Flotsam

Ludwig Kern and Josef Steiner are among the refugees driven from Germany and passed from one European border to another in 1939. Without secure passports, work or legal residence, they survive through temporary rooms, casual trade and the uncertain tolerance of officials who can arrest or expel them at any time.

Their journeys intersect with other Jews, dissidents and stateless emigrants, and with Ruth Holland, whose relationship with Kern gives the novel its emotional centre. Remarque presents exile through visas, police cells, railway stations and repeated departures, showing both the machinery of exclusion and the solidarity that displaced people create for one another.