Jewish Refugees Research Articles

Becoming Kathrine Talbot: A Jewish Refugee and the Novelist She Invented by Christoph Ribbat

<i>Becoming Kathrine Talbot: A Jewish Refugee and the Novelist She Invented</i> by Christoph Ribbat

The Many Semantic Lives of Geopolitics: Evidence from the New York Times Archive 1900-2023

ABSTRACT Henry Kissinger’s death foregrounds a puzzle in the history of geopolitics. How did a word made infamous by Nazi Germany become so ubiquitous and popular in the English-speaking world? Was Kissinger, a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany, responsible for its rehabilitation into respectability in English? Historians, geographers and political scientists have traced how Western geopolitical thought developed in the twentieth century through transatlantic imperial rivalry and knowledge field formations. But there is no quantitative discourse analysis of the many ways in which the word is used in the English language. Responding to this absence, this paper uses both quantitative and qualitative discourse analysis to study how the word was employed in the New York Times from 1900 to 2023. Analysis of this corpus, and select examples from it, reveals the limits of three common presumptions about geopolitics: that it entered English as a synonym for Nazi foreign policy philosophy, that its use carried a stigma, and that Henry Kissinger led a revival of the word from the 1970s. Rather, the corpus record reveals a term with many semantic lives, a stigma that did not endure, and a synonym for great power competition and resource rivalry whose popularity is due to many factors besides Kissinger’s influence. Cluster of meaning around rivals and resources, books and culture, and US power define the term’s use in American geopolitical culture.

“She never complained or questioned”: the devaluation of Helene Papanek’s unpublished autobiography

ABSTRACT Helene Papanek, an Austrian Jewish refugee and psychiatrist, enabled the achievements of her husband, Ernst Papanek, known for rescuing Jewish children from France during World War II. This article explores Helene’s unpublished autobiography, dismissed as inaccurate by her son and daughter-in-law after her death. I highlight the gendered dynamics of memory, trauma, and narrative authority, emphasizing the challenges faced by female Holocaust survivors in writing and publishing their testimonies. I call for the acknowledgement of the often-invisible sacrifices of women like Helene, whose contributions to history and memory have been overshadowed by the more celebrated figures they supported.

Fleeing Nazi Persecution: Jewish Refugee Child Diarists as Family Chroniclers

This article examines the diaries of young Jewish refugees who documented their emigration from Germany and Austria in the 1930s and who wrote for family members, imagining future readers of their accounts. These diaries offer unique access to children's voices during the Holocaust, showing how some child refugees became family chroniclers, self-consciously documenting a story of Jewish resistance and survival, as well as a tragedy of loss. Their diaries became treasured material objects and autobiographical texts that perform a writing subject, a child as author and narrator, asserting agency in a situation in which they were multiply marginalised as children and as Jewish refugees.

Clandestine guiding to the Franco-Spanish border during the Holocaust: the work, accomplices and solidarity-focused resistance

ABSTRACT Guides who led Jews clandestinely across national borders played an important role in their rescue during the Holocaust. Yet we know little about their work, from their perspective. This is the subject explored in this article, which focuses on five guides, also known as passeurs, who helped Jews and non-Jews escape from France to Spain across the Pyrenees between 1940 and 1943. They were antifascist activists, farmers and a Christian brother. The sources analysed include oral history interviews, diaries, memoirs, accounts and letters by and about the guides; the letters and accounts of Jewish refugees; official correspondence and reports by French government officials near the border; and records of the Brothers of the Christian Schools. Passeurs’ work consisted of both guiding and preparatory work, which was extensive. The guides had one or more accomplices, their circle of helpers constituting a resistance cell. Resistance like the passeurs’, in which individuals engage so as to help others, may be called ‘solidarity-focused resistance.’ It is also a form of transnational resistance, a concept that should be broadened to include assisting the persecuted in their efforts to cross international borders.

Relief, rescue and reconstruction: Shanghai’s Jewish child refugees in JDC photography

ABSTRACT This paper focuses on humanitarian photography taken of Jewish child refugees, who fled to Shanghai from various European countries during the Holocaust. Specifically, the paper will discuss photographs taken by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) in the 1940s. This paper will argue that these photographs serve a dual function, depicting the children as both the future of the Jewish people and also proof of the need for future JDC work. In doing so, the paper seeks to understand how these photographs complemented (or deviated from) the organization’s goals of rescue, relief and reconstruction, known as the ‘three Rs’.

