From the Prater to Central Park: Finding a Self in Exile

This study introduces the autobiographical writings of two Austrian Jewish women, Franzi Ascher-Nash and Stella Hershan, who left Vienna during the Hitler period and settled in New York. Five stages in their emigration experience emerge: astonishment at the rejection of Jews by Austrian society; a sense of losing a homeland; an attitude of discovery upon arrival in America; concern for the safety of family members left behind; and a redefinition of home in exile. It is hypothesized that these stages may be indicative of a broader response to exile, one perhaps shared by other female emigrants of this period for whom arrival in and assimilation to America was the decisive element in finding a self. (JC)