"We must carry on": The Jewish Relief Unit, Displaced Persons and Anglo-Jewish Humanitarianism in Postwar Europe.

“我们必须继续下去”：战后欧洲的犹太救济队、流离失所者和英犹太人道主义。

• 批准号: 2607524
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Royal Holloway University of London
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2021 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2607524
• 关键词: must; carry; Jewish; Relief; Unit

This project will investigate and create a deeper understanding of the indispensable role of the Jewish Relief Unit (JRU) - a small but remarkable British relief organisation that helped Jewish survivors of the Holocaust in postwar Europe - and the ways in which it fundamentally shaped the experience and future of Displaced Persons (DPs). By using the JRU as a window into the postwar world, this project will create a more nuanced understanding of the contribution of relief workers and DPs to the wider postwar developments and consider the reciprocal, long-lasting impact that these groups had on each other. This project will contribute to furthering understanding of refugee studies, Anglo-Jewish humanitarianism and British responses to the Holocaust. It addresses two significant lacunae in the current scholarship: the historic exclusion of DPs and relief workers' voices from the wider histories of the period, and, more specifically, the near-total neglect of the JRU. It is guided by four research questions. The first question will utilise the methodology of intellectual history to focus on the personnel employed by the JRU, asking how factors such as class, nationality, political beliefs, and gender shaped the experience and approach of these relief workers. For many DPs, relief workers represented a pillar of stability in a period of great uncertainty. As DPs' primary connection to the outside world, the JRU personnel exerted a real influence on the ways that those they interacted with developed and were perceived. Thus, a thorough examination of the JRU personnel will further our understanding of not just how relief was facilitated but by whom, and why. This initial focus will inform the project's second research question, which will draw on the JRU's personnel files, survivor testimony, and memoirs to ask what the tangible, long-term impact of the methods and ideology of the JRU and its field workers was on DPs and their identity reconstruction. The project's third guiding research question will consider the institution more broadly, utilising its organisational and administrative records to ask how the organisation as a whole contributed to the developments of the postwar landscape. By approaching this question through the eyes of some of the key people on the ground, this project will highlight the multi-faceted nature of contemporary developments (such as the creation of Israel), reinforce the engagement of both DPs and relief workers, and reinstate these groups into the historic narrative as ambitious contributors in their own right. This will challenge the outdated trend of presenting DPs as a homogenous and dependent group who were products of the situation around them - a trend which continues to falsely inform discourse about refugees in the present. Finally, the fourth research question will consider how the JRU fits in to the environment of postwar humanitarianism more generally. It asks how the JRU drew its approach from other organisations and how the organisation and its activities exemplify wider developments in the field of humanitarianism at that time. In particular, it will focus on the ways in which the JRU differed and carved its own path. To undertake these questions, this project will utilise an integrated approach, combining the methodologies of intellectual, social and cultural history. Drawing on intellectual history, it will not only trace the ideas which informed and guided the institution and its personnel, but contextualise these ideas in the wider postwar environment and the development of Anglo-Jewish humanitarianism. Leading on from this, it will draw on social and cultural history to analyse how these ideas manifested in the JRU's activities, and their powerful, long-term impact. In particular, it will use a framework of social network analysis to explore the significant effect of the JRU's approach on DPs' identity reconstruction.

该项目将调查并更深入地了解犹太救济单位 (JRU) 的不可或缺的作用，以及它从根本上塑造体验的方式。JRU 是一个规模虽小但卓越的英国救济组织，帮助了战后欧洲大屠杀中的犹太幸存者。以及流离失所者 (DP) 的未来。通过利用 JRU 作为了解战后世界的窗口，该项目将更细致地了解救援人员和难民对更广泛的战后发展的贡献，并考虑这些群体相互之间产生的相互的、长期的影响。该项目将有助于进一步了解难民研究、英犹太人道主义和英国对大屠杀的反应。它解决了当前学术研究中的两个重大缺陷：历史上将难民和救援人员的声音排除在该时期更广泛的历史之外，更具体地说，JRU 几乎完全被忽视。它以四个研究问题为指导。第一个问题将利用思想史的方法论来关注JRU雇用的人员，询问阶级、国籍、政治信仰和性别等因素如何塑造这些救援人员的经历和方法。对于许多流离失所者来说，救援人员是一个充满不确定性的时期的稳定支柱。作为 DP 与外界的主要联系，JRU 人员对与他们互动的人的发展和感知方式产生了真正的影响。因此，对 JRU 人员的彻底检查将进一步加深我们对救援是如何进行的以及由谁以及为何进行的理解。这个最初的重点将为该项目的第二个研究问题提供信息，该问题将利用 JRU 的人事档案、幸存者证词和回忆录来询问 JRU 及其现场工作人员的方法和意识形态对 DP 产生哪些切实的长期影响。以及他们的身份重建。该项目的第三个指导性研究问题将更广泛地考虑该机构，利用其组织和行政记录来询问该组织作为一个整体如何为战后景观的发展做出贡献。通过从当地一些关键人物的角度来解决这个问题，该项目将突出当代发展的多面性（例如以色列的创建），加强难民和救援人员的参与，并恢复这些团体以其自身的力量作为雄心勃勃的贡献者进入历史叙事。这将挑战将流离失所者视为同质且依赖群体的过时趋势，他们是周围环境的产物——这一趋势继续错误地影响着目前关于难民的讨论。最后，第四个研究问题将考虑 JRU 如何更广泛地适应战后人道主义环境。它询问 JRU 如何借鉴其他组织的方法，以及该组织及其活动如何体现当时人道主义领域更广泛的发展。特别是，它将重点关注 JRU 的不同之处以及开辟自己道路的方式。为了解决这些问题，该项目将采用综合方法，结合思想史、社会史和文化史的方法论。它将借鉴思想史，不仅追溯影响和指导该机构及其人员的思想，而且将这些思想置于更广泛的战后环境和英犹太人道主义的发展中。以此为基础，它将借鉴社会和文化历史来分析这些思想如何在JRU的活动中体现，以及它们强大的长期影响。特别是，它将使用社交网络分析框架来探讨 JRU 方法对 DP 身份重建的显着影响。