Jayne Persian is a historian predominantly of Central and Eastern Europe displaced persons, many of whom migrated to Australia in the post-war period. Author of Fascists in Exile: Post-War Displaced Persons in Australia (Routledge Studies in Fascism and the Far Right, 2024). Co-Chief Investigator on a 2022-25 ARC Discovery Project: Russian Immigrants and Anti-Communism in Cold War Australia, 1946-1966. Author of Beautiful Balts: From Displaced Persons to New Australians (Sydney: NewSouth Publishing, 2017), shortlisted for the Australian Historical Association's W. K. Hancock Prize 2018, the Prime Minister's Literary Awards Prize for Australian History 2018, and the Queensland Literary Awards USQ History Book Award 2018. Co-editor of Histories of Fascism and Anti-Fascism in Australia (Routledge, 2022). Co-Chief Investigator on a 2016-19 ARC Discovery Project: Displacement and Resettlement: Russian and Russian-speaking Jewish displaced persons arriving in Australia via the ‘China’ route in the wake of the Second World War. Co-founder of Australian Migration History Network: amigrationhn.wordpress.com.
Histories of Fascism and Anti-Fascism in Australia provides a history of fascist movements and an... more Histories of Fascism and Anti-Fascism in Australia provides a history of fascist movements and anti-fascist resistance in Australia over the past century. In recent years, the far right has become a resurgent force across the globe, resulting in populist parties securing electoral victories, social movements organising on the streets, and acts of right-wing terrorism. Australia has not been immune to this. However, this is not merely a recent phenomenon; it has a long history of fascist and far-right groups and individuals. These groups have attempted to situate themselves within the wider settler colonial political landscape, often portraying themselves as the inheritors of a violent and exclusionary colonial past. Concurrently, these groups have linked into globalised anti-communist and white supremacist networks. At the same time, Australia has often seen resistance to fascism and the far right, from the political centre to the far left. Covering the period from the 1920s to the present day, and featuring insights from historians, sociologists, and political scientists, this book provides the most detailed account of this fascinating and important topic. This book will be of interest to students and activists with an interest in the extreme right and anti-fascism as well as Australian history, politics, and society.
Fascists in Exile tells the extraordinary story of the war criminals, collaborators and fascist u... more Fascists in Exile tells the extraordinary story of the war criminals, collaborators and fascist ultranationalists who were resettled in Australia by the International Refugee Organisation between 1947 and 1952.
It explores the far-right backgrounds and continuing political activism of these displaced persons in Australia, adding to our knowledge of the development of Australian anti-communism in the 1950s. These individuals argued that they had been caught between National Socialism and Soviet communism. What might that have meant for their migration and resettlement trajectories? Beyond ‘Nazi-hunting,’ what can this tell us about the challenge they posed to international and national forms, both in Europe and in Australia? This book demonstrates that fascist ideation could not only survive the war’s end but that it continued to be transnational and transcultural. At the same time, anti-fascist protests and then the war crimes investigations of the late 1980s exposed problematic pasts, a legacy with which Australia is still reckoning.
The text will appeal to those with an interest in the far right, Australian migration and refugee issues.
“Jayne Persian’s book provides a gripping narrative of how war criminals entered Australia after 1945 and the lengthy debates that ensued. Sadly, as fascist ideologies spread once again, Persian’s searching account of Australia’s war crimes programme is both timely and instructive.”
Martin Dean, War Crimes Historian
“Jayne Persian vividly recounts the post-1945 resettlement of Displaced Persons including individuals who managed to conceal their wartime collaboration and complicity in war crimes. She reflects on the legacy of concealment and subsequent fitful attempts to prosecute when, decades later, the Australian government ceased turning a blind eye. Her book is a notable achievement and deserves to be widely read.”
Peter Gatrell, Professor, University of Manchester, UK
“Given the passage of time, one would have expected that World War II would have been confined to the dustbin of history. Yet, given the re-emergence of European fascist organisations, together with the increase of antisemitism, Jayne Persian’s new book, Fascists in Exile, is an important and timely publication. As recently demonstrated, the Croatian Ustase is alive and well in Australia. Persian’s concise account of the post-war Australian migration policies through the International Refugee Organisation sheds light on the origins of these fascist movements in Australia. It is a valuable, timely and important contribution to the literature.”
Suzanne Rutland, Professor Emeritus, University of Sydney, Australia
“An important book that, on the basis of solid archival work, clearly and fairmindedly illuminates a key aspect of the history of the Right in Australia in the second half of the twentieth century. This is the story of migrants from Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union whose participation in Nazi war crimes in the Second World War, at first largely concealed from Australian view, were finally after decades subject to (unsuccessful) prosecution. But it is also the story of how the migrants’ anti-communist and anti-Soviet concerns, notably in the “Captive Nations” movement, impacted Australian anti-communism and thus helped to shape Australian politics”
Sheila Fitzpatrick, Professor, Australian Catholic University, Australia
170,000 Displaced Persons arrived in Australia between 1947 and 1952 – the first non-Anglo-Celtic... more 170,000 Displaced Persons arrived in Australia between 1947 and 1952 – the first non-Anglo-Celtic mass migrants.
Australia's first immigration minister, Arthur Calwell, scoured post-war Europe for refugees, Displaced Persons he characterised as 'Beautiful Balts'. Amid the hierarchies of the White Australia Policy, the tensions of the Cold War and the national need for labour, these people would transform not only Australia's immigration policy, but the country itself.
Beautiful Balts tells the extraordinary story of these Displaced Persons. It traces their journey from the chaotic camps of Europe after World War II to a new life in a land of opportunity where prejudice, parochialism, and strident anti-communism were rife. Drawing from archives, oral history interviews and literature generated by the Displaced Persons themselves, Persian investigates who they really were, why Australia wanted them and what they experienced.
'They were often called " Bloody Balts" and told to go back to where they came from; yet this group of post-World War II immigrants from Eastern Europe helped shape modern Australia with their culture and through peaceful assimilation. Life was a hard journey but it was also a song of hope. Jayne Persian's Beautiful Balts celebrates both.' – Peter Skrzynecki OAM
'A lively, well-grounded history of postwar refugees and resettlement that makes sense of the historical and political context while offering vivid glimpses of individual lives in upheaval.' – Professor Sheila Fitzpatrick, University of Sydney
Since 1915, the Australian Red Cross International Tracing Service has worked to reconnect famili... more Since 1915, the Australian Red Cross International Tracing Service has worked to reconnect families from around the world who have been separated by war, armed conflict, disaster and migration.
Some of those journeys to trace a loved one last a lifetime and are truly epic. Even today, a heavy part of the caseload for the Australian Red Cross, as for Red Cross tracing services in Europe and in the newer nation states of the old Soviet Union, relate to those who went missing in the second world war.
