They were refugees. We know them as "the peril from the East."

They were refugees. We know them as "the peril from the East." Fear of pogroms has welded them together like a landslip of unhappiness and grime that, slowly gathering volume, has come rolling across Germany from the East. A few clumps of them have come to rest for the time being in the East End of Berlin. A small minority of them are young and healthy, like Geza Furst, the born cabin boy. Mostly they are old and frail, if not broken.

J. Roth, 'Refugees from the East (1920)', tr. M. Hofmann, What I saw: reports from Berlin 1920-33 (2006), 37