Conclusion
Reinventing French Aid?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 May 2021
Summary
By examining the forgotten history of refugee relief in the French zone, this book reveals that ‘caring’ for DPs became a political and moral project, overseen by the French state, international organisations, and occupation authorities. It demonstrates that French practices towards DPs were deeply implicated in the mixed record of the French zone: DP camps were both sites of violent discipline, but also spaces of valuable educational opportunities and exchange across cultures. Not only were French occupation officials and relief workers concerned about the image of France circulating in DP camps, but they also drew a number of DP artists into the orbit of French cultural diplomacy in Germany. For French occupiers and relief workers, exhibiting French cultural richness and selling the ‘French way of life’ was considered as a tool to express and project French political power. Fundamentally, this book nuances the view that the Second World War was a radically ‘modernising’ and ‘internationalising’ moment in the history of humanitarianism. French approaches to relief work were underpinned by gendered assumptions, racial prejudices and the received wisdom of the superiority of certain ethnic groups over others.
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- Reinventing French AidThe Politics of Humanitarian Relief in French-Occupied Germany, 1945–1952, pp. 325 - 333Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021