The Emigrants

“Memory, the insistent revenant, like the dog that always finds its way back to its vomit.”
— W. G. Sebald, The Emigrants

Dr. Henry Selwyn

The first section follows the narrator’s recollection of Dr. Henry Selwyn, a Lithuanian-Jewish émigré living in England. Selwyn, once a successful physician, becomes increasingly isolated and melancholic, revealing his past as a refugee who fled Eastern Europe. His story culminates in his suicide, leaving the narrator to reflect on the weight of unspoken histories and displacement.

Paul Bereyter

The second chapter recounts the life of Paul Bereyter, a schoolteacher with Jewish ancestry who was persecuted under the Nazi regime. Despite surviving the war, he is haunted by guilt and trauma, ultimately taking his own life. The narrator pieces together Bereyter’s story through fragmented memories, letters, and photographs, illustrating the lingering scars of history.

Ambros Adelwarth

This section explores the life of Ambros Adelwarth, the narrator’s great-uncle, a melancholic butler who worked for a wealthy American family. His diaries reveal a life marked by quiet suffering, unrequited love, and eventual institutionalization. The narrator traces Adelwarth’s journey from Germany to the U.S., uncovering the silent despair beneath his composed exterior.

Max Ferber

The final chapter centers on Max Ferber, a German-Jewish painter living in Manchester. Ferber’s parents perished in the Holocaust, and he dedicates his art to preserving their memory. The narrator meets Ferber decades later, discovering his mother’s diary, which becomes a haunting testament to loss, exile, and the impossibility of true return.

Key Ideas

• The inescapability of memory and trauma
• The fragmentation of identity in exile
• The silent suffering of Holocaust survivors
• The interplay between photography and narrative
• Melancholy as a response to historical violence