In a joint project between the Australian Red Cross, the University of New South Wales and the University of Western Sydney, we are convening an exhibition this year to commemorate 100 years of the Australian Red Cross International Tracing Service.
n 1941, during the second world war, the Menzies government banned Jehovah’s Witnesses. This gave... more n 1941, during the second world war, the Menzies government banned Jehovah’s Witnesses. This gave them the distinction of being the only Christian religious body to be banned in Australia during the 20th century.
Over the past week, Jehovah’s Witnesses have again appeared in news headlines after the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse cross-examined their leaders and scrutinised their policies.
In just three weeks, the war in Ukraine has seen what could be the largest refugee movement since... more In just three weeks, the war in Ukraine has seen what could be the largest refugee movement since the second world war. There are currently more than 3 million Ukrainian refugees, with a further 6.5 million people displaced inside Ukraine. Meanwhile, Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities and civilians continue. Read more: The Ukrainian refugee crisis could last years-but host communities might not be prepared
On 22 September, during a visit to the Canadian Parliament by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelen... more On 22 September, during a visit to the Canadian Parliament by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Speaker Anthony Rota publicly introduced ninety-eight-year-old Yaroslav Hunka as a constituent ‘who fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians’ as part of the First Ukrainian Division during the Second World War. He was ‘a Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero, and we thank him for all his service.’ Hunka received a standing ovation from all present.
In the Canadian parliament last year, an outcry erupted after 98-year-old Ukrainian-Canadian Yaro... more In the Canadian parliament last year, an outcry erupted after 98-year-old Ukrainian-Canadian Yaroslav Hunka was presented to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a hero of the second world war.
It turned out Hunka had fought against the Allies as a voluntary member of the Nazi German Waffen-SS Galizien division. The incident was deeply embarrassing for Canada; Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was forced to publicly apologise.
The incident also highlighted the ignorance of many Canadians when it comes to world history, as well as the makeup of their own post-war immigration schemes.
As I discuss in my new book, Fascists in Exile, Canada isn’t the only country where former Nazis fled after the second world war. And in many of these countries, families continue to grapple with the legacies of this turbulent time in history.
In 1941, during the Second World War, the Menzies government banned Jehovah’s Witnesses, giving t... more In 1941, during the Second World War, the Menzies government banned Jehovah’s Witnesses, giving them the distinction of being the only Christian religious body to be banned in Australia during the twentieth century. Unlike the banning of the Communist Party of Australia in 1940 and similar security strictures, the banning of Jehovah’s Witnesses has been a little-explored footnote in Australia’s political history. This article will redress that situation, based primarily on files from the Attorney-General’s Department, and will argue that the banning of the Witnesses had as much to do with personal politics and a cavalier attitude to fundamental legal principles of religious freedom as with broader issues of national security.
Bonegilla was the longest-lived post-war migrant camp, as well as the largest. Between 1947 and 1... more Bonegilla was the longest-lived post-war migrant camp, as well as the largest. Between 1947 and 1971 around 320 000 migrants passed through. Relinquished by the Army in the late 1990s, Bonegilla is now a heritagelisted commemorative site dubbed 'The Bonegilla Migrant Experience', and is widely referred to as the birthplace of Australian multiculturalism. The story of how this came about raises questions not only as to whether Bonegilla is a reactivated or a failed site of memory, but also as to the success or failure of multiculturalism as a historical narrative in Australia.
Between 1947 and 1952 170,000 Displaced Persons (DPs) arrived in Australia as International Refug... more Between 1947 and 1952 170,000 Displaced Persons (DPs) arrived in Australia as International Refugee Organisation (IRO)-sponsored refugees. This article sets out the international historical and political context for the migration of DPs to Australia, and interrogates the 'bureaucratic labelling' inherent in the category 'Displaced Persons'. The post-war refugees were presented internationally as 'Displaced Persons', 'refugees', “political refugees” and eventually, in an effort to solve the population crisis, as potential 'workers' and 'migrants'. This article will describe the historical origin of the terms 'Displaced Persons', 'refugees', 'political exiles' and 'migrants' — terms which were, and continue to be, relevant and problematic.
170,000 ‘displaced persons’ (DPs) – predominantly Central and Eastern Europeans – arrived in Aust... more 170,000 ‘displaced persons’ (DPs) – predominantly Central and Eastern Europeans – arrived in Australia between 1947 and 1952 as refugees sponsored by the International Refugee Organization (IRO). This article traces the political evolution of the decision by Arthur Calwell’s new Department of Immigration not only to accept, but to actively recruit, displaced persons, as well as examining the Department’s racial and political standards of acceptability in relation to this first mass non- British migration program to Australia. It argues that whiteness, potential as workers and, to a lesser extent, anti-communism were the main criteria applied in judging the suitability of DPs for settlement in Australia.
Immigration, and particularly what to do about refugees and 'asylum seekers', is a hotbutton topi... more Immigration, and particularly what to do about refugees and 'asylum seekers', is a hotbutton topic in Australian politics, encapsulated by the phrase 'stop the boats'. What is missing from the polemic is a sense of the long history of various types of immigration to this country. As an island nation, everyone from the First Peoples onwards arrived by boat right up until ships carrying the Ten Pound Poms docked in the 1960s. Some asylum seekers still arrive by boat. What is needed is a reframing, and contextualisation, of the current debate as the latest iteration of an ongoing cultural conversation around migration and settlement.
Recovering History through Fact and Fiction: Forgotten Lives, 2017
Vladimir Lezak-Borin was a postwar enigma, a Czech migrant to Australia who was much more than he... more Vladimir Lezak-Borin was a postwar enigma, a Czech migrant to Australia who was much more than he seemed. Arriving at the tail end of the postwar Displaced Persons (DP) Scheme, through which more than 170,000 Central and Eastern Europeans arrived in Australia as International Refugee Organisation-sponsored refugees, Borin was described by contemporaries as a "fraud" and of the "political underworld" (Richards 1978, 11). Borin's somewhat convoluted journeys, both political and geographical, tells us something of the life of the politically elite, and active, displaced person. Exploring the life story of an outlier of the DP Scheme in Australia, this essay will focus on Borin's life story as a type of micro-history, or even a foray into speculative biography, in order to tease out broader themes. Borin's life also points to the ambiguities inherent in disrupting grand narratives: in this case, that the displaced persons were politically unproblematic 'New Australians'. Borin left the Communist Party after a disappointing visit to Moscow in 1934, subsequent to which he was possibly a Nazi agent in Paris and indeed, continued in London to provide information to Czech communist agents. Denied British citizenship, he arrived in Australia in 1952 where he wrote the first DP novel and advocated for displaced persons on various issues with federal politicians. He also continued his political activity, associating with Eric Butler's farright organisation, the Australian League of Rights, and working with the Democratic Labour Party. Borin left Australia in the mid-1960s. His journey back to the Soviet Union, and sudden death in either 1968 or 1970, are matters of conjecture. Was he invited to return to Prague by the Czech leader Dubcek in 1967 during the 'Czech Spring', and then killed during the Soviet invasion of 1968? Or did he die, of natural causes, in Czechoslovakia in Recovering History Through Fact and Fiction : Forgotten Lives, edited by Dallas John Baker, et al.
