Letters of loss and urgency: Jewish refugee industrialists, business networks and pathways of rescue

Abstract

ABSTRACT By exploring a collection of business correspondence between Jewish industrialists and their global networks following the expropriation of a large hat factory in Czechoslovakia in 1938, this article sheds light on the complicated and unpredictable nature of human responses to an unfolding moment when Jewish business colleagues faced ruinous economic persecution. Within these letters, these industrialists compose identities that reflect their business selves shaped by their experience of becoming refugees. They also draw out the mechanisms of decision-making in a crisis situation and highlight the concepts of strategy and agency that were crucial to navigating a new social and economic reality.