Good evening everyone,
I just finished up reading several articles about displaced persons post WWII. It really opened my eyes to the fact that there was still a lot of hardship left to deal with after the horrific effects of the war. I was able to gain a broader perspective on how the post war effects impacted displaced persons.
The following articles were a great sources of information in regards to displaced persons after WWII, ‘A Human Treasure’: Europe’s Displaced Children Between Nationalism and Internationalism by Tara Zahra, In War’s Wake: Europe’s Displaced Persons in the Postwar Order by Gerard Daniel Cohen, and Representing and Reconstructing Identities in the Postwar World: Regugees, UNRRA, and Fred Zinnemann’s Film, The Search by Sharif Gemie and Louis Rees. All of the articles provided a wealth of knowledge that broadened my prospective about postwar effects and displaced persons.
The readings shared common themes throughout and how the problems that came with displaced persons were handled. ‘A Human Treasure’ mainly focuses on displaced children and how they were dealt with from a nationalist and internationalist point of view. Zahra says in his article that, “Policymakers considered the rehabilitation of these children to be essential to the biological, moral, and economic reconstruction of the nation” (pg 332). This quote to me shows the importance of helping children gain stability in a world where chaos was everywhere. Gerard Daniel article covered the fact that after the war, there were thousands of people that could not return to their homes, most of them being German (pg 4). Sharif Gemie and Louis Rees article discuss refugees and the struggles to overcome (pg 443). All of the articles tie in nicely to each other because when reading them, I was able to get three different perspectives. All of the following readings shared the fact that displaced persons were key factors in the rehabilitation of a nation from a biological, economical, and moral perspective.
Many questions arose when reading through the pages. I wondered how most historians go about studying this topic. I was intrigued to find out if their are diaries and notes that are from people who lived during this time. I am interested in finding out more about how they were feed, where they stayed during the night, and how the displaced persons finally got back on their feet.
I found it interested that allied powers had much more freedom in the ability to handle the problem of displaced persons. Countries like Czechoslovak, Poland, and Yugoslav had to abided by the constraints put on by the Allied military authorities, the International Refugee Organization, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration and local German welfare authorities (Zahra, ‘The Human Treasure’, pg 349). Also surprising that, in regards to refugees’, it was the authority structures that prevented refugee productions from reaching a wider public eye. Due to the fact in many cases, refugees are accepted into countries as victims, which is outside of their control, but forms a integral part of social organizations that are dictating their lives. Which in turn, limits what they are capable of from a cultural perspective (Sharif Gemie and Louis Rees, pg 443).
I thought that the selected articles provided great insight about the adversity that displaced persons had to go through. I gained a better understanding how nations dealt with the problems differently. Great reading with many different perspectives.