Migrant Nation: Australian Culture, Society and Identity, 2017
Aiming to explore written and spoken forms of self-representation, I discuss a broad range of DP ... more Aiming to explore written and spoken forms of self-representation, I discuss a broad range of DP stories that have influenced Australian culture as well as affecting second and third generations in their search for information and negotiation of identity.
This article examines the lived experience and recent commemorative efforts relating to the exper... more This article examines the lived experience and recent commemorative efforts relating to the experience of displaced prsons who were sent to Queensland in the post-war period. 170,000 displaced persons — predominantly Central and Eastern Europeans — arrived in Australia between 1947 and 1952. They were sent to reception and training centres upon their arrival before commencing a two-year indentured labour contract. Memorialisation of these camps tends to present them as the founding places of the migrant experience in Australia; however, there has been very little historical work on displaced persons in Queensland, or on the Queensland migrant camps — Wacol, Enoggera, Stuart and Cairns. This article focuses on recent commemorative attempts surrounding the Stuart migrant camp in order to argue that, in relation to displaced persons, family and community memories drive commemorative activities.
Remembering Migration: Oral Histories and Heritage in Australia, 2019
As a girl in inter-war Poland, Helena Turkiewicz was orphaned, made homeless by the age of 9 and ... more As a girl in inter-war Poland, Helena Turkiewicz was orphaned, made homeless by the age of 9 and raped by her employer when she was 12. During World War II she was jailed by the Russians and sent to Siberia, then made her way with Polish compatriots through Uzbekistan and Africa, bearing a daughter to an Italian prisoner of war in Tangiers, before arriving in Australia. She has been the subject of her filmmaker daughter's autobiographical documentary, as well as the inspiration for her daughter's 1984 movie Silver City, a romance played out in Australia's postwar immigration camps. 1 However, she was not keen to be interviewed as part of the National Library of Australia's "Polish Australians Oral History Project." Helena argued against being an interesting subject: "What for? The story like mine's plenty now." 2 This chapter aims to answer that question, using qualitative data from oral history interviews I carried out with postwar displaced persons (DPs) and their offspring from Europe and China. 3 It focuses on the utility of oral histories to the displaced persons themselves, and explores how oral histories add to historical understandings of migration, and reflects on emotion in oral history, particularly in the transmission of family memories.
At the end of World War II, European residents of Shanghai included Jewish displaced persons and ... more At the end of World War II, European residents of Shanghai included Jewish displaced persons and ‘White’ émigrés. While the Jewish refugees were initially viewed by Australia as a humanitarian crisis, they then became a controversial sideshow to a planned mass resettlement of displaced persons from Europe. This article contextualises the actual and proposed Jewish and Russian migration from Shanghai with regard to Australian attitudes towards postwar European migrations from the East. This argument traces the anti-Semitic and anti-Russian sentiments that pressured Calwell into ultimately blocking Russian migration from Shanghai as well as placing a tight curb on the migration of Jewish displaced persons from both Asia and Europe.
Memory and Family in Australian Refugee Histories , 2019
This book revisits Australian histories of refugee arrivals and settlement – with a particular fo... more This book revisits Australian histories of refugee arrivals and settlement – with a particular focus on family and family life. It brings together new empirical research, and methodologies in memory and oral history, to offer multilayered histories of people seeking refuge in the 20th century.
Engaging with histories of refugees and ‘family’, and how these histories intersect with aspects of memory studies — including oral history, public storytelling, family history, and museum exhibitions and objects — the book moves away from a focus on individual adults and towards multilayered and rich histories of groups with a variety of intersectional affiliations. The contributions consider the conflicting layers of meaning built up around racialised and de-racialised refugee groups throughout the 20th century, and their relationship to structural inequalities, their shifting socio-economic positions, and the changing racial and religious categories of inclusion and exclusion employed by dominant institutions. As the contributors to this book suggest, ‘family’ functions as a means to revisit or research histories of mobility and refuge. This focus on ‘family’ illuminates intimate aspects of a history and the emotions it contains and enables – complicating the passive victim stereotype often applied to refugees.
As interest in refugee ‘integration’ continues to rise as a result of increasingly vociferous identity politics and rising right-wing rhetoric, this book offers readers new insights into the intersections between family and memory, and the potential avenues this might open up for considering refugee studies in a more intimate way. This book was originally published as a special issue of Immigrants & Minorities.
Histories of Fascism and Anti-Fascism in Australia provides a history of fascist movements and an... more Histories of Fascism and Anti-Fascism in Australia provides a history of fascist movements and anti-fascist resistance in Australia over the past century. In recent years, the far right has become a resurgent force across the globe, resulting in populist parties securing electoral victories, social movements organising on the streets, and acts of right-wing terrorism. Australia has not been immune to this. However, this is not merely a recent phenomenon; it has a long history of fascist and far-right groups and individuals. These groups have attempted to situate themselves within the wider settler colonial political landscape, often portraying themselves as the inheritors of a violent and exclusionary colonial past. Concurrently, these groups have linked into globalised anti-communist and white supremacist networks. At the same time, Australia has often seen resistance to fascism and the far right, from the political centre to the far left. Covering the period from the 1920s to the present day, and featuring insights from historians, sociologists, and political scientists, this book provides the most detailed account of this fascinating and important topic. This book will be of interest to students and activists with an interest in the extreme right and anti-fascism as well as Australian history, politics, and society.
Fascists in Exile tells the extraordinary story of the war criminals, collaborators and fascist u... more Fascists in Exile tells the extraordinary story of the war criminals, collaborators and fascist ultranationalists who were resettled in Australia by the International Refugee Organisation between 1947 and 1952.
It explores the far-right backgrounds and continuing political activism of these displaced persons in Australia, adding to our knowledge of the development of Australian anti-communism in the 1950s. These individuals argued that they had been caught between National Socialism and Soviet communism. What might that have meant for their migration and resettlement trajectories? Beyond ‘Nazi-hunting,’ what can this tell us about the challenge they posed to international and national forms, both in Europe and in Australia? This book demonstrates that fascist ideation could not only survive the war’s end but that it continued to be transnational and transcultural. At the same time, anti-fascist protests and then the war crimes investigations of the late 1980s exposed problematic pasts, a legacy with which Australia is still reckoning.
