Dr Michal Palacz

This volume retells the story of mass displacement in the first half of the twentieth century through the eyes of forced migrants themselves. Willems and Palacz bring together fifteen interrelated case studies which show how deportation, evacuation and flight of millions of people shaped ethnic struggle and political violence in Europe. The conflicts, which came to the fore in the course the First World War and would also leave a mark on the interwar period, culminated in population transfers on an even larger scale during the Second World War and its aftermath. While each chapter focuses on a different group of refugees and displaced persons, the volume as a whole looks at the experience of forced migration as a complex set of evolving relationships with the host society, the homeland, the broader diaspora and other migrant communities living within the same country. This innovative, four-dimensional model provides an overarching transnational framework that binds together individual case studies within the longer arc of European history. By going beyond the conventional narratives of national victimhood and (un)successful assimilation of refugees, Willems and Palacz reveal that identities of forced migrants in the first half of the twentieth century were individualised, hybrid and constantly reconstructed in response to socioeconomic forces and political pressures. The case studies collected in this volume further suggest that age, gender, social class, educational level and personal experiences of “unwilling nomads” are more important to the understanding of forced migration history than ethnoreligious identities of victims and perpetrators.

The concluding essay by Willems and Palacz demonstrates the full potential of the proposed conceptual model of diaspora by presenting Polish wartime refugees in Britain and East Prussian expellees in post-war Germany as objects of study independent of national histories. While the historiographies of both Polish and East Prussian diasporas have largely been shaped by collective memories of victimhood and politically-charged narratives of ‘integration’, Willems and Palacz reinterpret the experiences of Polish refugees and East Prussian expellees through the lens of their four-dimensional relationship with the host society, homeland, own diaspora and other migrant communities. The two case studies reveal that forced migration should be seen as a transnational and de-homogenised experience which offers new perspectives on the developments that spurred European history in the first half of the twentieth century.

Willems and Palacz introduce fifteen case studies collected in this volume within the broader context of European history in the era of the two world wars and argue that forced migration and refugee movements should be analysed from a transnational perspective. Willems and Palacz propose a four-dimensional model of ‘host society’, ‘homeland’, ‘diaspora’ and ‘other diasporas’ as an analytical tool for studying forced migrants and their constantly evolving relationships with the receiving society, the country of origin, their own diasporic community and other migrant groups living within the same host country. This conceptual model of diaspora serves as an overarching framework of the whole volume. It offers the possibility of looking at the formation of migrant communities as a phenomenon in itself and thus goes beyond the entrenched paradigms of national victimhood and (un)successful integration of refugees.

More than 400 Polish medical refugees were associated with the Polish School of Medicine (PSM) at the University of Edinburgh between 1941 and 1949. This dissertation argues that the history of the PSM can fully be understood only as a part of the refugees’ broader experience of impelled or forced migration during and immediately after the Second World War. The key findings of this case study demonstrate that the opportunity to study or work at the PSM enabled the majority of Polish exiles to overcome, to a varying extent, their refugee predicament, while medical qualifications, transferable skills and trans-cultural competency obtained in wartime Britain allowed them to pursue professional and academic careers in different countries of post-war settlement, thus in turn contributing to a global circulation of medical knowledge and practice, especially between the University of Edinburgh and Poland. This specific case study contributes to the existing knowledge of Polish wartime migration to Britain in three interrelated ways. Firstly, an overarching transnational approach is used to combine and transcend Polish and British scholarly perspectives on, respectively, emigration or immigration. Secondly, the conceptual insularity of the existing literature on the topic is challenged by analysing archival, published and digital sources pertaining to the PSM with the help of various theoretical models and concepts borrowed from forced migration and diaspora studies. Thirdly, the conventional historiography of Polish-British wartime relations is challenged by emphasising the genuinely global ramifications of the PSM’s history. By interpreting the history of the PSM with the help of different analytical tools, such as Kunz’s and Johansson’s models of refugee movement and Tweed’s theory of diasporic religion, this dissertation provides a conceptual blueprint for further research on Polish wartime migration to Britain. In turn, this case study contributes to the development of forced migration and diaspora studies not only by empirically testing the explanatory power of existing theoretical models, but also by suggesting possible new conceptual avenues, such as analysing the pre-existing trans-cultural experiences of both Polish medical refugees and their hosts at the University of Edinburgh, and adding to the ‘triadic relationship’ of diaspora, homeland and host society a fourth dimension, i.e. conflict and cooperation between different migrant or refugee communities within the same host society.