Refugees in Statelessness: The Fall of Poland in 1939

• In Event: East Central Europe as a Refuge in the 20th Century

Abstract

After the combined German and Soviet invasion in September 1939, Poland quickly lost its defensive and managerial power, as well as the infrastructural resources on which that power rested. The sudden attack generated a movement of millions of people fleeing both the violence of war and anticipated danger. Drawing on the refugee voices, this paper focuses on crisis migration under conditions of a collapsing state in the wake of a war of aggression - under bombardment, with a lack of state protection and crumbling infrastructure. It provides a perspective on the experience of internal refugeeism in the transitional situation of statelessness (September-December 1939) which prompts conceptual questions about the term “refugee”. Poland 1939 is one of the historical cases in which the refugee experience is not defined or determined by the arbitrary criterion of crossing a national border or being subject to institutionalized migration policy (or protection). The refugee situation is invariably difficult and precarious. The premise of the paper is that being a refugee in a situation of state collapse, lawlessness and war-legitimized violence poses specific challenges in terms of precarity, and merits reflection on its distinctive characteristics, when compared to the situation of refugees reaching safe places or being granted some sort of protection.

Author

• Lidia Zessin-Jurek, Stockton U