191 Views | 2:04 | Uploaded on Sep 20, 2018

In 1933, Walter Benjamin, a philosopher and Jewish art historian, moves to Paris/36049/">Paris to flee the Nazi dictatorship. The lonely intellectual spends his days at the National Library. He still keeps in touch with a small circle of friends, including Bertold Brecht, whom he visits twice at his refuge in Denmark.

In May 1940, when Germany invades France, Benjamin is interned in a voluntary labor camp. Released a few weeks later, he leaves Paris/36049/">Paris in the direction of Lourdes, then Marseille. In September he’s arrested in Portbou, Catalonia. Rather than be turned over to the Nazis, he ends his life.