Reviewed by: A Transnational History of Forced Migrants in Europe: Unwilling Nomads in the Age of Two World Wars ed. by Bastiaan Willems and Michal Adam Palacz E. A. Hatto Willems, Bastiaan and Palacz, Michal Adam (eds). A Transnational History of Forced Migrants in Europe: Unwilling Nomads in the Age of Two World Wars. Bloomsbury Academic, London, New York and Dublin, 2022. xv + 279 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Notes. Index. £85.00; £76.50 (e-book). Bastiaan Willems and Michal Adam Palacz's edited volume, A Transnational History of Forced Migrants in Europe, constitutes a profound, synthesized study of mass population displacement in Europe in the first half of the twentieth century. Each chapter contributes the examination of a particular refugee movement to this collaborative volume, with a heavy focus on those caused, directly or indirectly, by the World Wars and their ramifications — most notably, the remapping of Europe as these conflicts resulted in the creation of new states following World War One and the shifting of state borders after World War Two. Additional chapters focus on mass displacement resulting from 1930s fascism, in the form of the Spanish Civil War and Nazi Germany's persecution of its Jewish population. The result is a series of snapshots of the European refugee experience in this period. In the volume's introduction, Willems and Palacz identify four key components of diasporic interactions which can be observed within European population displacements in the first half of the twentieth century: those with the host society, homeland, other members of the diaspora and other diasporas within the host society. The first three are well-established within the existing historiography, while the fourth is a new element proposed by Willems and Palacz. They argue that considering the influence of diaspora interactions upon one another, in addition to understanding all four of these components as a spectrum varying on account of factors such as socio-economic circumstances, ethnicity, religion, age and gender, allows for a more complete, multifaceted understanding of European forced migration in this period. The subsequent chapters, however, do not respond rigidly to this theoretical framework in its entirety. Rather, their respective authors focus on those components which they perceive as most noteworthy in terms of their focal [End Page 179] diaspora's experiences. Serhiy Choliy's chapter on the Habsburg Empire's World War One internments of those among its Galician population it perceived as potential enemies — mostly Ruthenians and Jews — places the strongest emphasis upon the volume's proposed four-dimensional model of diaspora interactions. This, along with Egor Lykov's contribution arguing that these Habsburg internment camps exposed all internees, regardless of ethnicity and political affiliation, to the same poor conditions on account of their shared socio-economic background, and Diego Han's work on the Croatian population evacuated inland from strategic port cities on the Istrian coast, illustrate how the artificial and temporary environments of such camps isolated these diasporas from typical host society interactions. These chapters argue that temporary diasporas often did not produce lasting identities; this is particularly evident in the case of the Ruthenian internees, who lacked a recognized Ruthenian region to return to altogether. The snapshot structure allows subsequent chapters to illustrate how this aspect of the internment camp experience was not, however, universal in the first half of the twentieth century. Lennart Onken argues that in the immediate aftermath of World War Two, Jewish survivors at Bergen-Belsen built their own diaspora identity through self-organization, in order to address the issue of their post-war statelessness. Onken's contibution can also be viewed as a case of inter-diaspora interaction, in that the establishment of purely Jewish displaced persons camps at Bergen-Belson created one Jewish community from those previously divided between separate European states. A Transnational History of Forced Migrants in Europe's format also allows for the exploration of forced migrant interactions with host societies which would become places of permanent settlement, as well as a variety of thematic approaches and focuses. A particular highlight is Jill Meißner-Wolfbeisser's contribution on the career of New York librarian Stefi Kielser, and the pivotal role she played in both introducing German and...
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May 1, 2024
Sandra K.Y Tombe 
Open Access