The Workshop was organized by Prof. Kerstin von Lingen and her research team at the department of contemporary history at the University of Vienna and was funded by the European Union in the context of the ERC Research Group GLORE (Global Resettlement Regimes) (GA Nr. 101053242) and by FWF project 5444-G “Norms, Regulation, Refugee Agency” (DACH program).
In the immediate postwar years, many families were shattered by separation, loss of home, and the struggle to secure employment or resettlement. Across DP camps, people devoted extraordinary effort to tracing missing relatives, holding kin together, and inventing new arrangements that could make life livable. Marriage rates climbed—sometimes for love, sometimes as a pathway to safety, resettlement, or companionship—and many unions later unraveled under the pressures of migration and adaptation. Survivor families confronted the impossibility of “returning to normal,” and divorce became a reluctant instrument of coping. Single mothers negotiated lives that ran counter to dominant welfare prescriptions privileging male-headed households. Unaccompanied minors forged bonds with other children and with caregivers in children’s centers, creating surrogate forms of family that unsettled conventional ideas of upbringing and care.
The workshop brought together a number of scholars who came together for a sustained conversation about how the idea of “family” was mobilized, defined, and lived in the aftermath of war and displacement after 1945. The presentations addressed various aspects of how displacement reshaped family life and how individuals navigated the social, legal, and economic constraints of the postwar period. The workshop approached the topic on three interrelated levels. First, it highlighted the legal and administrative frameworks that shaped family status and determined eligibility for economic assistance and resettlement. Second, it brought to light the flexible family arrangements that emerged in response to displacement and difficult living conditions. Third, it explored changing concepts of family, childhood, and care in the context of postwar displacement.
It started with a warm welcome to all participants and guests by Professor Kerstin von Lingen, followed by an introduction to the topic of family life in the postwar period. Professor von Lingen reminded participants of the special role of families as pivotal units of reconstruction after 1945. The war, however, had profoundly altered and challenged traditional notions of family and family life. In particular, DP families faced the question of how to create and maintain family relationships in the face of displacement, upheaval, and uncertainty. These extraordinary circumstances gave rise to new concepts and forms of family that shaped the private lives of displaced families in the postwar period.
Overview
The workshop was held over the course of a single day and was organized into four sessions. Each session consisted of two presentations followed by a discussion among the participants.
Session 1
In the first presentation of the day, Professor Ruth Balint of the University of New South Wales (UNSW), an expert on the history of migration and refugees, spoke on the question of marriage and divorce in Jewish families after 1945. While the resilience of the Jewish family is often understood as a key factor in survival after the Holocaust, a closer examination of intimate and family life allows us to better understand the disruptions and challenges of the postwar period. Drawing on a number of interesting case studies, Professor Balint demonstrated how the Holocaust posed serious challenges to Jewish marriage law. The law had to be applied to unusual circumstances, such as cases in which the fate of one spouse was unknown. Moreover, when immigration authorities refused to recognize religious marriages, different civil legal frameworks became relevant and applicable to Jewish families. Professor Balint argued that the rebuilding of Jewish families after the war was shaped and influenced by their encounters with a diverse range of civil legal systems.
Professor Silvia Salvatici, Professor of Modern History at the University of Florence, presented on the effects of resettlement on family life in post-1945 Germany. Several case studies of displaced families living in occupied Germany demonstrated how family status directly influenced a family’s chances of emigration, resettlement, and access to assistance. The talk also focused on the experiences of mixed families living in DP camps and showed how marriages between German women and displaced persons from different countries of origin often became an obstacle to repatriation.
Session 2
The second session began with a presentation by Franziska Lamp-Miechowiecki, a doctoral researcher at the FWF project “Norms, Regulation, Refugee Agency” at the University of Vienna, on the situation of single displaced women and their struggle for recognition and access to assistance and support after 1945. Drawing on several case studies, she shed light on the particular difficulties single women encountered when applying for IRO assistance. The case studies also demonstrated how political and religious considerations continued to influence the decision-making of the IRO review board.
Professor Sarah Cramsey, assistant professor of Judaism & Diaspora Studies at Leiden University, then presented her recent research on postwar reparations and the legal status of unborn children. In the context of compensation claims, this raises the question of whether and to what extent fetuses possess legal rights and are entitled to compensation for offenses perpetrated against their mothers. For Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, there is now an option to apply for compensation under the Hardship Fund administered by the Claims Conference, even if the applicant was in utero at the time the mother suffered persecution.
Session 3
Raphaela Bollwein, a doctoral researcher with the ERC research group GLORE, presented on the breakup of family life among the DP population in camps in the US-occupied zone of Austria. In particular, the presentation highlighted the experiences of unaccompanied children, as documented in archival sources and case studies. It demonstrated how these children were placed in and cared for in children’s centres, where staff sought to create a sense of normality and family life for this particularly vulnerable group.
Laurien Vastenhout, a researcher at the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, presented on the history of mixed couples and their strategies for coping with persecution during the Holocaust. In the absence of clear policy guidelines in Nazi Germany regarding the treatment of mixed families, non-Jewish partners or family members were sometimes able to provide support and protection for their Jewish relatives. In mixed families with a Jewish husband and a non-Jewish wife, these extraordinary circumstances often led to a reversal of traditional gender roles in times of threat and upheaval.
Session 4
Johannes Glack, a doctoral researcher with the ERC research group GLORE, presented on the impact of health on the migration trajectories of families living in Austrian DP camps during the 1950s. His case studies demonstrated the difficulties that physically and mentally disabled DPs faced with regard to emigration. As many countries restricted immigration to healthy DPs, families were often confronted with difficult decisions and, in some cases, chose to leave behind family members who were barred from emigrating.
Lena Christoph, a doctoral researcher at the University of Vienna and a member of GLORE, presented on the history of Jewish and ‘White Russian’ refugees in the Philippines who experienced a second forced displacement, having already fled Russia for China in 1917. She showed how the realities of DP families who had already lived in Asia for decades and sought to resettle from Shanghai, and later from the Philippines, were difficult to reconcile with the bureaucratic categories of Western immigration systems. Immigration restrictions, such as the White Australia Policy, meant that biracial families could not be resettled together. In some cases, this led parents to leave their children behind in the hope of reuniting with them at a later date, a hope that often went unrealized.
Takeaways and Outlook
The workshop demonstrated how postwar policies and humanitarian practices mobilized moralized notions of family that often clashed with refugees’ lived realities, highlighting the fragility and reinvention of kinship—especially for children—under conditions of displacement. It also showed how labels and assessments structured access to care and resettlement. A key takeaway was the need for mixed-method, ethically grounded research that connects archival and administrative records with lived experiences. Looking ahead, the workshop aims to contribute to a planned special issue and to inform contemporary migration and child welfare policies so that they better reflect diverse family forms.