The Germans Are Here

If I were the cultural commissioner of this city, I would have
declared the past few weeks a 'mini festival' of German culture in Los
Angeles. Judge for yourself: a week ago I went to a screening of the
new documentary, Shadows in Paradise, a fascinating story of German
émigré musicians, writers, and filmmakers who fled the Nazis and
settled here in LA. Some of them flourished; others merely managed; a
few committed suicide. Never before have so many of the best and
brightest creative minds of one country either left on their own or
been forced to emigrate, and what's especially unusual is that most of
these people ended up here in LA. The impact of this German-exile
community on the cultural life of our city was profound...