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Introduction: World Wars and Population Displacement in Europe in the Twentieth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 November 2007

PETER GATRELL
PETER GATRELL*
Affiliation:
Department of History, School of Arts, Histories and Cultures, University of Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK; peter.gatrell@manchester.ac.uk.
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Extract

This special issue of Contemporary European History is devoted to the impact of the two world wars on civilian population displacement in Europe. Each contributor has brought fresh material to bear on specific instances of involuntary migration that are either unfamiliar or poorly understood. The contributors seek to establish the origins of population displacement and the assistance provided by governments, non-government organisations and individuals and, where possible, also to reflect on the ways in which displacement was understood both at the time and subsequently.

Type
Research Article
Information
Contemporary European History , Volume 16 , Issue 4: World Wars and Population Displacement in the Twentieth Century , November 2007 , pp. 415 - 426
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

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References

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17 Modris, Eksteins, Walking Since Daybreak: A Story of Eastern Europe, World War II, and the Heart of our Century (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999)Google Scholar. Other groups had a different understanding of how time ‘stood still’ and when the clock restarted; the key moment for German POWs and their families was the date of their return from Soviet captivity.

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20 Eric, Lohr, Nationalizing the Russian Empire: The Campaign against Enemy Aliens during World War I (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003)Google Scholar. States did not bear sole responsibility for displacing civilians; ‘local interests’ also need to be taken into account. See Mark, Mazower, ‘Violence and the State in the Twentieth Century’, American Historical Review 107, 4 (2004), 1158–78Google Scholar.

21 See the contributions in Nick, Baron and Peter, Gatrell, eds., Homelands: War, Population and Statehood in the Former Russian Empire, 1918–1924 (London: Anthem Books, 2004)Google Scholar.

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23 Holborn, Louise W., The International Refugee Organization: A Specialized Agency of the United Nations, its History and Work, 1946–1952 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1956), 226, 369, 482Google Scholar; Linda, McDowell, Hard Labour: The Hidden Voices of Latvian Migrant ‘Volunteer’ Workers (London: UCL Press, 2005)Google Scholar.

24 This is an oversimplified summary of a story that has yet to be told in full. Shils, Edward A., ‘Social and Psychological Aspects of Displacement and Repatriation’, Journal of Social Issues, 2, 3 (1946), 3–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Eduard, Bakis, ‘DP Apathy’, in Murphy, H. B. M., ed., Flight and Resettlement (Paris: UNESCO, 1955), 76–88Google Scholar; Judith, Shuval, ‘Refugees: Adjustment and Assimilation’, in Sills, D., ed., International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 13 (New York: Macmillan, 1968), 373–7Google Scholar; Charles, Zwingmann and Maria, Pfister-Ammende, eds., Uprooting and After (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1973)Google Scholar. For a range of more recent views see Papadopoulos, Renos K., ed., Therapeutic Care for Refugees: No Place Like Home (London: Karnac, 2002)Google Scholar.

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34 Holborn, International Refugee Organization, 242.