The author’s purpose is to explore the traditional stance of critical literature on the experience of exile, and to juxtapose it with an alternative critical approach, based on a theory of exile-and-expulsion literature as a literature of trauma. Beforehand, however, the term “exile” and its distinction from related concepts such as “emigration/émigré” are defined. Citations taken out of biographies and interviews of concerned Austrian Jews give us an image of the situation these exiles found themselves in: the obstacles encountered when trying to get out of Nazi-Austria and into another country, the difficulties in the relation with the host country, its language and culture, and later on, the consideration of a possible return to Austria. Finally the focus is on the problems faced by those who, trying to overcome their trauma, wrote down their stories.
