Peter Weiss
Writer, Painter, Film director, DramatistFor the young Peter Weiss the years of emigration from 1933 to 1945 represented his years of development as a writer and painter. He left Germany in 1934 as an 18-year-old with a Czechoslovakian passport on account of his Jewish father's nationality.
Hellmuth Weissenborn
From Leipzig to LondonPainter, Graphic designerThe November pogrom of 1938 and losing his job at the Leipzig Academy because he was married to a Jew prompted painter Hellmuth Weissenborn to flee into exile. At the start of 1939 he arrived in London where he was financially supported by his wife, who had remained in Germany.
Franz Werfel
Writer, DramatistWith his expressionistic verse, which dealt with the deliverance and fraternisation of humanity, Franz Werfel celebrated great success in 1911. Humanity and grappling with an ethically-grounded form of Christianity remained – even while in exile – recurring themes for Werfel.
Gustav Wolf
Painter, Graphic designerThe painter and graphic artist Gustav Wolf taught at the Baden Art School in Karlsruhe for one year starting in 1920. He then worked as a freelancer and in addition to commercial graphics, created art works, including self-contained graphic series that did not portray the visible world but were rather visionary creations.
Liao Yiwu
Writer, MusicianIn poems and prose texts, Liao Yiwu has repeatedly criticised the Chinese government since the 1980s. Today in the west, the writer and musician is one of the most prominent critical Chinese voices.
Erich Zeisl
Composer, MusicianEric Zeisl was a representative of the moderate Viennese Modern Age. Art songs, instrumental and chamber music pieces, choir and orchestra works as well as pieces for musical dramas were characteristic of his oeuvre.
Richard Ziegler
Graphic designer, PainterRichard Ziegler was born in Pforzheim. He completed his doctorate in German Philology in Heidelberg, after which he became a self-taught artist.
Oscar Zügel
Fleeing from one dictatorship to another.PainterAfter studying at the Stuttgart Art Academy, Oscar Zügel’s work developed from New Objectivity towards abstraction, with the themes of his paintings increasingly reflecting a critical view of his era. Works of Zügel’s were included in the exhibition “Drawings and Paintings” which was closed in spring 1933 on the grounds that it contained “degenerate” art.
Hermynia zur Mühlen
Writer, TranslaterAustrian writer Hermynia zur Mühlen had been living in Germany since 1919. She was known as the "Red Countess" because of her commitment to Communism, from which she subsequently dissociated herself while in exile.
Arnold Zweig
WriterA modest upbringing as the son of a Jewish settler in Katowice in Silesia, a committed Prussian soldier during World War I, then a pacifist, a Zionist, a socialist: the life of Arnold Zweig appears to be full of contradictions. However, these supposed contrasts describe his lifelong confrontation with his own identity.
