Goodreads asked Michael Dobbs:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Michael Dobbs I wanted to describe U.S. immigration policy during the years leading up to the Holocaust through the eyes of refugees from Nazi Germany. I was struck by a quote from the American journalist Dorothy Thompson, in 1938, that "a piece of paper with a stamp on it," i.e. a visa, was often "the difference between life and death." I wanted to know why some people lived while others died. By focusing on a single village, on the edge of the Black Forest, I have tried to answer that question. "The Unwanted" is a German story, and a Holocaust story, obviously, but it's also an American story that will resonate with readers today.

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