“Lwów Saved Us”: Roma Survival in Lemberg 1941–44

The ritualized memory of genocide has been a cornerstone of Roma political mobilization during at least the last three decades. A uniqueness paradigm has been developing for some time, applying a memorial discourse inspired by the Jewish Holocaust model. While paralleling each other in time, the mass murders of Jews and Roma during the Second World War differed on several points. In the General Government of the Occupied Polish Territories and the territories occupied by Nazi Germany after Operation Barbarossa, the persecution of Roma took place largely in local initiatives. Consequently, the Nazi policies varied considerably, leading to territories in which Roma were annihilated and those in which about half of the Roma population survived. Considerable differences could also appear within the same administrative unit. In Distrikt Galizien, the southeastern-most district of the General Government, Roma were persecuted violently in the countryside, while the district capital of Lemberg (Lwów, Lviv) saw a different course of events. The picture that appears from the available documents also diverges from survivor testimonies and general accounts of the persecution of Roma as being similar and parallel to that of Jews. Roma were present in Lemberg throughout the Nazi occupation and the authorities were aware of their whereabouts. Roma were not confined to the ghetto, but many, along with Poles and Ukrainians, remained within the territory of the ghetto, parts of which had constituted areas of Roma settlement in Lemberg since the mid nineteenth century. Several Roma also lived in wagons in various locations in 1942–43, as well as in quarters close to the town’s centre. Altogether, several hundred Roma lived in Lemberg, and their treatment by the local courts was different from that of Jews, bearing more similarity to the way in which Polish and Ukrainian cases were handled.     

Between National Socialism and expert internationalism: Karl Strölin and transnationalism in urban planning, 1938–45

This essay examines the transnational activities of National Socialist experts, focusing on the endeavours of the burgomaster of Stuttgart, Karl Strölin. In 1938, Strölin became president of the International Federation for Housing and Town Planning (IFHTP), one of the most distinguished international expert institutions for European and North American urban planning. The article discusses his belief that promoting an international convention on the protection of urban populations would contribute to German diplomacy in the initial period of the Second World War. Then it investigates the IFHTP president’s efforts to transform his institution into an outlet for National Socialist ideas against the background of the German advance through Europe. A final section deals with Strölin’s attempts to transform the IFHTP into a forum for evaluating urban reconstruction policies in the last year of the war. This biographical study shows how it was possible to juggle the logics and expectations of seemingly contradictory spatial and political realms during and after World War II. National socialist politics and ideology exacerbated the tensions between local, national and international affiliations, but at the same time never fully permeated the mechanisms of expert internationalism. By revealing how Strölin navigated between local ambitions, the demands of domestic foreign policy and the ethics of expert internationalism in three markedly different projects, this essay contributes to a growing body of scholarship on the cross-border activities of National Socialist professionals in (occupied) Europe.     

The National Flood Insurance Program: A Case Study in Policy Failure,Reform, and Retrenchment

In this paper, I present an intensive case study of the development of the National Flood Insurance Program to advance two key arguments. First, the conventional model of adoption of general interest reform neglects an important aspect of political context: whether the relevant policy domain is one with or without “publics.” I argue that in domains without publics the politics of reform will differ substantially from the accepted model. Second, I argue that the type of learning necessary to address a given policy failure matters in reform politics. Instrumental learning is necessary but may not be sufficient for successful general interest reforms. When the social construction of a policy failure is such that many people misconceive of the fundamental purpose of a policy, social learning must take place before instrumental learning can be effective.     

“With almost clean or at most slightly dirty hands”. On the self-denazification of German geography after 1945 and its rebranding as a science of peace

Since the 1980s there is an overall agreement that German academic and applied geography between 1933 and 1945 were closely linked to the ideology and practice of National Socialism. There is very little historical work, however, on how geography was reestablished in Germany after the end of National Socialism. This paper deals with West German geography after 1945 and the attempts to reestablish geography as a legitimate discipline within academia. Taking the influential paper by German geographer Carl Troll as a starting point, this paper deals, on the one hand, with the way geographers positioned geography in relation to National Socialism, and how they told the history of their recent past. It then asks what the defeat of Germany and the experiences of the war in general meant for how geographers in Germany thought about the relation between the discipline and politics. It is argued that a number of cleansing and legitimating strategies that freed geography from direct involvement with National Socialism, went hand in hand with a very quick adaption to the new world order and a rebranding of geography as a science of peace.     

Warm nationalism: Mapping and imagining the Jordanian nation

In 2002, fourteen years after their withdrawal from the West Bank, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan revealed its new national program known as “Jordan First.” The Palace initiated this campaign as part of its shifting national discourse which now sought to actively unite Palestinian-Jordanians and East Jordanians living to the east of the Jordan River. This campaign, and particularly its common map-logo symbol, has evolved over the last fourteen years into a rather “banal” national discourse and symbol. However, Jordanian nationalism and the everyday symbols of the Jordan First campaign are not forgotten. Instead, for many Jordanians, the campaign is a reminder of “hot” geopolitics and palpable identity politics. Drawing from Michael Billig's theorizations of banal nationalism, I examine the relationship between banal and hot forms of nationalism in Jordan and argue that scholarly work on banality needs to focus attention on the connections between these categories. As such, I suggest that framing nationalism as something quite “warm” can in many instances more aptly capture the complexity of nationalism. Using a multi-method approach that includes analyses of national maps and map-logos of Jordan and in-depth interviews with Jordanians about their national identities, I highlight the connections of hot and banal nationalism. Through my analysis, I also show that a Jordanian national identity is multi-scalar, merging Arab supranationalism with Jordanian and Palestinian identities; and thus I also extend Billig's work to examine the multiple scales of nationalism.     

北洋政府的蒙古教育政策

本文主要依据档案资料对北洋政府的蒙古教育政策进行了概要探讨。认为虽然蒙古地区的情况比较复杂,但北洋政府还是出台了一些与蒙古教育有关的政策。这些政策尽管缺乏系统性,但继承了清末教育变革的精神,继续推动了传统教育和现代教育的接轨。这一时期蒙古教育的发展受到了社会动荡的严重影响,但热河、绥远、察哈尔三个有蒙古族分布的地区,其教育还是在困境之中维持或有一定程度的发展,这种发展更多的是来自于上述地区内部的发展要求。     

1930年代的康、青、藏战争——边政、权力和地方的视角

在1930年代的康、青、藏边界战争中,相关各方均在不同程度上按各自的利益诉求在操弄着战争.战争的结果是,康、青军阀较战前更进一步扩充和巩固了各自的势力范围.西藏地方则在这场旷日持久的边疆战争中失去了1918年所占据的康区大片土地.而国民政府在战争过程中所进行的多项边疆议题则由于康、青、藏地方势力的抵制,最终没有取得预期的效果.     

民国时期公务员(文官)考铨制度研究述评

民国时期开始实行且步履艰难的公务员(文官)考铨制度,历经北京政府、南京政府和抗日战争的动荡,成为民国时期行政管理体制近代化的重要标志.伴随着制度性建设的日益完善和具体实践上的相对混乱,这一时期公务员(文官)考铨制度在理论与实践上的得与失,为后人留下了宝贵遗产.近年来,史学界对这一问题的探讨日益重视,取得了一系列的成果.     

关于司马光民族观的若干思考

司马光充分汲取自先秦儒家与他同时代欧阳修等人民族观中的有益成份。他提倡了民族和睦观 ;发展了民族平等观 ;丰富了民族诚信观。司马光将孟子的“气节观”、“大丈夫”精神 ,渗透入其民族观中 ,大力倡导民族气节。