Negotiating Global Migrations, 1944–1959

Negotiating Global Migrations, 1944–1959

Organisatoren
Kerstin von Lingen, University of Vienna; Christoph Rass, University of Osnabrück; Frank Wolff, University of Osnabrück
Ort
Vienna
Land
Austria
Fand statt
In Präsenz
Vom - Bis
15.04.2024 - 16.04.2024
Von
Elizabeth Martin, School of Historical Studies, University of London

The aftermath of the Second World War saw the displacement of over sixty million individuals across Europe and Asia. Amidst the mass upheaval, nations and international organizations scrambled to forge a global solution to this humanitarian catastrophe. Over two unseasonably hot days in Vienna, an international group of scholars met to discuss the new international refugee regimes and processes caused by this unprecedented mass displacement. The aim of the conference was to examine the multi-layered negotiations which took place in these migration processes, between three main groups of actors – international organisations and experts, state and local actors, and the victims of forced migration themselves. Rather than listing the single contributions chronologically, this report draws upon shared thematic fields.

In his keynote address, PETER GATRELL (Manchester) tackled this central issue of multi-layered negotiations through his discussion of ‘encounters’ between UNHCR, state actors, and individual displaced persons. Using the concept of ‘appointment and disappointment’, the presentation focussed on the individual and the personal encounters within the broader picture, using evidence of personal appeals from DPs to UNHCR personnel to demonstrate that they did not see UNHCR as an abstract agency in itself but rather as being composed of actors who could be spoken to on an individual level. This degree of intimate detail about individuals, however, drew Gatrell into his final themes of access, intrusion, and accountability, on the part not only of the officials dealing with these cases but also those of us who study them. How, Gatrell asked, when examining these deeply personal sources, which were never written to be read widely or studied as historical documents, do we take accountability for our own intrusion into the lives of these strangers from the past? This question of the accountability and role of the refugee historian remained central to many of the lectures across the two days.

Another theme which spanned many of the presentations was the critical use of archives: the processes behind them, and their gaps and how best to fill them. JESSICA REINISCH (London), examined how the processes behind the creation and management of UNRRA’s own archives have played a key part in sustaining common myths and narratives about the organisation. The questions she raised around the weaving together of macro- and micro-narratives, particularly in the face of vast quantities of source material such as are contained in the UNRRA archives, recurred across the panels. The weeding of UNRRA archives that took place in the later 1940s served as an important reminder that just as primary sources must be used critically and with care, so must scholars remain conscious of the fact that the initial creation and collation of an archive is itself a political process and an act of governance.

Examining the recently opened Vatican archives, KATARZYNA NOWAK (Vienna) explained how the material within can serve both as evidence of the links and negotiations between organisations like UNRRA and IRO and the Vatican, and also allow for the examination of displacement in a global context. Against the backdrop of the growing Cold War, the letters in this archive show how post-war refugees from Eastern Europe served as a key weapon of the Vatican against Communism and the USSR. Though it was primarily Catholic Italians who wrote to the Pope, the letters represent a global sweep of nationalities. They also provide an opportunity for historians to uncover the voices of those displaced individuals who fell outside the categories of inclusion of secular organisations such as the IRO.

While some talks across the two days drew awareness to the political processes behind archives and archival sources, others brought in non-standard sources and approaches. RODERICK BAILEY (Oxford) demonstrated how gaps in archives might be addressed by different approaches – in this case by a life history approach. Focusing on the life and work of an individual ORT worker, Francis Shelton, Bailey explored what a single set of memories can reveal about the inner workings of a large organisation. He demonstrated the capacity of memoirs to reveal internal tensions, conflicts and other stories which would remain invisible were one to focus solely on institutional archives. His paper also opened up debate on an issue touched upon in some other presentations; that of the weaving together of micro- and macro-narratives.

Making similar use of a non-standard source base and of personal case studies to explore larger themes, KERSTIN VON LINGEN (Vienna) examined two individual families who escaped from Austria to Shanghai, and the items they brought with them when the Nuremberg racial laws forced them to flee their homes. By close examination of the stories of the two objects taken – a violin and a gramophone – she interwove personal stories with broader narratives of the reselling of vast quantities of looted Jewish goods, and explored the crucial relationship between music, culture, and identity. Her presentation highlighted the importance of expanding research beyond the archive and examining material culture in the study of forced migration. With talks across the two days bringing in non-standard sources and approaches, combined with those drawing awareness to the political processes behind archives and archival sources, the conference challenged traditional methodologies and advocated for a more expansive approach to the study of refugee experiences in history.

