The Vienna Global History Colloquium continues its 2024/25 series, "Where is the Global?", with an engaging presentation.

Date: Thursday, 13 March 2025 (11:30–13:00)
Venue: Institute for Contemporary History, Seminar Room 2
Speaker: Lena Christoph

This presentation explores ongoing doctoral research examining the Philippines as a place of refuge and transit for Jewish and 'White' Russian displaced persons (DPs) following World War II. It analyzes how these DPs navigated the emerging global refugee regime, focusing on their mobility and immobility. Drawing on key analytical frameworks, the presentation offers preliminary comparisons of the experiences of Jewish Holocaust survivors and Anti-communist Russian DPs in their efforts to resettle between 1945 and 1953.

Lena Christoph is a doctoral candidate at the Department of Contemporary History, University of Vienna, within the ERC-funded project GLORE. Her dissertation, Between Exile and Resettlement: Transnational Journeys of Jewish and 'White' Russian Refugees through the Philippines (1945–1953), investigates the complex trajectories of refugees navigating displacement and resettlement in the postwar era. Lena was a 2024 fellow at the German Historical Institute, Washington D.C., and has been awarded a research fellowship at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum for 2025.