After World War II, two Jewish exiles from Switzerland came to Paris - Fritz Picard and his partner Ruth Fabian. In the Rue du Dragon, in the literary district of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, they founded the antiquarian bookshop Calligrammes in early 1950, which for decades became a meeting place for artists, writers, and intellectuals. At the center of it all was Fritz Picard, a charismatic and impressive personality. Dieter Sander, who was a close friend of Fritz Picard and conducted a lengthy interview with him in 1968, recounts in his book the life of Fritz Picard, his encounters with significant figures in art and literature such as Max Liebermann, Else Lasker-Schüler, Hannah Arendt, and Erich Kästner, as well as his friendships with Annette Kolb, Erich Mühsam, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, and Walter Mehring, Max Ern.