First session of the CEFRES 2023 Francophone Interdisciplinary Seminar. The map and the border
In 2023, we would like to start by beginning by questionning the very act of bordering and representing (a territory, a period, a trajectory), in short, thanks to the interdisciplinarity of our respective disciplines, to question the map and the border.

Location: CEFRES Library, Na Florenci 3, Prague 1
Dates: Friday, April 14th, 10 am – 11.30 am.
Language: french

Thomas CHOPARD (EHESS / IMS, Charles University), discussant Ronan HERVOUET (Université de Bordeaux / CEFRES)

Recent images reminded us of the entanglement between war, persecution, and exile. What role did the Soviet border play in the survival strategies or in the aggravation of the situation of the Jewish population? What status was the status of the border after the territorial translation and annexations that followed the German-Soviet pact of 1939?

This presentation seeks to analyze the historical sources produced by the Soviet border in order to study anti-Jewish persecution at two crucial moments: after the 1939 annexations and after the new closing of the Soviet border in the immediate aftermath of World War II. Soviet borders and administrations indeed produced many prosecution files for illegal border crossing that tell us about the perception of these contested borderlands as well as the trajectories of Jewish populations: flight facing the German invasion and persecution and flight facing the return of the Soviet authorities after the war.

See the complete program of the seminar here.

Image source: Yad Vashem, Photo Archive, 45386.