It soon became a haven for artists and well-known anti-fascists, including Ignazio Silone, Ernesto Rossi, Kurt Tucholsky, Hans Marchwitza, Ernesto Bonaiuti, Max Terpis, Elias Canetti, Wladimir Vogel and Jean-Paul Samson.
In 2000 the Swiss director Xavier Koller convinced her to take a role in his film Gripsholm, based on a novel by Kurt Tucholsky.
In 2005, the Swedish branch of the organisation International PEN granted El-Youssef the Tucholsky award, named after Kurt Tucholsky and given each year to a writer or publisher who is either being persecuted or threatened, or living in exile.
Kurt Vonnegut | Kurt Weill | Kurt Russell | Kurt Masur | Kurt Angle | Kurt Koffka | Kurt Gödel | Kurt Elling | Kurt Schwitters | Kurt Rosenwinkel | Kurt Hahn | Kurt Wallander | Kurt Tucholsky | Kurt Sanderling | Kurt Kren | Kurt Busiek | Kurt Lewin | Kurt Jooss | Kurt Andersen | Kurt Warner | Kurt Squire | Kurt Schmoke | Kurt Gerstein | Kurt Busch | Kurt Browning | Kurt Wiese | Kurt Waldheim | Kurt Vile | Kurt Thomas | Kurt St. Thomas |
Their story is crossed by others from their circle, Heinrich's brother Thomas Mann, his sister Carla, friends Bertolt Brecht, Alfred Döblin, Joseph Roth and Kurt Tucholsky, and beyond them, the writers Egon Kisch and Else Lasker-Schüler, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Robert Musil, Virginia Woolf and Nettie Palmer among others.
As well as the workers' parties, the referendum campaign was publicly supported by the ADGB, the Red Front League and a number of prominent figures, such as Albert Einstein Kathe Kollwitz, John Heartfield and Kurt Tucholsky for the referendum.