Practices of Reunification: The Continuation of Refugee Life After 1945 (Studies for the International Society for Cultural History)

The volume explores the role of refugees and displaced persons (DPs) in Europe after 1945. It expands conventional narratives about post-National Socialist societies, which are characterized by victim myths, narratives of Trümmerfrauen (rubble women), and the reconstruction of supposedly homogeneous societies.

Using analyses informed by new approaches in cultural studies and digital humanities, the authors enhance studies of refugees and DPs’ ways of living and their interactions with their surrounding societies. Relying on microhistorical perspectives, the case studies focus on both post-National Socialist societies and exile communities and thus contribute to a better understanding of everyday life. The book locates itself at the intersection of Migration Studies, Gender Studies, Emotion Studies, and the History of Knowledge and focuses on the following key questions: How did family members reconnect with individuals liberated from concentration camps? How did they communicate about the choice of new places to live? How did exile communities reorganize themselves after the end of the war?

This volume explores diverse experiences in the post-1945 world that have been shaping not only the European societies but have also been influencing our present legal and societal understandings and interpretations on a global scale.

Susanne Korbel is a senior post-doc at the University of Graz. Among her most important publications are: Auf die Tour! Jüdinnen und Juden in Singspielhalle, Kabarett und Varieté zwischen Habsburgermonarchie und Amerika um 1900 (2021), and the Leo Baeck Insitute Essay Price winning article “Spaces of Gendered Jewish and Non-Jewish Encounters.”

Philipp Strobl is a historian in the Department of Contemporary History at the University of Vienna. His research focuses on the intersection of knowledge history and migration history. He has published extensively in these fields, including monographs, edited volumes, and articles on migrating knowledge and its impact on societies in Europe, the United States, and Australia. His most recent book A History of Displaced Knowledge was recently published in the Studies in Global Migration History series. He also edited a special issue titled Lost Knowledge and Migration for the Journal of Migration History.