Right away, the novel comes to the reader packed with meaning and thought-provoking analysis. The title makes the reader ask, well alright, what about these Emigrants? What are they up to? Then the novel introduces Dr. Selwyn and explores the intricate difficulties of his life, the painful loneliness of his time on earth, and his sudden and tragic demise when, overwhelmed by negative emotion and feelings of hopelessness, he kills himself.
That puts a hell of a question-mark over the novel. How will the rest of the story unfold, given the extreme nature of immigration? The story turns to the very real issue of refugees fleeing persecution. Paul Bereyter has no choice but to either flee as a Jewish person from the Holocaust (he is a quarter Jewish), or to join the Nazi army. His choice is made for him when the Nazis draft him to help persecute his own people. His story shows feelings of deep self-betrayal, and he too kills himself.
The punishing brutality of Nazi Germany means that for the Jews who they persecute, fleeing Europe as a refugee is the only path that has some hope in it at all. Otherwise, they face the fate that Bereyter knows all too well; he has seen his own people dismembered, tortured, raped, abused, tormented mentally and physically, and killed by scores and scores. The reality of life for these Emigrants is not just "wanting a better job" or something. The truth of political instability and injustice means that often political refugees are fleeing from unparalleled struggles that people in countries like the USA (to use the author's own example) might not even understand.
