Such vituperation may seem extreme toward a woman who titled her memoir The Kindness of Strangers and who is remembered, if at all, for inviting people to parties on Sunday afternoons. The Viertels had a successful open marriage almost from the beginning, even though they eventually divorced, they remained a loving and committed couple. Sundays at Salka's" – Salka Viertel's Los Angeles Salon as a Space of (Music-)Cultural Translation, in: Musicologia Austriaca: Journal for Austrian Music Studies, Juni 2021, https://musau.

While Roosevelt was not unsympathetic to the plight of Europe’s Jews, during the early years of his administration his chief concerns were domestic, focused on boosting employment and fostering an economic recovery. These were Hitler’s gift to America— prodigious individuals who enriched the film culture and the intellectual life of our nation, and whose influence continues to resonate. Between cities, sons, and gigs, she also knocked out a screen treatment for Hungarian producer Gabriel Pascal. Given hyperinflation and economic uncertainty in Germany, they took a chance on America, parking their sons in Dresden with a nanny.The Sun and Her Stars provides a vivid picture of the “Golden Age” of Hollywood, but the book also describes how the many exiled German and Austrian Jews – through their films, books, music, and plays – left an indelible mark on American culture. The Viertels initially lived on Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles, before renting a house at 165 Mabery Road in Santa Monica, California. Each Sunday afternoon for many years, her Santa Monica home was the scene of weekly gatherings, where the exiles could speak German and enjoy Salka’s extraordinary cooking and gemutlichkeit (“cozy friendliness”).

Viertel fought valiantly as an anti-Nazi activist, advocate for refugees, and as a female creative artist determined to navigate her way around Hollywood. Never prone to self-pity or cowering, she learned early that survival in Hollywood required a thick skin, and toughened herself up accordingly. Today, he is remembered, if at all, only as the author of “ Professor Unrat,” the novel adapted into the Emil Jannings-Marlene Dietrich film classic, “ The Blue Angel. Imagine this alternate history of movies: Had Hitler not become a political force during the 1920s and 1930s, Berlin rather than Hollywood could have been the epicenter of film. The Viertels, members of the intelligentsia in Europe, moved to the United States in 1928 for a planned four-year stay.

The Sun and Her Stars an engaging glimpse into a fascinating woman’s life, it is also an important reference for anyone trying to learn more about history outside of the usual white male hero tale.

As was the case with US universities in the 1930s, Saunders notes that Hollywood studios could be so selective "that the list of emigres reads almost as a who's who of Weimar production"; he places Berthold Viertel as "only marginally less significant" than other emigres whom he considers "without peer. Charlie Chaplin pays her a brief compliment in his autobiography, and producer Gottfried Reinhardt states correctly in his that “the history of Hollywood, which is not yet written, is incomplete without an appreciation of Salka Viertel’s distinct talent for human relationships. I’ve been writing about the rise of the National Socialists in 1930s Germany while neo-Nazis are rallying murderously in America’s cities, chanting “Jews will not replace us”; while synagogues and Jewish cemeteries in America are vandalized and desecrated; and while authoritarian pronouncements demonizing immigrants and inviting racism, layered insouciantly with lies and misinformation, are issuing almost daily from the commander in chief on Twitter, just as they did from the radio in Hitler’s time. As plain-spoken Robert Frost declared: “No memory of having starred/ Atones for later disregard/ Or keeps the end from being hard. A vital presence in the golden age of Hollywood, Salka Viertel is long overdue for her own moment in the spotlight"--,Provided by publisher.

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