Young people wiih reaugee experience

Threat and self-assertion: Young people with refugee experience during the Nazi era and today

Flight due to racist, sexist or political persecution, war, poverty or natural disasters is a constant in human history. Unaccompanied young people on the run are a particularly vulnerable group. In a historical and sociological comparison, the project examines the escape of Austrian-Jewish youths during the Nazi era and today's flight movements of young people to Austria.
 
(Fotocredit © Panther Media GmbH-Alamy Stock Photo)

The same questions are asked about both groups, taking into account gender differences: Which organisations, networks and measures enabled young people to leave the country? Why were the routes chosen and what was the journey like? How did they manage to arrive, what official obstacles did they have to overcome? How did they adapt to the country of exile and the host society? How were and are the burdens of the flight experienced and processed? How is contact with the family and the memory of the country of origin maintained?

In the first sub-project, historians at the Institute for Jewish History in Austria answer these questions for Austria during the Nazi era. In the second sub-project, social scientists at the Ilse Arlt Institute for Social Inclusion Research analyse interviews with young people who have fled to Austria since 2015. In the third sub-project, the approximately 50 students from two classes of a secondary school at the Caritas training centre for health and social professions in St. Pölten compare the autobiographical sources from both flight periods with the research team along the key questions. If possible, the results will be discussed with people who fled in 1938/39 or 2015 and afterwards.

The research work in the project takes place in guided workshops at the school, which was selected for the project due to its training programme in the social sector. The questions posed by the students themselves can add aspects to the research work that have been ignored in the adult perspective. Conversely, embedding the fates of young people in older and more recent history sharpens the focus on current problems that the pupils will be confronted with in their later professional lives.

All data will be entered into a digital platform that will be openly accessible at the end of the project, enabling all interested parties comparisons, links and digital storytelling. In addition to the scientific dissemination, the students are producing a podcast series for the campus radio station of the University of Applied Sciences St. Pölten and an information stand at the annual "Festival of Encounters" on the Rathausplatz in St. Pölten.