Hannah Arendt’s reflections on being a refugee
Clip: 6/27/2025 | 1m 15sVideo has Closed Captions
Hannah Arendt became a stateless person in 1933 upon fleeing Germany to France.
Upon fleeing Germany to France in 1933 without her official papers, Hannah Arendt became a stateless person. After Germany invaded France in 1940 and Arendt was sent to Gurs camp, Arendt, her husband Heinrich Blücher and her mother were able to secure exit papers to New York City. They arrived in the city in 1941, where Arendt reflected on being a stateless person: “We lost our home.”
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Support for American Masters is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, AARP, Rosalind P. Walter Foundation, Judith and Burton Resnick, Blanche and Hayward Cirker Charitable Lead Annuity Trust, Koo...
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Hannah Arendt’s reflections on being a refugee
Clip: 6/27/2025 | 1m 15sVideo has Closed Captions
Upon fleeing Germany to France in 1933 without her official papers, Hannah Arendt became a stateless person. After Germany invaded France in 1940 and Arendt was sent to Gurs camp, Arendt, her husband Heinrich Blücher and her mother were able to secure exit papers to New York City. They arrived in the city in 1941, where Arendt reflected on being a stateless person: “We lost our home.”
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship(solemn music) (typewriter clacking) (engine whirring) - [Narrator] In the first place, we don't like to be called refugees.
We ourselves call each other newcomers or immigrants.
And as far as I know, there is not and never was any club founded by Hitler-persecuted people whose name indicated that its members were refugees.
We lost our home, which means the familiarity of daily life.
(wind rustling) We lost our occupation, which means the confidence that we are of some use in this world.
We lost our language, which means the naturalness of reactions, the simplicity of gestures, (water rushing) the unaffected expression of feelings.
We left our relatives in the Polish ghettos and our best friends in concentration camps.
I don't know which memories and which thoughts nightly dwell in our dreams.
Sometimes, I imagine that at least nightly we think of our dead, or we remember the poems we once loved.
(thunder booming)
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Preview: 6/27/2025 | 2m | Discover Hannah Arendt, one of the most fearless political writers of modern times. (2m)
How Hannah Arendt developed the concept of "the banality of evil"
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Clip: 6/27/2025 | 3m 40s | Hannah Arendt came up with the concept of “the banality of evil” during the trial of Adolf Eichmann. (3m 40s)
What sparked Hannah Arendt's ideas behind "The Origins of Totalitarianism"
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Clip: 6/27/2025 | 2m 50s | Hannah Arendt came up with ideas for “The Origins of Totalitarianism” while observing Hitler. (2m 50s)
Why McCarthyism was familiar to Hannah Arendt
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Clip: 6/27/2025 | 2m 1s | Hannah Arendt was teaching at Berkeley when McCarthyism took hold of the United States. (2m 1s)
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Support for American Masters is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, AARP, Rosalind P. Walter Foundation, Judith and Burton Resnick, Blanche and Hayward Cirker Charitable Lead Annuity Trust, Koo...