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Genocide targets lives and also aims to destroy cultures. Hence, refugees do not only save their bare lives, as the common notion of a refugee in need of individual protection assumes; they also engage in various collective practices to safeguard their cultural heritage from destruction. As an expression of self-consciousness against genocidal violence, this process of rescue becomes a part of that very cultural heritage and thus fundamentally alters its meaning. To develop a better understanding of this complex process, this article first develops general thoughts on refugee agency and cultural survival. Secondly, to exemplify the variety of such efforts and their cultural meaning, this article examines how European Jews, and particularly the General Jewish Labor Bund, attempted to save Yiddish culture and material collections on the secular history of European Jews during the 20th century. In conclusion, it argues that in addition to the individualized perception of a refugee, we need to consider collective cultural rescue as an integral part of refugee politics.

Genocide targets lives and also aims to destroy cultures. Hence, refugees do not only save their bare lives, as the common notion of a refugee in need of individual protection assumes; they also engage in various collective practices to safeguard their cultural heritage from destruction. As an expression of self-consciousness against genocidal violence, this process of rescue becomes a part of that very cultural heritage and thus fundamentally alters its meaning. To develop a better understanding of this complex process, this article first develops general thoughts on refugee agency and cultural survival. Secondly, to exemplify the variety of such efforts and their cultural meaning, this article examines how European Jews, and particularly the General Jewish Labor Bund, attempted to save Yiddish culture and material collections on the secular history of European Jews during the 20th century. In conclusion, it argues that in addition to the individualized perception of a refugee, we need to consider collective cultural rescue as an integral part of refugee politics.

Dieter Gosewinkel: Schutz und Freiheit?: Staatsbürgerschaft in Europa im 20. und 21. Jahrhundert. Berlin: Suhrkamp 2016. 978-3-518-29767-4

Diese Geschichte des Allgemeinen Jüdischen Arbeiterbundes analysiert die Gegenseitigkeit von Massenmigration und sozialer Massenbewegung. Der 1897 gegründete Bund wandelte sich von einem Protagonisten des revolutionären Russland zu einer Institution gelebter Yidishkayt. Das Buch zeichnet dies als Geschichte sozialer Praktiken nach. Es folgt zudem tausenden Aktivisten nach New York und Buenos Aires und erkundet eine unbekannte Vernetzungs­geschichte von Menschen und Organisationen zwischen 1897 und 1947. Anhand von Memorik, Treffen, Gewerkschafts- und Bildungsarbeit sowie Fundraising entsteht daraus eine detaillierte Sozialgeschichte dieser beidseitig des Atlantiks bedeutenden, transnationalen Bewegung.

Main description: Diese Geschichte des Allgemeinen Jüdischen Arbeiterbund analysiert die Gegenseitigkeit von Massenmigration und sozialer Massenbewegung. Der 1897 gegründete Bund wandelte sich von einem Protagonisten des revolutionären Russland zu einer Institution gelebter Yiddishkayt. Das Buch zeichnet dies als Geschichte sozialer Praktiken nach.

"Recent research on Jewish migration and 'Jewish spaces' usually asks for the relevance of 'Jewish spaces' in Jewish life. This article looks the other way and examines how the changing conditions of Jewish life altered emigrant's perceptions of their 'old home' in East Europe. It argues that in Jewish memory East Europe functioned as a mythscape which changed from a repressive and revolutionary over a progressive to the lost 'old home'. As a result the article calls to more carefully historicize processes of Jewish memory and spatial semantics as expressions of relations between conflicting groups." (author's abstract)