Approximately 90,000 German-speaking Jews found sanctuary in the United States in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Although some arrived from Austria, Czechoslovakia, and other areas that came under Nazi rule, the majority arrived from Germany itself. Most of these refugees understood immediately that in emigrating from Germany, they were likely never going to return to live there and had to start their lives anew in their adopted country. Leaving, however, did not mean that they had renounced either their cultural ties to Germany or their sense of themselves as Germans. As Anne C. Schenderlein's book convincingly argues, German Jewish refugees in the United States remained deeply engaged with Germany for decades, including the war years, the period of Allied occupation and reconstitution, and through West Germany's efforts to reestablish itself as a democratic state during the years of the Cold War and the growing awareness of the Nazi Holocaust.

Schenderlein's often compelling study focuses in large part on the German Jewish refugee community that settled in Los Angeles (second in size only to that in New York City) and covers the tumultuous years from 1938 (when it became clear to most German Jews that there was no future for them in Germany) until 1988 (just prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall). The study highlights in particular successive tensions faced by this community. In spite of having been betrayed by Germany, the Jewish refugees felt themselves deeply connected to it and many remained intimately engaged with communal organizations and periodicals (notably the German-language Aufbau) that maintained those ties.

Additionally, in spite of having fled Germany as refugees, they arrived to the United States as immigrants (the United States had no refugee policy until several years after the war) and were thus expected to assimilate quickly into an American society that had very little awareness of or resources to contend with the trauma they had experienced. As well, during the war years, they were legally registered by the United States as “enemy aliens” on account of having been German citizens (even as many signed up with the US military to join the fight against the Nazis), but had been chased out of the country and having faced the most severe of Nazi crimes against its citizens. This designation placed many German Jews on the west coast of the United States within Military Area no. 1, which resulted, for a time, in curfews and restrictions on their movement and employment. Unlike persons of Japanese ancestry, however, Germans (and Italians) were not forcibly deported from their homes and incarcerated in concentration camps. After the war, the community was deeply divided over the question of reparations: Did accepting them mean they hoped one day to return to Germany or that Germany could ever be forgiven for its crimes?

Schenderlein's engaging discussion of these tensions makes an important contribution to a growing body of literature on German Jewish exiles, which includes, most recently, Peter Schrag's The World of Aufbau: Hitler's Refugees in America (University of Wisconsin Press, 2019). Germany on Their Minds explains well how and why the relationship of German Jews to Germany persisted in spite of the fact that most became US citizens and very few of them ever sought to resettle in the country of their birth. Especially engaging is the discussion in the final chapter on the West German government's (the book does not contend with East Germany) efforts to arrange all-expenses-paid visits for refugees to the Federal Republic of Germany. Born out of a mixture of public relations campaigns and a recognition that support for former German Jewish refugees would be crucial to efforts to repent and to repair some of the destruction of the Holocaust, several municipal governments (including those in Munich, Hamburg, and Berlin) invited refugees to visit their cities as honored guests. Starting in the 1950s, these campaigns helped to soften the image of Germany for some, although the visits were often sharply debated within the Jewish/refugee communities. By the 1960s, Schenderlein shows, the rise of mass tourism to Europe brought even more German Jewish refugees to West Germany, breaking the unofficial boycott that had been observed by so many.

Engaging and insightful, Germany on Their Minds also leaves a number of questions unanswered or unaddressed. Although the German Jewish refugee community in and around Los Angeles was significant in terms of its numbers, it remains unclear how their experience on the west coast differed from that of communities in other parts of the country, including New York, other than having been listed as “enemy aliens” during the war years. The evidence provided in the book suggests that the views of German Jewish refugees in Los Angeles largely corresponded with those of German Jews elsewhere in the United States. As well, German Jewish refugees did not arrive in the United States all at once, but entered in significant numbers at particular moments, such as in the aftermath of the crises of 1938, in the wake of the 1940 invasion of western Europe, and in the decade after the war's end. Each “generation” of refugees brought with them different challenges, resources, and experiences, which must have affected their subsequent engagement with Germany, but this is not addressed in the book. One also wonders why—given West Germany's seemingly successful embrace of German Jewish refugees after the war—there is no mention of any attempt to convince them to return permanently to help rebuild the country. Was this ever proposed? Was it out of the question entirely?

In addition, the study relies on an outdated understanding of US immigration policy and ignores several important revisions that have appeared in recent years, such as Richard Breitman and Allan J. Lichtman's FDR and the Jews (2013), Rebecca Erbelding's Rescue Board: The Untold Story of America's Efforts to Save the Jews of Europe (2018), or the 2018 exhibition at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum that reexamined this history. These works have shown that although its capacity to accept refugees was far, far greater than the number who were permitted to enter, the United States provided sanctuary to more refugees than any other Western ally. For the community of German Jewish refugees to have existed at all in the United States, they first had to be let in.