Would-be Émigrés: Navigating the Academic Job Market Under Fascism

Abstract What defines an émigré scholar? Drawing on personal correspondence between members of the Unity of Science movement, this article emphasizes the contingency of the category by reconstructing the social and material conditions that shaped academic life under fascism. When scholars became refugees, they had to find ways to move their knowledge with them. Antisemitic discrimination restricted their access to libraries, conferences, and publishing contracts: the very things they needed to continue their work and secure jobs abroad. Would-be émigrés attempted to compensate by relying on their interpersonal networks for information and support. This response exacerbated existing hierarchies. Junior scholars, in particular, struggled to secure the connections they needed. Some academics managed to flee but lost their careers in the process. Others were murdered in the Holocaust. Putting them in the same narrative avoids the teleological pull of successful escape stories, providing a fuller, more accurate picture of how fascism and the Second World War reshaped academia.