Research

Research

This rubric is dedicated to the research activities of the professorship and those of its scholars and fellows. In addition to the presentation of ongoing research projects, scientific essays as well as workshop and conference reports can be found in this section. At the moment, the main focus lies on the projects “GLORE” and “Negotiating Migration Regimes”.


  • Research and Holdings in the National Archives Kew, London – An archival trip to the U.K.
    Research and Holdings in the National Archives Kew, London – An archival trip to the U.K. – by Raphaela Bollwein and Lena Christoph The National Archives (TNA) of the United Kingdom are located in Kew, London and their collection is one of the largest in the world, with over 11 million historical and governmental records. The Archives were founded as a result of a cooperation between the Public Record Office and the Historical Manuscript Commission.[1] For the GLORE project, the TNA contain relevant documents on the issue of resettlement and repatriation of different groups of displaced persons (DPs) after World …

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  • Event Report: Book Presentation of “Kingdom of Barracks”
    Event Report: Book Presentation of Katarazyna Nowaks “Kingdom of Barracks. Polish Displaced Persons in Allied-Occupied Germany and Austria” On the 15th of November Katarzyna Nowak presented her academic monograph titled “Kingdom of Barracks. Polish Displaced Persons in Allied-occupied Germany and Austria” at the Fachbereichsbibliothek Zeitgeschichte at the University of Vienna. The book was published at McGill-Queen’s University Press in 2023 and deals with the history of Polish displaced persons in Austrian and German DP camps from a bottom-up, multi-perspective approach. Katarzyna Nowak is a contemporary historian with a focus on cultural and social history in the early Cold War. In …

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  • Talking about flight and migration –PhD workshop at the University of Osnabrück
    On 21 September 2023, Lena Christoph and Raphaela Bollwein took part in the PhD workshop of the Gesellschaft für Exilforschung e.V. at the University of Osnabrück. Interdisciplinary presentations by doctoral students on the topic of “Migration, Flight and Exile” were at the center of attention. The workshop was led by Kristina Schulz, Andrea Hammel and Wiebke von Bernstoff. Both doctoral students put their focus on marginalized groups of displaced persons, whose resettlement proved particularly difficult after the end of the Second World War. The invisibility of the migration paths of unaccompanied children and persons who went to and through the Philippines were discussed.
  • Conference Report (ENIUGH 2023) – by Elisabeth Czerniak and Johannes Glack
    Between 29th June and 1st July 2023, the Seventh European Congress on World and Global History took place in The Hague, Netherlands. Under the title “Conflict and Inequity, Peace and Justice: Local, Regional and International Perspectives” this international conference provided the space to promote interdisciplinary exchange and spark discussions on a diverse spectrum of topics.
  • Vatican’s Refugee Assistance, Ethnic Germans, and Navigating Identities in the Aftermath of World War II
    Four years after the end of World War II, a letter from a refugee named Massimiliano reached Vatican City. Massimiliano wrote a dramatic appeal to the Pope, seeking assistance for himself and his wife, Anna, as they hoped to emigrate to Australia in search of a better life. This refugee from Venezia Giulia, classified as Volksdeutsche and therefore excluded from the main refugee assistance programmes, saw the Holy See as a last resort.[1] The correspondence related to his case has been preserved in the Vatican Apostolic Archive, alongside thousands of other files concerning refugees who sought the Vatican’s assistance during the tumultuous years of the war’s aftermath.
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