The text will appeal to those with an interest in the far right, Australian migration and refugee issues.
“Jayne Persian’s book provides a gripping narrative of how war criminals entered Australia after 1945 and the lengthy debates that ensued. Sadly, as fascist ideologies spread once again, Persian’s searching account of Australia’s war crimes programme is both timely and instructive.”
Martin Dean, War Crimes Historian
“Jayne Persian vividly recounts the post-1945 resettlement of Displaced Persons including individuals who managed to conceal their wartime collaboration and complicity in war crimes. She reflects on the legacy of concealment and subsequent fitful attempts to prosecute when, decades later, the Australian government ceased turning a blind eye. Her book is a notable achievement and deserves to be widely read.”
Peter Gatrell, Professor, University of Manchester, UK
“Given the passage of time, one would have expected that World War II would have been confined to the dustbin of history. Yet, given the re-emergence of European fascist organisations, together with the increase of antisemitism, Jayne Persian’s new book, Fascists in Exile, is an important and timely publication. As recently demonstrated, the Croatian Ustase is alive and well in Australia. Persian’s concise account of the post-war Australian migration policies through the International Refugee Organisation sheds light on the origins of these fascist movements in Australia. It is a valuable, timely and important contribution to the literature.”
Suzanne Rutland, Professor Emeritus, University of Sydney, Australia
“An important book that, on the basis of solid archival work, clearly and fairmindedly illuminates a key aspect of the history of the Right in Australia in the second half of the twentieth century. This is the story of migrants from Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union whose participation in Nazi war crimes in the Second World War, at first largely concealed from Australian view, were finally after decades subject to (unsuccessful) prosecution. But it is also the story of how the migrants’ anti-communist and anti-Soviet concerns, notably in the “Captive Nations” movement, impacted Australian anti-communism and thus helped to shape Australian politics”
Sheila Fitzpatrick, Professor, Australian Catholic University, Australia
170,000 Displaced Persons arrived in Australia between 1947 and 1952 – the first non-Anglo-Celtic... more 170,000 Displaced Persons arrived in Australia between 1947 and 1952 – the first non-Anglo-Celtic mass migrants.
Australia's first immigration minister, Arthur Calwell, scoured post-war Europe for refugees, Displaced Persons he characterised as 'Beautiful Balts'. Amid the hierarchies of the White Australia Policy, the tensions of the Cold War and the national need for labour, these people would transform not only Australia's immigration policy, but the country itself.
Beautiful Balts tells the extraordinary story of these Displaced Persons. It traces their journey from the chaotic camps of Europe after World War II to a new life in a land of opportunity where prejudice, parochialism, and strident anti-communism were rife. Drawing from archives, oral history interviews and literature generated by the Displaced Persons themselves, Persian investigates who they really were, why Australia wanted them and what they experienced.
'They were often called " Bloody Balts" and told to go back to where they came from; yet this group of post-World War II immigrants from Eastern Europe helped shape modern Australia with their culture and through peaceful assimilation. Life was a hard journey but it was also a song of hope. Jayne Persian's Beautiful Balts celebrates both.' – Peter Skrzynecki OAM
'A lively, well-grounded history of postwar refugees and resettlement that makes sense of the historical and political context while offering vivid glimpses of individual lives in upheaval.' – Professor Sheila Fitzpatrick, University of Sydney
Since 1915, the Australian Red Cross International Tracing Service has worked to reconnect famili... more Since 1915, the Australian Red Cross International Tracing Service has worked to reconnect families from around the world who have been separated by war, armed conflict, disaster and migration.
Some of those journeys to trace a loved one last a lifetime and are truly epic. Even today, a heavy part of the caseload for the Australian Red Cross, as for Red Cross tracing services in Europe and in the newer nation states of the old Soviet Union, relate to those who went missing in the second world war.
In a joint project between the Australian Red Cross, the University of New South Wales and the University of Western Sydney, we are convening an exhibition this year to commemorate 100 years of the Australian Red Cross International Tracing Service.
n 1941, during the second world war, the Menzies government banned Jehovah’s Witnesses. This gave... more n 1941, during the second world war, the Menzies government banned Jehovah’s Witnesses. This gave them the distinction of being the only Christian religious body to be banned in Australia during the 20th century.
Over the past week, Jehovah’s Witnesses have again appeared in news headlines after the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse cross-examined their leaders and scrutinised their policies.
In just three weeks, the war in Ukraine has seen what could be the largest refugee movement since... more In just three weeks, the war in Ukraine has seen what could be the largest refugee movement since the second world war. There are currently more than 3 million Ukrainian refugees, with a further 6.5 million people displaced inside Ukraine. Meanwhile, Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities and civilians continue. Read more: The Ukrainian refugee crisis could last years-but host communities might not be prepared
On 22 September, during a visit to the Canadian Parliament by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelen... more On 22 September, during a visit to the Canadian Parliament by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Speaker Anthony Rota publicly introduced ninety-eight-year-old Yaroslav Hunka as a constituent ‘who fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians’ as part of the First Ukrainian Division during the Second World War. He was ‘a Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero, and we thank him for all his service.’ Hunka received a standing ovation from all present.
In the Canadian parliament last year, an outcry erupted after 98-year-old Ukrainian-Canadian Yaro... more In the Canadian parliament last year, an outcry erupted after 98-year-old Ukrainian-Canadian Yaroslav Hunka was presented to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a hero of the second world war.
It turned out Hunka had fought against the Allies as a voluntary member of the Nazi German Waffen-SS Galizien division. The incident was deeply embarrassing for Canada; Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was forced to publicly apologise.
The incident also highlighted the ignorance of many Canadians when it comes to world history, as well as the makeup of their own post-war immigration schemes.
As I discuss in my new book, Fascists in Exile, Canada isn’t the only country where former Nazis fled after the second world war. And in many of these countries, families continue to grapple with the legacies of this turbulent time in history.
In 1941, during the Second World War, the Menzies government banned Jehovah’s Witnesses, giving t... more In 1941, during the Second World War, the Menzies government banned Jehovah’s Witnesses, giving them the distinction of being the only Christian religious body to be banned in Australia during the twentieth century. Unlike the banning of the Communist Party of Australia in 1940 and similar security strictures, the banning of Jehovah’s Witnesses has been a little-explored footnote in Australia’s political history. This article will redress that situation, based primarily on files from the Attorney-General’s Department, and will argue that the banning of the Witnesses had as much to do with personal politics and a cavalier attitude to fundamental legal principles of religious freedom as with broader issues of national security.