Global Transit, Imperial Performativity, and Survival: European Jewish Refugees in the Philippines Under US Tutelage and Japanese Occupation, 1937–1946

Abstract By late 1941, some 1,300 Jews had escaped from National Socialist-controlled Europe to the Philippines. This essay problematizes the existing historiography on this rescue by going beyond examinations of its mechanisms and the politics of memory. Instead, it introduces a rereading of the refugees’ struggles by focusing on their continued being-in-transit and mandated imperial performativity, which allows for analysing transnational spaces shaped by their seemingly mundane everyday practices, from walking to cooking. During the early years, American, Filipino, and Jewish community leaders expected the performance of imperial norms and policed interactions between the refugees and native Filipinos. Some of the refugees succeeded. Some even managed to open shops. Others failed or rebelled and soon found themselves in peril. The late 1941 invasion by Japanese forces subjected Philippine society to new racial hierarchies. Jewish refugees, suspected of collaborating with the enemy, had to engage in different imperial performances in order to survive. By late 1946, many Jewish survivors had managed to leave, mostly to the United States, where they encountered new challenging power asymmetries of a different kind.

Navigating Liminality: Jewish Refugees in Global Transit

Abstract This special section presents transit as a research concept and demonstrates its analytical potential in six case studies. The contributions focus on Jewish refugees fleeing National Socialist persecution to states, colonies or dependent territories in Asia, Africa, and Latin America that received scant attention in older research. The results of this research derive from the ongoing International Standing Working Group ‘In Global Transit’, started by the German Historical Institute Washington in 2018 to explore spatial and temporal dimensions in global migration.

Shadow Quality TV: HBO’s Complicity and the Failure to Portray Allied Indifference to the Holocaust, 1995–2003

In 2001, HBO and the BBC released Conspiracy, a critically acclaimed dramatization of the Wannsee Conference, where Nazi officials discussed coordinating the Final Solution in January 1942. Written by Loring Mandel, Conspiracy is noted for its strict adherence to the historical record as well as its chamber play atmosphere. However, HBO originally planned Conspiracy as the first half of a two-part feature. Its unproduced second half, Complicity, would have depicted Allied indifference to the Holocaust, the plight of Jewish refugees, and the rise of Adolf Eichmann. This article discusses the origins, pre-production history, and cancellation of Complicity. Grounded in archival documents – screenplay drafts, meeting minutes, research files, as well as oral history interviews, this presentation will trace Complicity’s beginnings as a story about Jewish efforts to inform the UK and US governments about the Holocaust and its transition to a dramatization of the April 1943 Bermuda Conference, which is most notable for its failure to meaningfully address the 1940s refugee crisis. Complicity is a fascinating example of ‘shadow quality TV’.

Chongqing Transit: Central European Jewish Refugees in China’s Wartime Capital and Interior*

While most central European Jewish refugees who transited through China during the Second World War lived in Shanghai, some found refuge in other Chinese cities. This article is a microhistory of two German-speaking refugee families, the Karfunkels and the Gottliebs, who spent the war in China’s interior—in the Nationalist wartime capital of Chongqing, amongst other locales. During the war, the relocation of the Nationalist seat of government to Chongqing and the arrival of Allied military missions in inner China led to great demographic upheaval in the city. On the margins of both foreign and Chinese society, the Karfunkels and the Gottliebs found themselves caught up in a significant population shift and a number of social changes. As Japan’s assault on China worsened, the families’ medical, mechanical, and technical expertise was increasingly in demand, elevating their position in Chongqing society. This article investigates the ways that the progression of the Second World War changed Jewish refugee individuals’ circumstances in China’s interior.

