Research

World War II and its immediate aftermath saw an unprecedented scale of population movement across the globe. Managing population flows thus became a core function of the successively emerging international organisations, UNRRA and IRO. For most wartime migrants in Asia, Europe and the Pacific, being in transit was a key feature of their wartime and post-war experience. It often meant months, or even years, of immobility and uncertainty. Collective identifications, too, were being reconstructed within and outside camps. Categorised as displaced persons (DPs), some sought to assert their nations’ place on the political map of the postwar world, and some learned to reinvent group and individual identities to negotiate better futures. While refugees were in a state of transition, the world around them was also unstable. The Greater German Reich and the Japanese empire collapsed. European imperial powers found the old world gone. The civil war in China resumed and foreshadowed unceasing violences in the widely decolonising world. The unfolding global Cold War further redrew the political map. These changes profoundly shaped individuals’ post-war experiences of being in transit and sometimes created opportunities.

World War II and its immediate aftermath saw an unprecedented scale of population movement across the globe. Managing population flows thus became a core function of the successively emerging international organisations, UNRRA and IRO. For most wartime migrants in Asia, Europe and the Pacific, being in transit was a key feature of their wartime and post-war experience. It often meant months, or even years, of immobility and uncertainty. Collective identifications, too, were being reconstructed within and outside camps. Categorised as displaced persons (DPs), some sought to assert their nations’ place on the political map of the postwar world, and some learned to reinvent group and individual identities to negotiate better futures. While refugees were in a state of transition, the world around them was also unstable. The Greater German Reich and the Japanese empire collapsed. European imperial powers found the old world gone. The civil war in China resumed and foreshadowed unceasing violences in the widely decolonising world. The unfolding global Cold War further redrew the political map. These changes profoundly shaped individuals’ post-war experiences of being in transit and sometimes created opportunities.

The twentieth century has seen unprecedented violence, not only on the battlefields in Europe and Asia, but also against civilians who suffered large-scale deportation and forced migration in both European and Asian theatres of the Second World War. Many members of the ERC GLORE team presented at the workshop ‘Mapping the end of empire: coming to terms with the Pacific War’, held at the University of Cambridge on 10 September 2024. Focusing on Shanghai as a hub of displacement and departure in the 1940s, this workshop scrutinised the global connections which linked ex-Nazi Germany (today Germany and Austria) to Asia, and the uncertainties that refugees and international organisations encountered during the episode of post-WWII resettlement. Aware that Shanghai, politically divided during the colonial era (until 1943), had a pre-war and wartime history of offering protection to Asian and European refugees, we pay attention to the racialised categorisation, the evolution of infrastructure that sustained global resettlement, the fragility of and limitations of refugees who wished to exert agency, and in a longer timeframe, their lives after departure from Shanghai. The workshop was generously funded by the DAAD Cambridge hub, co-convened by Kerstin von Lingen (Vienna) and Barak Kushner (Cambridge).

The twentieth century has seen unprecedented violence, not only on the battlefields in Europe and Asia, but also against civilians who suffered large-scale deportation and forced migration in both European and Asian theatres of the Second World War. Many members of the ERC GLORE team presented at the workshop ‘Mapping the end of empire: coming to terms with the Pacific War’, held at the University of Cambridge on 10 September 2024. Focusing on Shanghai as a hub of displacement and departure in the 1940s, this workshop scrutinised the global connections which linked ex-Nazi Germany (today Germany and Austria) to Asia, and the uncertainties that refugees and international organisations encountered during the episode of post-WWII resettlement. Aware that Shanghai, politically divided during the colonial era (until 1943), had a pre-war and wartime history of offering protection to Asian and European refugees, we pay attention to the racialised categorisation, the evolution of infrastructure that sustained global resettlement, the fragility of and limitations of refugees who wished to exert agency, and in a longer timeframe, their lives after departure from Shanghai. The workshop was generously funded by the DAAD Cambridge hub, co-convened by Kerstin von Lingen (Vienna) and Barak Kushner (Cambridge).

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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