To count or not to count: British politics of framing and the condition of “illegal infiltree” in the Bergen-Belsen DP camp (1945–1948) | Amsterdam University Press Journals Online
2004
Volume 3, Issue 1
  • E-ISSN: 2666-5050

Abstract

Abstract 

This article explores the politics of humanitarian assistance in the aftermath of the Second World War, by examining the act of framing certain groups of Jewish refugees as “infiltrees”, in the context of the British occupation zone of Germany, and the Bergen-Belsen DP camp more specifically. Based on archival sources and the available literature, it dissects this legal categorisation to help understand who the different individuals categorised as infiltrees were, the wider political conjuncture that informed this framing, and the real consequences felt by those who were framed as such. This article demonstrates the extent to which the attribution of legal categories to those on the move, with tangible effects for those individuals, represents a deeply politicised practice in Europe, which has been operating at least since the first half of the twentieth century, and which continues today.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.3897/hmc.3.70896
2023-05-10
2024-05-12
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/26665050/3/1/HMC_3_70896.html?itemId=/content/journals/10.3897/hmc.3.70896&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

References

  1. CohenGD (2012) In War’s Wake. Europe’s Displaced Persons in the Postwar Order.Oxford University Press, Oxford, 237 pp.
    [Google Scholar]
  2. CrawleyHSkleparisD (2018) Refugees, migrants, neither, both: categorical fetishism and the politics of bounding in Europe’s ‘migration crisis’.Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies44(1): 48–64. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2017.1348224
    [Google Scholar]
  3. FraserN (2005) Reframing justice in a globalizing world.New Left Review36: 11–39. https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii36/articles/nancy-fraser-reframing-justice-in-a-globalizing-world
    [Google Scholar]
  4. GoodmanSSirriyehAMcMahonS (2017) The evolving (re)categorisations of refugees throughout the “refugee/migrant crisis”.Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology27(2): 105–114. https://doi.org/10.1002/casp.2302
    [Google Scholar]
  5. GrossmanA (2007) Jews, Germans, and Allies. Close Encounters in Occupied Germany.Princeton University Press, Princeton & Oxford, 393 pp. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400832743
    [Google Scholar]
  6. HerbertJ (2005) Reviews.Immigrants & Minorities23(1): 109–125. https://doi.org/10.1080/0261928042000334862
    [Google Scholar]
  7. HiltonLJ (2018) Who was ‘worthy’? How empathy drove policy decisions about the uprooted in occupied Germany, 1945–1948.Holocaust and Genocide Studies32(1): 8–28. https://doi.org/10.1093/hgs/dcy011
    [Google Scholar]
  8. KochaviAJ (2001) Post-Holocaust Politics. Britain, the United States, and Jewish Refugees, 1945–1948.The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill & London, 377 pp.
    [Google Scholar]
  9. LavskyH (2002) New Beginnings. Holocaust Survivors in Bergen-Belsen and the British Zone in Germany, 1945–1950.Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 311 pp.
    [Google Scholar]
  10. ShephardB (2010) The Long Road Home. The aftermath of the Second World War.The Bodley Head, London, 886 pp.
    [Google Scholar]
http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/journals/10.3897/hmc.3.70896
Loading
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error