Holocaust Refugees in Bolivia: Immigration Through a Postcolonial and Microhistorical Lens

Abstract Jewish refugees who escaped the Holocaust by emigrating to Bolivia formed a vibrant Jewish community of around 20,000 for two decades and maintained a presence there until the 1970s. This article examines Bolivia as a place of migration and refuge during and after the Holocaust, and asks whether Eurocentric perspectives in postcolonial contexts have perpetuated the notion that Bolivia could not truly become a home for these refugees. In supporting European immigration for colonization, the Bolivian government sought to overcome an economic crisis caused by the Chaco War in the 1930s. During the peak emigration years of 1938 and 1939, Jewish families arrived from Germany and its annexed territories intending to rebuild a normal life. By focusing on one extended family and using a microhistorical lens, the article explores complex and layered experiences of prejudice. It analyses how migrants’ willingness or reluctance to engage with others through sport and music offers insights into forms of conviviality among individuals belonging to various social groups in a postcolonial context. Using archival documents, memoirs, and the video testimonies of Jewish survivors, this article presents Bolivia as an important refugee destination, thereby redressing its omission due to persistent epistemological shortcomings that have perpetuated its invisibility in this respect.

The Secret Intelligence Service, Passport Control and Jewish Refugees from the Third Reich, 1938–1939

Abstract The role of members of the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) in helping Jewish refugees flee Nazi persecution in the 1930s has garnered wide interest. It has been claimed that SIS officers, in their cover role as Passport Control Officers (PCOs), helped ‘save’ thousands of Jews from the Third Reich by issuing immigration visas. The focus, however, has been on individual SIS officers, rather than the collective effort of the many passport control staff involved in issuing visas. There has also been a tendency to devolve the matter into a process of producing crude balance sheets of numbers of Jews ‘saved’. This article seeks to understand how SIS came to exploit passport control work as cover for its activities and to assess the impact of the refugee crisis on SIS operations. It also aims to make sense of some of the statistics regarding visas issued by individuals such as Captain Frank Foley and Captain Thomas Kendrick, identifying some wild over-estimates. The article suggests that the humanitarian work carried out by SIS/PCO personnel should not be rendered as a competition as to who ‘saved’ the most refugees. It is important to research the subject forensically without a partisan attitude towards the personalities involved in order to uncover the truth and understand what happened.

Refugees, Welfare Organizations and Compulsory Labour in Postwar Austria

During the Second World War, Germany employed 13.5 million men, women and children as forced and slave labourers throughout Europe, including on Austrian territory. Compulsory labour in Austria did not end with the Allied occupation. Despite the aspiration to adopt the values of a liberal democracy, the Austrian federal government enacted a statute on compulsory labour (the Arbeitspflichtgesetz) in 1946. This legislation required everyone residing in the country on a permanent or temporary basis to perform mainly manual work. At the time, one in every five individuals in Austria was displaced from her or his country of origin. They included foreigners who refused to be repatriated and over 200,000 Jews who sought to rebuild their lives far from Europe. Strict quotas in the countries where they wished to settle thwarted their plans. Jewish and non-Jewish refugees found themselves trapped in Austria for months and years, subject to the authority of the occupying military forces and UNRRA. To what extent did the compulsory labour requirement apply to them? An examination of this issue provides an insight into the very gradual transition of Austria from authoritarianism to democracy and the shaping of refugee policies by both the Austrian government and relief organizations.

Finding the archival traces of “misery trains”: Early accounts of train transport before the Holocaust

This article analyses a collection of eyewitness accounts by survivors of Nazi persecution gathered in the mid-1950s by the Wiener Library in London, narratives that were elicited about lived experiences of railway transport and trauma, as well as the implication of railway personnel and structures in resistance activities. The accounts provide an opportunity to interrogate early postwar narratives that reveal emerging constructions of refugee identity, agency, and survival through key memories deemed particularly “valuable” to the Library, an institution created by Jewish refugees who fled Nazi persecution. Through a case study approach framed by Ketelaar's distinction between archivalisation and archivisation, this paper argues that narratives of trauma, displacement and resistance associated with deportation by train were of special interest to Library staff already in the 1950s. This is striking due to a lack of scholarly focus on these themes until decades later. The recent publication of the collection as a digital resource has the potential to further expand and recontextualise “tacit narratives” of transport embedded in the collection.

