Humanitarianism and Refugee Aid in Cold War Europe: Across the East/West Divide

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

This panel examines humanitarian practice (and its discursive context) in three different political environments during the 'long' fifties. Julia Reinke will explore what the arrival of Greek child refugees in a state socialist country, the German Democratic Republic meant for local understandings of humanitarianism, Maximilian Graf will present a case study of how the post-1956 Hungarian refugee crisis affected international humanitarian action in a neutral country (focusing on Tyrol, in order to gain a deeper understanding of a less exposed local history), and Tamás Scheibner will examine social reactions in the UK, a country on the western pole of the Cold War, and how the refugee crisis affected humanitarian practices in British society. Through case studies from three different political contexts, the panel analyzes the various ways refugee crises create precarious conditions not only for refugees, but also to members of the host societies with effects on how humanitarianism has been understood, historically and nowdays.

Sub Unit

• History: Central and Southeast Europe, Since 1918

Chair

• Michal Frankl, Masaryk Institute and Archives CAS (Czech Republic)

Papers

• Humanitarianism or Solidarity?: Aiding Greek Refugee Children in the Early German Democratic Republic - Julia Therese Reinke, Masaryk Institute and Archives CAS (Czech Republic)

• Workers' Charity and Elite Refugee Aid: British Society in Humanitarian Action after the 1956 Hungarian Revolution - Tamás Scheibner, Eötvös Loránd U (Hungary)

• Humanitarianism in the Alps: Hungarian Refugees in Tyrol 1956-57 - Maximilian Graf, Masaryk Institute and Archives CAS (Czech Republic)

Discussant

• Ulf Brunnbauer, Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies, IOS (Germany)