How did the lives of those who were persecuted change under Nazi rule? In 1939, an unusual Harvard University prize competition posed this question and collected over 180 essays from emigrants from Nazi Germany as well as Austria. To this day, the corpus of material remains largely unexplored. Detlef Garz is the first to dedicate himself comprehensively to the prize competition, focusing on the life stories of the participants: experiences of life before 1933, suffering, resistance, the emigration that took place between 1933 and 1939, and the arrival and 're-establishment' in the country of emigration. He thus establishes a foundation, both for the exploration of the autobiographical documents and for the understanding of some (exemplary) life courses as well as the concept of (moral) disavowal.