Memory Across Borders: Postwar Displacement, Testimonies, and Transnational Narratives

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

This panel examines the evolving memories and testimonies of displaced individuals in Central and Eastern Europe, focusing on the long-term effects of forced migration, war, and political exile. The panel brings together case studies from the post-World War II expulsion of Germans from Slovakia, Holocaust survivor testimonies in Sweden and the Czech Republic, and the experiences of Greek Civil War refugees in Czechoslovakia. Through the analysis of oral histories, written memoirs, and archival testimonies, these papers explore how memories are shaped, transmitted, and reconstructed across generations and borders. By emphasizing postmemory, shifting narratives, and transnational perspectives, the panel contributes to broader discussions on displacement, memory politics, and identity in the 20th century.

Sub Unit

• History: 1945-1990

Chair

• Johana Kłusek, Inst of Ethnology CAS (Czech Republic)

Papers

• Post-Memories of Displacement: The Expulsion of Germans from Slovakia in Individual Perspectives Across Borders - Tereza Juhaszova, U of Regensburg (Germany)

• Testimonies of the Condemned: Reflecting on Swedish-Czech Testimonies of WWII Refugees - Ivana Koutníková, Paideia, The European Inst for Jewish Studies in Sweden (Sweden)

• Greek Civil War Refugees in Czechoslovakia and How They Remember - Kateřina Králová, Inst of Ethnology CAS (Czech Republic)

• Post/Memory, Post/Hegemony, and Counter/Discourses: The Pomaks and the Bulgarian Revival Process - Szczepan Paweł Czarnecki, Inst of Central Europe (Poland)

Discussant

• Anna A Mazurkiewicz, U of Gdansk (Poland)