Abstract
AbstractThe authors of three recent monographs, The Escape Line, Escape from Vichy, and Nearly the New World, highlight in particular the relevance of transnational refugee and resistance networks. These books shed new light on the trajectories of refugees through war-torn Europe and their routes out of it. Megan Koreman displays in The Escape Line the relevance of researching one line of resistance functioning in several countries and thereby shifts from the common nationalistic approach in resistance research. In Escape from Vichy Eric Jennings researches the government-endorsed flight route between Marseille and Martinique and explores the lasting impact of encounters between refugees and Caribbean Negritude thinkers. Joanna Newman explores the mainly Jewish refugees who found shelter in the British West Indies, with a focus on the role of aid organisations in this flight.
Highlights
Histories of World War II have typically been written within a framework of perspectives bounded by the borders of a single country or region, and refugee studies of this period focussed mainly on Western trajectories, in particular on refugees who fled from Europe
Escape from Vichy, The Escape Line, and Nearly the New World contribute to the study of resistance from a transnational perspective
Comparing these three works demonstrates both the challenges and the important contributions of considering the events and effects of World War II in a transnational, and in two cases a Caribbean, perspective. All three of these monographs face intertwined challenges regarding the array of sources and perspectives used, and the agency each author is able to attribute to the individuals who populate the histories she or he sets out to recount and analyse
Summary
Escape from Vichy, The Escape Line, and Nearly the New World contribute to the study of resistance from a transnational perspective. Comparing these three works demonstrates both the challenges and the important contributions of considering the events and effects of World War II in a transnational, and in two cases a Caribbean, perspective All three of these monographs face intertwined challenges regarding the array of sources and perspectives used, and the agency each author is able to attribute to the individuals who populate the histories she or he sets out to recount and analyse. The chapter “European Refugees in the Wider Caribbean in the Context of the Second World War” by Christian Cwik and Verena Muth might be the first attempt to estimate the number of refugees in the entire Caribbean area Their literature-based estimates, ranging from 24,000 to 28,000 refugees, are very rough, and the authors report many statistical difficulties. They serve as one of the starting points for Sarah Phillips Casteel’s intriguing Calypso Jews. Her monograph traces representations of Jewishness in Caribbean literature and poetry and has a historical reach from 1492 to the postwar era
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