The Exiles

The cultural life of the U.S. was considerably enhanced by the contributions of a large number of Europeans who immigrated to the country to escape the Nazis. This documentary focuses on these people and their gifts, and screens interviews with over seventy of them. Among those featured are photographer Alfred Eisenstadt, psychiatrist Bruno Bettleheim, film director Fritz Lang, actor Rod Stiger, film director Billy Wilder, the physicist Edward Teller, and the orchestra conductor Erich Leinsdorf. Once in the U.S., many of these people faced (and overcame) serious obstacles in the form of anti-Semitism and xenophobia.