When Emanuel Querido first founded a literature publishing company in Amsterdam in 1915, he had no idea that barely 20 years later, it would become a second home for Jewish authors forced to flee Germany to escape the Nazis. "Amsterdam: what a beautiful, unique city! It has become our refuge, it allows us to work," was Klaus Mann's enthusiastic comment on one of his first stops in exile. More than just a temporary home, Amsterdam soon held out the promise of a completely different kind of home: between 1933 and 1950, Querido Verlag published more than 100 books by authors who had to flee Germany to escape Nazi persecution, among them Joseph Roth, Irmgard Keun and Lion Feuchtwanger.

Scattered far and wide across Europe, the German writers found a spiritual home in Amsterdam, which not seldom secured their livelihoods as well. Querido Verlag was established by Emanuel Querido, who founded a German-language subsidiary within his publishing company in cooperation with publisher Fritz Landshoff, another exile from Germany. From April 1933, there were two publishing companies: one Dutch, the other German. And Amsterdam became a place of spiritual refuge. The last book released by the exile publisher – an anthology compiled in memory of Klaus Mann – was published in 1950. The legendary Dutch publishing house Querido was re-established in 2014.

The exhibition "Hell and Paradise" tells the story of the German publishing company Querido Verlag and the people who left their mark on it. The two publishers and their most important authors, among them Klaus Mann, Anna Seghers, Irmgard Keun, Vicki Baum, Lion Feuchtwanger and Joseph Roth, are profiled together with their texts and the stories of their exile in the Netherlands. For all of them, Querido and Amsterdam were a paradise in which the exiled writers were – at least temporarily – safe from persecution and their books were in good hands. Yet they were also a hell, since a feeling of hopelessness dominated the writers' lives. This ambivalence is explored throughout the exhibition.

The exhibition is curated by author and journalist Bettina Baltschev. It opened as part of the 2024 Leipzig Book Fair, where Flanders and the Netherlands will be the guests of honour.

To accompany the exhibition, Berenberg Verlag is publishing a new edition of "Hell and paradise. Amsterdam, Querido and German exile literature" by Bettina Baltschev https://d-nb.info/1308201362.

All events are only available in German - unless stated otherwise.

Information for your visit

Address and getting here

German National Library
German Museum of Books and Writing
Deutscher Platz 1
04103 Leipzig

Getting here

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