Since 1933, the journalist and Social Democrat Martin Hamburger has been barred from working. He tries to make a living as a sales representative, but as a Jew he is pushed to the margins of society. In mid-1938, the Nazis use propaganda to link the “Aktion Arbeitsscheu Reich” (ASR)—a campaign targeting vagrants and those deemed socially deviant—with the arrest of hundreds of Jews and Sinti who had been pushed to the margins of society. Martin Hamburger is sent to Buchenwald along with about 500 Berlin Jews, is forced to perform hard labor under miserable living conditions, and can only save himself by obtaining a visa. Released in August 1938, he emigrates to Shanghai, survives the difficult times there, and returns to Germany in 1947.