Bonegilla was the longest-lived post-war migrant camp, as well as the largest. Between 1947 and 1... more Bonegilla was the longest-lived post-war migrant camp, as well as the largest. Between 1947 and 1971 around 320 000 migrants passed through. Relinquished by the Army in the late 1990s, Bonegilla is now a heritagelisted commemorative site dubbed 'The Bonegilla Migrant Experience', and is widely referred to as the birthplace of Australian multiculturalism. The story of how this came about raises questions not only as to whether Bonegilla is a reactivated or a failed site of memory, but also as to the success or failure of multiculturalism as a historical narrative in Australia.
Between 1947 and 1952 170,000 Displaced Persons (DPs) arrived in Australia as International Refug... more Between 1947 and 1952 170,000 Displaced Persons (DPs) arrived in Australia as International Refugee Organisation (IRO)-sponsored refugees. This article sets out the international historical and political context for the migration of DPs to Australia, and interrogates the 'bureaucratic labelling' inherent in the category 'Displaced Persons'. The post-war refugees were presented internationally as 'Displaced Persons', 'refugees', “political refugees” and eventually, in an effort to solve the population crisis, as potential 'workers' and 'migrants'. This article will describe the historical origin of the terms 'Displaced Persons', 'refugees', 'political exiles' and 'migrants' — terms which were, and continue to be, relevant and problematic.
170,000 ‘displaced persons’ (DPs) – predominantly Central and Eastern Europeans – arrived in Aust... more 170,000 ‘displaced persons’ (DPs) – predominantly Central and Eastern Europeans – arrived in Australia between 1947 and 1952 as refugees sponsored by the International Refugee Organization (IRO). This article traces the political evolution of the decision by Arthur Calwell’s new Department of Immigration not only to accept, but to actively recruit, displaced persons, as well as examining the Department’s racial and political standards of acceptability in relation to this first mass non- British migration program to Australia. It argues that whiteness, potential as workers and, to a lesser extent, anti-communism were the main criteria applied in judging the suitability of DPs for settlement in Australia.
Immigration, and particularly what to do about refugees and 'asylum seekers', is a hotbutton topi... more Immigration, and particularly what to do about refugees and 'asylum seekers', is a hotbutton topic in Australian politics, encapsulated by the phrase 'stop the boats'. What is missing from the polemic is a sense of the long history of various types of immigration to this country. As an island nation, everyone from the First Peoples onwards arrived by boat right up until ships carrying the Ten Pound Poms docked in the 1960s. Some asylum seekers still arrive by boat. What is needed is a reframing, and contextualisation, of the current debate as the latest iteration of an ongoing cultural conversation around migration and settlement.
Recovering History through Fact and Fiction: Forgotten Lives, 2017
Vladimir Lezak-Borin was a postwar enigma, a Czech migrant to Australia who was much more than he... more Vladimir Lezak-Borin was a postwar enigma, a Czech migrant to Australia who was much more than he seemed. Arriving at the tail end of the postwar Displaced Persons (DP) Scheme, through which more than 170,000 Central and Eastern Europeans arrived in Australia as International Refugee Organisation-sponsored refugees, Borin was described by contemporaries as a "fraud" and of the "political underworld" (Richards 1978, 11). Borin's somewhat convoluted journeys, both political and geographical, tells us something of the life of the politically elite, and active, displaced person. Exploring the life story of an outlier of the DP Scheme in Australia, this essay will focus on Borin's life story as a type of micro-history, or even a foray into speculative biography, in order to tease out broader themes. Borin's life also points to the ambiguities inherent in disrupting grand narratives: in this case, that the displaced persons were politically unproblematic 'New Australians'. Borin left the Communist Party after a disappointing visit to Moscow in 1934, subsequent to which he was possibly a Nazi agent in Paris and indeed, continued in London to provide information to Czech communist agents. Denied British citizenship, he arrived in Australia in 1952 where he wrote the first DP novel and advocated for displaced persons on various issues with federal politicians. He also continued his political activity, associating with Eric Butler's farright organisation, the Australian League of Rights, and working with the Democratic Labour Party. Borin left Australia in the mid-1960s. His journey back to the Soviet Union, and sudden death in either 1968 or 1970, are matters of conjecture. Was he invited to return to Prague by the Czech leader Dubcek in 1967 during the 'Czech Spring', and then killed during the Soviet invasion of 1968? Or did he die, of natural causes, in Czechoslovakia in Recovering History Through Fact and Fiction : Forgotten Lives, edited by Dallas John Baker, et al.
Migrant Nation: Australian Culture, Society and Identity, 2017
Aiming to explore written and spoken forms of self-representation, I discuss a broad range of DP ... more Aiming to explore written and spoken forms of self-representation, I discuss a broad range of DP stories that have influenced Australian culture as well as affecting second and third generations in their search for information and negotiation of identity.
This article examines the lived experience and recent commemorative efforts relating to the exper... more This article examines the lived experience and recent commemorative efforts relating to the experience of displaced prsons who were sent to Queensland in the post-war period. 170,000 displaced persons — predominantly Central and Eastern Europeans — arrived in Australia between 1947 and 1952. They were sent to reception and training centres upon their arrival before commencing a two-year indentured labour contract. Memorialisation of these camps tends to present them as the founding places of the migrant experience in Australia; however, there has been very little historical work on displaced persons in Queensland, or on the Queensland migrant camps — Wacol, Enoggera, Stuart and Cairns. This article focuses on recent commemorative attempts surrounding the Stuart migrant camp in order to argue that, in relation to displaced persons, family and community memories drive commemorative activities.
Remembering Migration: Oral Histories and Heritage in Australia, 2019
As a girl in inter-war Poland, Helena Turkiewicz was orphaned, made homeless by the age of 9 and ... more As a girl in inter-war Poland, Helena Turkiewicz was orphaned, made homeless by the age of 9 and raped by her employer when she was 12. During World War II she was jailed by the Russians and sent to Siberia, then made her way with Polish compatriots through Uzbekistan and Africa, bearing a daughter to an Italian prisoner of war in Tangiers, before arriving in Australia. She has been the subject of her filmmaker daughter's autobiographical documentary, as well as the inspiration for her daughter's 1984 movie Silver City, a romance played out in Australia's postwar immigration camps. 1 However, she was not keen to be interviewed as part of the National Library of Australia's "Polish Australians Oral History Project." Helena argued against being an interesting subject: "What for? The story like mine's plenty now." 2 This chapter aims to answer that question, using qualitative data from oral history interviews I carried out with postwar displaced persons (DPs) and their offspring from Europe and China. 3 It focuses on the utility of oral histories to the displaced persons themselves, and explores how oral histories add to historical understandings of migration, and reflects on emotion in oral history, particularly in the transmission of family memories.
