Villa Aurora

Lion Feuchtwanger wrote six of his historical novels in this house: The Day Will Come, Proud Destiny, The Jewess of Toledo, Tis folly to be wise, Jephthah and his Daughter, and This is the Hour.

Villa Aurora was part of a building project initiated by Arthur Weber and George Ley in cooperation with the Los Angeles Times, which reported routinely on the construction of this "demonstration house".

When Villa Aurora was finished in 1928, it featured the latest technological inventions and novelties in domestic design such as an electric garage openers, a dishwasher, a fridge and a gas range.

While Lion used to buy books whenever there was money to spend, Marta bought plants and created a huge garden, which was over time diminished in size through landslides.

Prominent members of the German emigre community who would meet at the houses included Thomas and Heinrich Mann, Arnold Schoenberg, Vicki Baum, Bruno Frank, Ludwig Marcuse, Franz Werfel and Bertolt Brecht, as well as other European expatriates like Charlie Chaplin and Charles Laughton.

[2] After Lion's death in 1958 the house was left to the University of Southern California with the stipulation that Marta would be allowed to stay for the remainder of her life and was made the caretaker of the library, which had grown to 30,000 volumes.

He also won the support of many public figures in politics and the media, such as the former head of the publishing house Rowohlt, Fritz J. Raddatz, and member of the German parliament, Freimut Duve.

In order to preserve the house as the only existing monument to European and German exiles to the West Coast of the United States, the association "Friends and Supporters of Villa Aurora" was founded in Berlin.

Regular events include both an annual reception, which brings future fellows and alumni together with representatives from culture, politics, media, the sciences and humanities, as well as the commemoration of the Burning of the Books on May 10, 1933.

grants its annual Feuchtwanger Fellowship to a writer or journalist committed to human rights or facing censorship and persecution in their home countries.

[7] On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Villa Aurora as an institution for cultural exchange in the US, the event Checkpoint California took place at the Deutsche Bank KunstHalle [de].

Between June 12 and 28, 2015, Villa Aurora Fellows (e.g. Dietrich Brüggemann, Stefan Kriekhaus, Uljana Wolf, Heinz Emigholz, Rosa von Praunheim, Steven Warwick, Veronika Kellndorfer, Steve Rowell, Felicitas Hoppe) presented their work, gave lectures and talked about their current projects.