Every presentation at the conference offered a challenge of some kind to simplistic narratives of postwar migration, but for a few this constituted a central theme. LINDA ERKER (Vienna) presented a striking contribution to the historiography, arguing that failing to account for the migration patterns of ‘Nazis on the run’ in broader studies of postwar migration skews the overall picture. Describing the movements of two Nazi scholars between Austria and Argentina, she contended that ‘displaced’ Nazis should be integrated into these studies, illuminating the comparative advantages they had over other displaced individuals. Their inclusion in the wider history of postwar migration also challenges blanket scholarly narratives of displaced individuals as inherently innocent.

FRANK WOLFF (Osnabrück), sought to challenge celebratory histories of European Unification, and to complicate ideas of Europe and of Europeanness, arguing that negotiating migration within Europe necessarily involved negotiating what was meant by ‘Europe’. He shed light upon the centrality of ideas of coloniality – and highlighted the ways in which distinctions were drawn between ‘good’ or ‘noble’ coloniality as exemplified by Western Europe, and the ‘bad’ coloniality of the Soviet Union. DARIUSZ STOLA (Warsaw), also complicated common narratives of Communism and migration by focusing not just on refugees fleeing Communist countries, but also those coming to, moving between, or eventually returning to Communist countries. One particularly interesting idea raised was how this final group, those classed as ‘returnees’, complicated ideas of refugeedom, and served as a source of embarrassment for Western countries: that someone would return to a country where they had faced a ‘well-founded fear of persecution’ adds nuance to the standard picture.

Across the two days, each presentation brought something new to the study of the development of modern migration regimes, whether by offering a challenge to the currently accepted historiography, or by shedding a light on individuals and processes which have thusfar gone largely unnoticed, JESSICA WEHNER (Osnabrück) examined the understudied category of non-Western DPs, often labelled either Muslim or Asiatic, who were listed by the IRO as ‘Groups with Limited Resettlement Opportunities’. Drawing on scholarship on the social construction of whiteness across space and time and its role in contemporary as well as historical migration, she examined the two essential points of negotiation in the IRO process – the negotiation of DP status itself and the negotiation of resettlement options – arguing that a socially constructed idea of whiteness was key in both processes.

Many of the presentations went further than examining official negotiations between displaced individuals and local or international authorities, spotlighting the more intimate and informal negotiations which took place within refugees’ close personal networks. For example, ISMEE TAMES (Amsterdam/Utrecht) looked at the evidence of co-creation by literate helpers in the correspondence of illiterate Nansen refugees, and considered what this reveals about the networks of care surrounding refugees, who are too often viewed as separate and isolated individuals. These networks of care, she emphasised, were not always benevolent, and could involve control and manipulation – such interactions had to be negotiated just as much as those with officials.

As Tames highlighted, many of the individuals providing this assistance to illiterate refugees were women – for example German-speaking girlfriends or wives, or literate daughters. Similar gendered informal migration negotiations were revealed by FRANZISKA LAMP’s (Vienna) investigation of displaced female ‘heads of family’, and the intersectional factors affecting their displacement and resettlement. Women who emigrated as dependents often emigrated later than their husbands, who could feed back information about their new host countries. Female ‘heads of family’ had to rely on other sources of information about these schemes. Often, as Lamp showed, it seems to have been other women who had previously resettled who would write letters back to the camps offering advice. She emphasised the importance of informal information exchange within social networks of DPs, though it was in the interest of both IRO and the receiving countries to increase the role of official information programmes, so that they could control the presentation of the schemes.

A strikingly different example under a similar theme also emerged in Linda Erker’s presentation on ‘Nazis on the run’, many of whom seem to have owed their successful escape to South America to informal help received from women in their lives. The fact that such different case studies all exposed the gendered dynamics of unofficial migration assistance was striking, and Kerstin von Lingen commented that this seemed a fruitful area for future focused research.

Negotiations between international organisations, state or local authorities, and displaced persons themselves, often hinged on tensions between the need for the economic reconstruction of Europe and the welfare of displaced individuals. Two presentations in particular presented thoughtful discussion of this idea through two different case-studies. ANNA HOLIAN (Tempe/Phoenix) examined the policies aimed at improving ‘economic self-reliance’ of refugees in 1950s West Germany, and thus of turning them from ‘recipients of aid’ into ‘productive human capital’. With West Germany not often examined as a significant final destination for DPs, Holian addressed the gap in the literature where those who remained in West Germany have often been overlooked in favour of those who resettled. Germany, she argued, felt no specific responsibility for non-Jewish DPs, who were seen more as a European or international problem. RACHEL BLUMENTHAL (Jerusalem) argued that the denial of responsibility for the wellbeing of DPs also came into play in Austria’s presentation of itself as the first victim of the Nazis rather than as an active participant in Nazi crimes, and that this was key to the application of compulsory labour laws designed to facilitate the reconstruction of Austria to its resident DPs. The decision to apply this law even to Holocaust survivors across many of the zones of Austria revealed tensions between UNRRA’s responsibilities towards the rehabilitation of host countries and towards the welfare of the DPs themselves.