From Hongkew Ghetto to Shanghai Ark: Rethinking representation in the (re)making of affective atmosphere during cultural regeneration

The “Shanghai Ark” is an urban regeneration project in Shanghai’s Hongkou (Hongkew) District, aiming to transform the built environment and cultural legacy of the former Jewish refugee community, Hongkew Ghetto, into the present Shanghai Ark neighbourhood, showcasing the city’s and the nation’s cosmopolitanism and generosity. This article re-evaluates the notion of representation and explores the interplay among top-down representations, emotional resonances, and atmospheric practices in urban spaces. By employing discourse analysis and ethnographic data, we examine perceptions and practices of various stakeholders, including officials, citywalk leaders, museum curators, residents, local visitors, and foreign visitors. The findings reveal that affective atmospheres emerge from the interweaving of top-down narratives, personal experiences and memories, and emotional resonances between bodies and material environment, as well as the emotional interactions among people. By reconsidering representations in shaping affective atmospheres, this study sheds light on the fluid and dynamic nature of cultural regeneration, offering a deeper understand of the multifaceted experiences and emotions that underlie urban development.

Doomed at Sea? Maritime Spaces and the Jewish Refugee Crisis in the 1930s

ABSTRACT This article provides new insights into the history of forced migration during the Nazi regime by investigating the maritime space of the ‘ship’ and its inscribed notions and perceptions in times of persecution and oppression. It highlights the various functions and transformations of the ‘ship’, but also analyses the conflicting social, political and economic interests of the different protagonists. Using the ships Königstein and Caribia as case studies, the paper opens up new perspectives on the processes of Jewish forced migration and illustrates the importance of maritime spaces for a better understanding of the Jewish refugee crisis in the 1930s.

Jewish Refugees in the Balkans, 1933–1945 by Bojan Aleksov (review)

Jewish Refugees in the Balkans, 1933–1945 by Bojan Aleksov (review)

A Hungarian Old China Hand and the End of Empire: Loyalty Struggles in Interwar Shanghai's Migrant Community

AbstractThis article explores the consequences of the Austro-Hungarian Empire's end through the tumultuous biography of a philanthropic entrepreneur and quasi-consul community leader known today for assisting thousands of Jewish refugees during World War II. Focusing on Paul Komor (1886–1973) and the migrant community of Shanghai Hungarians, the article contends that postimperial diasporas preserved a piece of empire in their commitment to Jewish emancipation, imperialist nationalism, multiple loyalties, and political nostalgia. It also argues that diasporic networks and charitable actions communicated political and national loyalties while creating and defining the boundaries of the community. Presenting original research involving sources in multiple languages from China, Hungary, the U.S., the U.K., and the Netherlands, the article traces the fortunes of a Jewish Hungarian family in colonial Shanghai, shows the limits of its son's charity-rooted advancement in community leadership, sheds light on the seemingly contradictory political ideas of a postimperial expatriate to explain his complicated relationship with his kinstate, and analyzes the institutionalization of communal charity and the competing prerequisite definitions of postimperial national belonging.

Primary sources on the trajectories of Polish-Jewish refugees during World War II at the Hoover Institution Library and Archives

The Hoover Institution Library and Archives at Stanford University has become an international hub for research and documentation. With more than a million volumes and 6,000 archival collections on war, revolution, and peace, it serves as one of the biggest knowledge repository worldwide. The holdings contain the most extensive and comprehensive documentation related to modern Polish history outside of Poland. Among them are rich and unique collections of primary diplomatic, philanthropic, memoiristic, visual, and other sources. The article outlines the most valuable sources and their collections on the trajectories of Polish Jewish refugees during World II. The very brief presentation of the up-to-date unexplored sources indicates that the growing research on Polish and Polish Jewish war refugees still has the potential to be expanded.

‘I think he will be able to adjust’. Letters of Recommendation Accompanying Jewish Refugees in Transit during National Socialism

Abstract Letters of recommendation are a specific subgenre of professional writing that both have their own history and shape the histories of the people they recommend. In the context of National Socialist persecution, recommendations typically accompanied well-educated German-Jewish refugees fleeing from Germany. Such letters can be seen as relics of an established support system, trying to enable and/or ease the period of internal transit into new and mostly unknown territories. Many Jews experienced a phase of internal transit as they adjusted to new demands and new social structures. This phase was usually a difficult one, as they not only had to adjust to a new country but also to process the events leading up to their forced migration, as well as navigating the psychological and often financial difficulties of organizing refuge. This article aims to show what kinds of information such letters of recommendation contained about transit. Focusing on the United States and on Palestine, the article challenges the understanding of these countries purely as ‘destination countries’, and shows how immigrants had to live through processes of internal transit. It also asks what content was the most useful to include in letters of recommendation—what kind of armour of good words was needed in transit—and how that content may have differed between the United States and Palestine.