primarily doctors, pharmacists, lawyers, journalists and teachers were victims of a professional ban during the Nazi dictatorship.
Bewegung Freies Deutschland
founded in Mexico City in 1942. Its president was the writer Ludwig Renn who had emigrated from Germany. It had links to other exile organizations with the same name in Latin America and gradually supplanted the Liga Pro Cultura Alemana which had existed since 1938. In 1944, it had about 400 members. Bezalel Museum
Israeli University for Design and Art, established in 1906 by Boris Schatz in what was then Ottoman Jerusalem
Bibesco de Brancovan, Elisabeth
1897 – 1945, writer and daughter of the Countess of Oxford and Asquith and the former British Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith; she was married to the aristocrat Antoine Bibesco de Brancovan.
Bingham, Hiram
1903-1988, US diplomat. Served in US Consulate in Marseilles from 1939 to 1941.
Blitzstein, Marc
1905 – 1964, American composer and translator
Blixen, Karen
(1885-1962), Danish writer, also wrote under the name Tania Blixen, ran a coffee plantation from 1914-1931 near the Ngong Hills (today in Kenya). Her years there were filmed in 1985 in Out of Africa.
Blücher, Heinrich
1899 – 1970, philosopher and the second husband of Hannah Arendt who also lived with her in exile in New York
Böll, Heinrich
1917–1985, one of the most important German writers of the post-war era, became well known for novels such as “Ansichten eines Clowns“ (The Clown) and “Billard um halb zehn“ (Billiards at Half-Past Nine.)
Bosques, Gilberto
1892-1995, Mexican teacher, Member of Parliament and diplomat, 1939 to 1942 Mexican Consul-General in France, where he campaigned after the occupation as a consul in Marseille for the rescue of thousands of refugees. Interned in 1943 for a year by the Germans in Bad Godesberg. 1946 until 1972: again Mexican Ambassador in various European and Latin American countries.
Brandt, Willy
1913-1992, German politician, joined the SPD in 1930, the one year later the Socialist Workers’ Party of Germany; from 1933-1945 exile in Norway, from 1949 member of the SPD in the German Bundestag; from 1964-1987 SPD party leader and from1969-1974 German Federal Chancellor; 1971 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for his policies vis-à-vis Eastern Europe
Breitbach, Joseph
(1903-1980), writer, lived in France after 1930
British Mandate for Palestine
Before the end of World War I, Palestine belonged to the Ottoman Empire. After the British victory over the Ottoman troops in 1917, Great Britain occupied Palestine.
Bryan, Julien Hequembourg
1899 – 1974, US American theologian, documentary film-maker and photographer
Buber, Martin
(1878-1965): a prominent religious philosopher, active in Frankfurt and lived in Jerusalem from 1938.
Bund Proletarisch-Revolutionärer Schriftsteller
writers' union of the Weimar Republic established in 1928, International Union of Revolutionary Writers section
Büro Pfarrer Grüber
Network of supporters for Protestant “non-Aryans”
