Remembering refugees: then and now

Kushner, Tony (2006) Remembering refugees: then and now , Manchester, UK. Manchester University Press, 272pp.

Abstract

Refugee crises are one of the gravest problems facing the modern world. This book explores the paradox of why countries such as Britain pride themselves on their past treatment of refugees yet are suspicious and hostile towards asylum seekers trying to gain entry. It explores the contemporary treatment and representation of refugees ranging from the Huguenots in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries through to the many groups that have gained entry more recently. Was the treatment of refugees such as Jews escaping Tsarist and later Nazi persecution as welcoming as politicians and others now make out? Why have some groups been remembered positively, whilst others have been forgotten? By focusing on particular places it explores how local identities have been constructed in relation to refugees. Remembering Refugees plays particular attention to how historians and those in the heritage industry have dealt with the refugee presence – why, for example, are refugees so invisible in museums and other popular representations of the past? By adopting an original and critical framework, it asks why a variety of academic disciplines, as well as politicians, the media and the general public, have difficulty with refugees. It is a richly textured book that utilizes a huge range of sources from parliamentary debates through to novels, films and autobiographical writing. Ultimately, it argues that the current panic about refugees and asylum seekers says more about the moral failings of contemporary society than it does about those fleeing persecution. It will therefore be of great interest to a general audience as well as to academics specializing in its field of study.
Contents Introduction 1. Refugees - The Forgotten of History, the Abused of Politics 2. Heritage and the Refugees 3. Writing Refugees: Memory Work during the Nazi era 4. The Kinder - A Case of Selective Memory? 5. Remembering to Exclude: A Turn of the Twenty First Century Immorality Tale Conclusion: History, Memory and the Ethics of Asylum Bibliography Index

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