At the end of World War II, European residents of Shanghai included Jewish displaced persons and ... more At the end of World War II, European residents of Shanghai included Jewish displaced persons and ‘White’ émigrés. While the Jewish refugees were initially viewed by Australia as a humanitarian crisis, they then became a controversial sideshow to a planned mass resettlement of displaced persons from Europe. This article contextualises the actual and proposed Jewish and Russian migration from Shanghai with regard to Australian attitudes towards postwar European migrations from the East. This argument traces the anti-Semitic and anti-Russian sentiments that pressured Calwell into ultimately blocking Russian migration from Shanghai as well as placing a tight curb on the migration of Jewish displaced persons from both Asia and Europe.
Memory and Family in Australian Refugee Histories , 2019
This book revisits Australian histories of refugee arrivals and settlement – with a particular fo... more This book revisits Australian histories of refugee arrivals and settlement – with a particular focus on family and family life. It brings together new empirical research, and methodologies in memory and oral history, to offer multilayered histories of people seeking refuge in the 20th century.
Engaging with histories of refugees and ‘family’, and how these histories intersect with aspects of memory studies — including oral history, public storytelling, family history, and museum exhibitions and objects — the book moves away from a focus on individual adults and towards multilayered and rich histories of groups with a variety of intersectional affiliations. The contributions consider the conflicting layers of meaning built up around racialised and de-racialised refugee groups throughout the 20th century, and their relationship to structural inequalities, their shifting socio-economic positions, and the changing racial and religious categories of inclusion and exclusion employed by dominant institutions. As the contributors to this book suggest, ‘family’ functions as a means to revisit or research histories of mobility and refuge. This focus on ‘family’ illuminates intimate aspects of a history and the emotions it contains and enables – complicating the passive victim stereotype often applied to refugees.
As interest in refugee ‘integration’ continues to rise as a result of increasingly vociferous identity politics and rising right-wing rhetoric, this book offers readers new insights into the intersections between family and memory, and the potential avenues this might open up for considering refugee studies in a more intimate way. This book was originally published as a special issue of Immigrants & Minorities.
This article will outline a series of historical fragments which represent encounters between the... more This article will outline a series of historical fragments which represent encounters between the early post World War Two European migrants and indigenous peoples. While both displaced persons and Indigenous peoples have been studied by historians as the objects of assimilationist policy, any relationship between these two groups has been largely ignored. This article will thus explore the connection between these disparate groups, in the context of White Australia, assimilation and mid-century settler colonialism.
Histories of Fascism and Anti-Fascism in Australia, 2023
The relationship between the Australian far right and Central/Eastern European migrant groups in ... more The relationship between the Australian far right and Central/Eastern European migrant groups in the 1960s and 1970s has been highlighted by some scholars. Predominantly linked by an extreme anti-communism, with an underlying anti-Semitism and white supremacism, the neo-Nazi groups in Australia closely aligned with certain Hungarian, Ukrainian and Croatian nationalist organisations, primarily made up of people that had emigrated during in the early post-war era. However, for the most part, they remained separate organisations. This chapter looks an exception to this. Ferenc (or Frank) Molnar was a Hungarian migrant to Australia who arrived in the late 1940s and in the mid-1960s, co-founded the National Socialist Party of Australia in Canberra with Edward (or Ted) Robert Cawthron. The rest of his NSPA colleagues were predominantly Anglo-Australian, with Molnar representing the in-roads that the Australian far right were attempting to make into the European migrant communities that had arrived in the post-war period. By exploring the security files that were held on Molnar and the publications of the NSPA, this chapter seeks to outline how Central/Eastern European nationalism and racial politics developed amongst these diasporas in Cold War Australia, and how they interacted with an Anglicised fascism that had developed in a settler colonial environment. Molnar represents a nexus point for these overlapping movements and helps us understand how the Australian far right was fostered within an international and transnational context.
Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, 2023
In post-war Australia, the word ‘wog’ was used to describe the southern Europeans who dominated t... more In post-war Australia, the word ‘wog’ was used to describe the southern Europeans who dominated the mass migration schemes, particularly Italians and Greeks. The evolution of ‘wog’ from slur to celebration peaked in the 1990s, led by second-generation migrant comedians. This paper sets out the history of this evolution and the societal context in which ‘wog’ humour was invented in a uniquely ‘Australian’ way. Many of the cultural texts that make up the wog phenomenon have centred on themes of work and labour – from the original Wogs Out of Work to Pizza and Housos. This paper extends its consideration of labour in these works beyond themes in the content to argue that the act of ethnic humour is a form of convivial labour and ethnic entrepreneurship.
Matthew Cunningham, Marinus La Rooij and Paul Spoonley (eds), Histories of Hate: The Radical Righ... more Matthew Cunningham, Marinus La Rooij and Paul Spoonley (eds), Histories of Hate: The Radical Right in Aotearoa New Zealand
The Humanitarians: Child War Refugees and Australian Humanitarianism in a Transnational World, 19... more The Humanitarians: Child War Refugees and Australian Humanitarianism in a Transnational World, 1919–1975. By Joy Damousi. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022. pp. xiii + 347. $141.95 (HB)
BOOK REVIEWS
Cruel Care: A History of Children at Our Borders
By Jordana Silverstein. Melbourne: ... more BOOK REVIEWS Cruel Care: A History of Children at Our Borders By Jordana Silverstein. Melbourne: Monash University Publishing, 2023. Pp. 320. A$34.99 paper.
Book Review of: James Hammerton, Migrants of the British Diaspora since the 1960s: Stories from M... more Book Review of: James Hammerton, Migrants of the British Diaspora since the 1960s: Stories from Modern Nomads, Manchester University Press, 2017. ISBN (hbk) 9781526116574.
Oral History of Australia Association Journal, 2017
Review: Melanie Ilic and Dalia Leinarte (eds), The Soviet past in the post-Socialist present: met... more Review: Melanie Ilic and Dalia Leinarte (eds), The Soviet past in the post-Socialist present: methodology and ethics in Russian, Baltic and Central European oral history and memory studies, Routledge Approaches to History, Routledge, 2016. 257 pages. ISBN (hbk) 9781138933453.
Review. M. James Penton: Apocalypse Delayed: The Story of Jehovah's Witnesses. Toronto, Buffalo, ... more Review. M. James Penton: Apocalypse Delayed: The Story of Jehovah's Witnesses. Toronto, Buffalo, and London: University of Toronto Press, 3rd ed., 2015; pp. xvii + 547.
Review. Across the Seas: Australia’s Response to Refugees, a History, by Klaus Neumann, Collingwo... more Review. Across the Seas: Australia’s Response to Refugees, a History, by Klaus Neumann, Collingwood, VIC, Black Inc., 2015, 358 pp., A$34.99 (paperback), ISBN: 978186395 7359. Publisher’s website: www.blackincbooks.com.
