A sense of place is important to humans. Sense of place is much more than just a reflection of a location, it’s built through the lived experience that involves a set of personal and community narratives. It’s built from the knowledge of the place, feeling oriented in one’s environment, as well as the feeling of the climate and weather. It’s built from the non-material attributes as well, from the soul of the place or a certain way it makes one feel. The millions of people that were forced out of their homes due to the violence of World War II lost their sense of place and never got it back. With the lack of international laws regarding human rights and refugees that we have today, when the war ended in 1945, the world was left with this question: what do we do with all of these people?
This suitcase was used by a Jewish refugee, who eventually fled to Japan. The suitcase represents both the emotional baggage these people brought around the world with them, as well as the human aspect of this discussion about displaced persons. The only part lacking from the articles was a personal aspect from the DPs, from both the authors’ viewpoints and the countries and organizations that were dealing with them.
From the first chapter of Gerard Daniel Cohen’s “In Wars Wake” he writes about how displaces persons were used as pawns between the Soviet Union and the West, showing a chasm between the two sides with regards to how to deal with different groups of DPs. Cohen argues that the Soviet Union wanted to exclude all of their political enemies from any international aid being offered. The West thought differently, as they were pro-international organizations in terms of dealing with DPs. On both sides, even just after the most violent war in history, there was a lack of humanizing the DPs. Of course, when dealing with millions of people spread throughout the world, it can be hard to keep in mind that they are actual people with lives to rebuild.
In Zahra’s “A Human Treasure” article, he argues that the family unit becomes an international and diplomatic issue for the first time. “The family was internationalized to an unprecedented extent in Europe during the Second World War.” (Zahra, 333). The issues of immigration and resettlement needed to be dealt with as soon as possible, but even in the wake of the second world war, the family, even young children, became political pawns. Although sad and dehumanizing, children became an important asset to rebuilding Europe because of the loss of human capital- the most important piece to a country. Many children of mixed nationalities were born during the war so problems regarding what country they originally “belonged” did not exist, countries like France were just waiting to scoop them up. Countries were also more eager to take in children because assimilating a child is much more probable to be successful than an adult immigrant (Zahra, 335-6).
The lack of humanization in this huge issue of millions of displaced persons is, although easy to forget, it is necessary to keep in mind when discussing it. Just like us today, all of those people had complex emotions and thoughts and community systems in place. When deciding what to do with them, the world used DPs as political pawns before deciding how to help them out.
Suitcase photo from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/media_da.php?ModuleId=10005139&MediaId=2805
I enjoyed the symbolism of the suitcase as the emotional baggage of the Displaced Persons. These people were dehumanized to mere pawns in the chess game that was Postwar society. The transportation of these individuals from one country to another stripped away their sense of individuality and hindered societies recovery as a whole. The emotional baggage that you refer to was a huge influence after the war and followed many of these individuals for the rest of their lives. For these reasons, I agree that we cannot overlook their personal experiences and stories.
You brought up a good point about how displaced persons were used as pawns between nations. I don’t think that should ever happen and is not the right thing for nations to do. The suitcase is a perfect representation to show for this article and I love how you tied it into a symbol for emotional baggage. When nations use people as pawns, I think that just adds to unnecessary emotional baggage.