Suitcases, bags and whole lives

Professionally and economically motivated, successful filmmakers decided to relocate transatlantically, such as F.W. Murnau, Conrad Veidt and Emil Jannings, who is considered the first German international star.

For Marlene Dietrich, the transatlantic journey became a permanent change of location thanks to a contract with Paramount Pictures. Her travel and make-up cases can be seen in our exhibition.

But many filmmakers were sitting on packed bags and suitcases - politically driven, racially persecuted and threatened in their existence. Selected objects and documents from the Paul Kohner Collection recall dramatic individual fates such as the flight of many German filmmakers from discrimination, persecution and the threat of death by the Nazi dictatorship. They were forced to pack up their entire lives and flee into exile.