In November 1938, a few days after the "Kristallnacht" pogroms across the border, Wittkowski was arrested in Zürich and expelled from the country for her "illegal political activities".[1] She lived - now illegally - in Basel for another six months, after which, in April 1939, she succeeded in escaping to England, where her literary collaborator Jürgen Kuczynski had been based since 1936.[2] Sources are largely silent over her activities in England during the war years.