Review of Ann-Mari Jordens, Hope: Refugees and their Supporters in Australia since 1947 (Braddon:... more Review of Ann-Mari Jordens, Hope: Refugees and their Supporters in Australia since 1947 (Braddon: Halstead Press, 2012), pp. 239. $28.95 paper.
Thank you everyone for this opportunity to unashamedly spruik my new book, Fascists in Exile: Pos... more Thank you everyone for this opportunity to unashamedly spruik my new book, Fascists in Exile: Post-War Displaced Persons in Australia, which was published by Routledge Studies in Fascism and the Far Right at the beginning of this year and is a major output of an ARC Discovery Project titled ‘Russian Immigrants and Anti-Communism in Cold War Australia, 1946-1966’.
During the Second World War, a group of Russians resident in Brisbane and led by Father V. Antoni... more During the Second World War, a group of Russians resident in Brisbane and led by Father V. Antonieff were interned as 'fascists'. Their sympathies for the All-Russian Fascist Party, originating in Harbin (Manchukuo), added to the Department of Immigration's view of Russians in China as having a 'most unsavoury reputation'. Indeed, some Russian 'displaced persons' in China were refused entry to Australia in the postwar period because their sponsors had connections to the internees. This paper examines the repercussions for postwar immigration of this interned group, [the aim is also to explore their influence on postwar migrant political groupings].
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Books by Jayne Persian
It explores the far-right backgrounds and continuing political activism of these displaced persons in Australia, adding to our knowledge of the development of Australian anti-communism in the 1950s. These individuals argued that they had been caught between National Socialism and Soviet communism. What might that have meant for their migration and resettlement trajectories? Beyond ‘Nazi-hunting,’ what can this tell us about the challenge they posed to international and national forms, both in Europe and in Australia? This book demonstrates that fascist ideation could not only survive the war’s end but that it continued to be transnational and transcultural. At the same time, anti-fascist protests and then the war crimes investigations of the late 1980s exposed problematic pasts, a legacy with which Australia is still reckoning.
The text will appeal to those with an interest in the far right, Australian migration and refugee issues.
“Jayne Persian’s book provides a gripping narrative of how war criminals entered Australia after 1945 and the lengthy debates that ensued. Sadly, as fascist ideologies spread once again, Persian’s searching account of Australia’s war crimes programme is both timely and instructive.”
Martin Dean, War Crimes Historian
“Jayne Persian vividly recounts the post-1945 resettlement of Displaced Persons including individuals who managed to conceal their wartime collaboration and complicity in war crimes. She reflects on the legacy of concealment and subsequent fitful attempts to prosecute when, decades later, the Australian government ceased turning a blind eye. Her book is a notable achievement and deserves to be widely read.”
Peter Gatrell, Professor, University of Manchester, UK
“Given the passage of time, one would have expected that World War II would have been confined to the dustbin of history. Yet, given the re-emergence of European fascist organisations, together with the increase of antisemitism, Jayne Persian’s new book, Fascists in Exile, is an important and timely publication. As recently demonstrated, the Croatian Ustase is alive and well in Australia. Persian’s concise account of the post-war Australian migration policies through the International Refugee Organisation sheds light on the origins of these fascist movements in Australia. It is a valuable, timely and important contribution to the literature.”
Suzanne Rutland, Professor Emeritus, University of Sydney, Australia
“An important book that, on the basis of solid archival work, clearly and fairmindedly illuminates a key aspect of the history of the Right in Australia in the second half of the twentieth century. This is the story of migrants from Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union whose participation in Nazi war crimes in the Second World War, at first largely concealed from Australian view, were finally after decades subject to (unsuccessful) prosecution. But it is also the story of how the migrants’ anti-communist and anti-Soviet concerns, notably in the “Captive Nations” movement, impacted Australian anti-communism and thus helped to shape Australian politics”
Sheila Fitzpatrick, Professor, Australian Catholic University, Australia
Australia's first immigration minister, Arthur Calwell, scoured post-war Europe for refugees, Displaced Persons he characterised as 'Beautiful Balts'. Amid the hierarchies of the White Australia Policy, the tensions of the Cold War and the national need for labour, these people would transform not only Australia's immigration policy, but the country itself.
Beautiful Balts tells the extraordinary story of these Displaced Persons. It traces their journey from the chaotic camps of Europe after World War II to a new life in a land of opportunity where prejudice, parochialism, and strident anti-communism were rife. Drawing from archives, oral history interviews and literature generated by the Displaced Persons themselves, Persian investigates who they really were, why Australia wanted them and what they experienced.
'They were often called " Bloody Balts" and told to go back to where they came from; yet this group of post-World War II immigrants from Eastern Europe helped shape modern Australia with their culture and through peaceful assimilation. Life was a hard journey but it was also a song of hope. Jayne Persian's Beautiful Balts celebrates both.' – Peter Skrzynecki OAM
'A lively, well-grounded history of postwar refugees and resettlement that makes sense of the historical and political context while offering vivid glimpses of individual lives in upheaval.' – Professor Sheila Fitzpatrick, University of Sydney
Papers by Jayne Persian
New blog post, with short excerpt from introduction of my new book.
Some of those journeys to trace a loved one last a lifetime and are truly epic. Even today, a heavy part of the caseload for the Australian Red Cross, as for Red Cross tracing services in Europe and in the newer nation states of the old Soviet Union, relate to those who went missing in the second world war.
In a joint project between the Australian Red Cross, the University of New South Wales and the University of Western Sydney, we are convening an exhibition this year to commemorate 100 years of the Australian Red Cross International Tracing Service.
Over the past week, Jehovah’s Witnesses have again appeared in news headlines after the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse cross-examined their leaders and scrutinised their policies.
It turned out Hunka had fought against the Allies as a voluntary member of the Nazi German Waffen-SS Galizien division. The incident was deeply embarrassing for Canada; Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was forced to publicly apologise.
The incident also highlighted the ignorance of many Canadians when it comes to world history, as well as the makeup of their own post-war immigration schemes.
As I discuss in my new book, Fascists in Exile, Canada isn’t the only country where former Nazis fled after the second world war. And in many of these countries, families continue to grapple with the legacies of this turbulent time in history.
Engaging with histories of refugees and ‘family’, and how these histories intersect with aspects of memory studies — including oral history, public storytelling, family history, and museum exhibitions and objects — the book moves away from a focus on individual adults and towards multilayered and rich histories of groups with a variety of intersectional affiliations. The contributions consider the conflicting layers of meaning built up around racialised and de-racialised refugee groups throughout the 20th century, and their relationship to structural inequalities, their shifting socio-economic positions, and the changing racial and religious categories of inclusion and exclusion employed by dominant institutions. As the contributors to this book suggest, ‘family’ functions as a means to revisit or research histories of mobility and refuge. This focus on ‘family’ illuminates intimate aspects of a history and the emotions it contains and enables – complicating the passive victim stereotype often applied to refugees.
