In late September 1940, a month after negotiations between the French and German governments dissolved the Third Republic and established the Vichy regime under Marshal Pétain, Walter Benjamin found himself a refugee with dim prospects for legal exit from France. The German-Jewish man of letters boarded a train from Marseilles toward the Spanish border with two acquaintances, Henny Gurland and her teenage son. Benjamin’s deteriorating health lent urgency to their shared mission: to cross into Portbou, a quiet Spanish fishing village, from where Benjamin planned to journey to Portugal and then sail to the United States.
