From 1933 onwards, numerous intellectuals such as Heinrich Mann, Hannah Arendt, Lion Feuchtwanger and Franz Werfel fled to France to escape persecution by the National Socialists. However, after France's defeat in June 1940, their situation worsened dramatically: the Gestapo began a targeted search for them. In the midst of this life-threatening situation, the American journalist Varian Fry traveled to Marseille. His goal: to rescue as many people as possible to freedom - a daring undertaking that was fraught with deadly dangers.

In his book, Wittstock recounts one of the most dramatic years in German literary history: he describes how Heinrich Mann hears the news from Radio London during a bomb scare, how Anna Seghers flees Paris with her children and how Lion Feuchtwanger is imprisoned in a French internment camp. Their paths lead to Marseille, where Varian Fry and his team risk their lives to enable the persecuted to escape from the Nazis.

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