As interest in refugee ‘integration’ continues to rise as a result of increasingly vociferous identity politics and rising right-wing rhetoric, this book offers readers new insights into the intersections between family and memory, and the potential avenues this might open up for considering refugee studies in a more intimate way. This book was originally published as a special issue of Immigrants & Minorities.
It explores the far-right backgrounds and continuing political activism of these displaced persons in Australia, adding to our knowledge of the development of Australian anti-communism in the 1950s. These individuals argued that they had been caught between National Socialism and Soviet communism. What might that have meant for their migration and resettlement trajectories? Beyond ‘Nazi-hunting,’ what can this tell us about the challenge they posed to international and national forms, both in Europe and in Australia? This book demonstrates that fascist ideation could not only survive the war’s end but that it continued to be transnational and transcultural. At the same time, anti-fascist protests and then the war crimes investigations of the late 1980s exposed problematic pasts, a legacy with which Australia is still reckoning.
The text will appeal to those with an interest in the far right, Australian migration and refugee issues.
“Jayne Persian’s book provides a gripping narrative of how war criminals entered Australia after 1945 and the lengthy debates that ensued. Sadly, as fascist ideologies spread once again, Persian’s searching account of Australia’s war crimes programme is both timely and instructive.”
Martin Dean, War Crimes Historian
“Jayne Persian vividly recounts the post-1945 resettlement of Displaced Persons including individuals who managed to conceal their wartime collaboration and complicity in war crimes. She reflects on the legacy of concealment and subsequent fitful attempts to prosecute when, decades later, the Australian government ceased turning a blind eye. Her book is a notable achievement and deserves to be widely read.”
Peter Gatrell, Professor, University of Manchester, UK
“Given the passage of time, one would have expected that World War II would have been confined to the dustbin of history. Yet, given the re-emergence of European fascist organisations, together with the increase of antisemitism, Jayne Persian’s new book, Fascists in Exile, is an important and timely publication. As recently demonstrated, the Croatian Ustase is alive and well in Australia. Persian’s concise account of the post-war Australian migration policies through the International Refugee Organisation sheds light on the origins of these fascist movements in Australia. It is a valuable, timely and important contribution to the literature.”
Suzanne Rutland, Professor Emeritus, University of Sydney, Australia
“An important book that, on the basis of solid archival work, clearly and fairmindedly illuminates a key aspect of the history of the Right in Australia in the second half of the twentieth century. This is the story of migrants from Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union whose participation in Nazi war crimes in the Second World War, at first largely concealed from Australian view, were finally after decades subject to (unsuccessful) prosecution. But it is also the story of how the migrants’ anti-communist and anti-Soviet concerns, notably in the “Captive Nations” movement, impacted Australian anti-communism and thus helped to shape Australian politics”
Sheila Fitzpatrick, Professor, Australian Catholic University, Australia
Australia's first immigration minister, Arthur Calwell, scoured post-war Europe for refugees, Displaced Persons he characterised as 'Beautiful Balts'. Amid the hierarchies of the White Australia Policy, the tensions of the Cold War and the national need for labour, these people would transform not only Australia's immigration policy, but the country itself.
Beautiful Balts tells the extraordinary story of these Displaced Persons. It traces their journey from the chaotic camps of Europe after World War II to a new life in a land of opportunity where prejudice, parochialism, and strident anti-communism were rife. Drawing from archives, oral history interviews and literature generated by the Displaced Persons themselves, Persian investigates who they really were, why Australia wanted them and what they experienced.
'They were often called " Bloody Balts" and told to go back to where they came from; yet this group of post-World War II immigrants from Eastern Europe helped shape modern Australia with their culture and through peaceful assimilation. Life was a hard journey but it was also a song of hope. Jayne Persian's Beautiful Balts celebrates both.' – Peter Skrzynecki OAM
'A lively, well-grounded history of postwar refugees and resettlement that makes sense of the historical and political context while offering vivid glimpses of individual lives in upheaval.' – Professor Sheila Fitzpatrick, University of Sydney
New blog post, with short excerpt from introduction of my new book.
Some of those journeys to trace a loved one last a lifetime and are truly epic. Even today, a heavy part of the caseload for the Australian Red Cross, as for Red Cross tracing services in Europe and in the newer nation states of the old Soviet Union, relate to those who went missing in the second world war.
In a joint project between the Australian Red Cross, the University of New South Wales and the University of Western Sydney, we are convening an exhibition this year to commemorate 100 years of the Australian Red Cross International Tracing Service.
Over the past week, Jehovah’s Witnesses have again appeared in news headlines after the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse cross-examined their leaders and scrutinised their policies.
It turned out Hunka had fought against the Allies as a voluntary member of the Nazi German Waffen-SS Galizien division. The incident was deeply embarrassing for Canada; Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was forced to publicly apologise.
The incident also highlighted the ignorance of many Canadians when it comes to world history, as well as the makeup of their own post-war immigration schemes.
As I discuss in my new book, Fascists in Exile, Canada isn’t the only country where former Nazis fled after the second world war. And in many of these countries, families continue to grapple with the legacies of this turbulent time in history.
Engaging with histories of refugees and ‘family’, and how these histories intersect with aspects of memory studies — including oral history, public storytelling, family history, and museum exhibitions and objects — the book moves away from a focus on individual adults and towards multilayered and rich histories of groups with a variety of intersectional affiliations. The contributions consider the conflicting layers of meaning built up around racialised and de-racialised refugee groups throughout the 20th century, and their relationship to structural inequalities, their shifting socio-economic positions, and the changing racial and religious categories of inclusion and exclusion employed by dominant institutions. As the contributors to this book suggest, ‘family’ functions as a means to revisit or research histories of mobility and refuge. This focus on ‘family’ illuminates intimate aspects of a history and the emotions it contains and enables – complicating the passive victim stereotype often applied to refugees.
As interest in refugee ‘integration’ continues to rise as a result of increasingly vociferous identity politics and rising right-wing rhetoric, this book offers readers new insights into the intersections between family and memory, and the potential avenues this might open up for considering refugee studies in a more intimate way. This book was originally published as a special issue of Immigrants & Minorities.
Cruel Care: A History of Children at Our Borders
By Jordana Silverstein. Melbourne: Monash University Publishing, 2023. Pp. 320. A$34.99 paper.
7359. Publisher’s website: www.blackincbooks.com.