'This book has what it takes to be a real blockbuster.' - Jury statement on the nomination for the Leipzig Book Fair Prize 2026 Santa Monica, Pacific Palisades or Beverly Hills - these are the illustrious names of the Californian idyll in which they have found refuge: filmmakers and actors, writers and intellectuals who had to flee Europe from the Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s. They form a community of solidarity among the exiles: Bertolt Brecht, Helene Weigel and Hanns Eisler, Billy Wilder and Vicki Baum, Fritz Lang and William Wyler, Thomas and Heinrich Mann. Anyone who had a name in Berlin, Vienna or Prague followed the call of Hollywood's booming film industry. But this romantic 'Weimar on the Pacific' is not the whole story: even as they make their sometimes military, sometimes moral contribution on the side of the Allies in the beginning of the war, the refugees become suspects. Just celebrated as noble Nazi opponents, now their garbage is searched by the FBI - the 'red scare' and McCarthyism turn free spirits and left-wing liberals into hostile 'communists'. The country that was a refuge is turning into a place of repression and persecution. Captivating and atmospheric, using previously unpublished documents from archives in Los Angeles, Jan Jekal traces how the exiles defended themselves against authoritarian America - with activism, wit, courage and films that have become classics - but also how some of them despaired of America. Book 2026 New