A central aim of the DACH project is to present an actor-based history of migration movements, and thus the concept of agency was another key theme throughout the conference. Perhaps the most in-depth discussion of agency came from PHILLIP STROBL (Vienna), who examined the collective organisation of German-speaking refugees in postwar Austria, and the role refugees played in negotiating their own position in the migration regime, utilising the sociological terms of individual agency, proxy agency and collective agency. In the concluding questions and comments of the conference the concept of agency sparked some debate, with the consensus appearing to be that agency remained a useful tool for recentring attention to refugees themselves, and for analysing power-based negotiations and dynamics. However, it was agreed that nonetheless it was a term which scholars should be careful with and critical of, and which might perhaps be replaced by something more fitting in future.

The debate over the use of ‘agency’ tied into a final theme which lay at the heart of the conference. A stated aim of the DACH project is to build a bridge between contemporary migration studies and the history of migration, in the hope of contributing to a new theoretical framework for the benefit of scholars across both fields. The work of bringing the past into conversation with the present was discussed across the panels, but it was the final presentation of the conference, that of KLAUS NEUMANN (Hamburg), that considered it in the most depth. Neumann emphasised the way references to history are limited and cherry-picked in discussion of current migration and asylum policies. Linking his discussion back to the idea of accountability raised by Gatrell in his keynote speech, Neumann asked the room full of historians what our own responsibility was. How do, and how should, historical scholars respond when the history of displacement is swept away and ignored? It was a question which underlay many of the talks across the two days. Thus the conference went further than tracking the development of contemporary refugee regimes and processes in the postwar era, and urged more careful consideration of what role we, as historians of refugees and migration, can play in a seemingly ever-polarised debate.

Conference overview:

Kerstin von Lingen (Vienna) / Christoph Rass (Osnabrück): Welcoming remarks

Keynote

Peter Gatrell (Manchester): "Appointment in Geneva: Refugees’ encounters with UNHCR"

PANEL I – Interaction of International Organizations with States and Local Actors
Chair: Christoph Rass (Osnabrück)

Ismee Tames (Amsterdam/Utrecht): "Traces of illiterate stateless refugees in the correspondence of the Nansen Delegation in Berlin, 1921-1938"

Jessica Reinisch (London): "UNRRA in the Archives"

Katarzyna Nowak (Vienna): "Knocking on the Vatican’s Gates – Refugees and the Holy See in the Early Cold War"

PANEL II – Refugee Integration and Belonging
Chair Kerstin von Lingen (Vienna)

Anna Holian (Tempe/Phoenix): "Refugee Integration in 1950s West Germany: The Early History of Economic 'Self-Reliance'”

Linda Erker (Vienna): "Displaced Nazi Scholars and the Global Refugee Regime between Austria and Argentina after 1945"

Sebastian Huhn (Osnabrück): "Negotiating Global Resettlement Within the Refugee Regime After the Second World War"

PANEL III – Agency of Victims of Violence-Induced Mobility during the Interactive Process of Norm Application and Resettlement
Chair: Frank Wolff (Osnabrück)

Dariusz Stola (Warsaw): "Refugees from Communism and Refugees Protected by Communists: the Case of Poland"

Roderick Bailey (Oxford): "Stranded: The Experiences of a Displaced and Stateless UNRRA and ORT official in Italy, 1945-50"

Philipp Strobl (Vienna): "Negotiating the Post war Migration Regime: Refugee Agency in Postwar Austria (1945-1955)"

PANEL IV – Role of International Organizations and Experts in Formulating Policies
Chair: Katarzyna Nowak (Vienna)

Rachel Blumenthal (Jerusalem): "Divided Loyalties: UNRRA, Refugees and Compulsory Labour in Postwar Austria"

Susanne Korbel (Graz): "The Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and the “Control” over Jewish DPs, 1945 to 1951"

Franziska Lamp (Vienna): "'Are you sufficiently informed?' The Gender-specific Dimensions of Information Campaigns for the Resettlement of DPs"

Jessica Wehner (Osnabrück): "Norms, Practices and Marginality. The Production of non-Western Others in the Postwar Refugee Regime"

PANEL V – Identity and Historical Narratives of Displacement
Chair: Philipp Strobl (Vienna)

Kerstin von Lingen (Vienna): "Migrating Objects. Displacement and loss of property as loss of belonging and identity"

Frank Wolff (Osnabrück): "The Ambiguities of European Unification between Peace- Building, Cold War Bordering, and Coloniality (post-1945)"

Klaus Neumann (Hamburg): "Looking Back, but Not Too Closely– Mobilisation of Historical Narratives in Current Debates About Irregular Migration"

Frank Wolff (Osnabrück): Concluding Remarks