Lena Christoph: Transit on the Island. Jewish Holocaust survivors and Anti-communist Russian Displaced Persons Navigating Resettlement from the Philippines, 1945-1953

In the aftermath of World War II, the modern global refugee regime was consolidated through international organisations, policies, and legal frameworks. This presentation provides insight into ongoing doctoral research, which examines the Philippines as a place of refuge and transit for Jewish and ‘White’ Russian displaced persons and how these DPs navigated this regime. Drawing on analytical categories, the talk will present preliminary comparisons of the DPs’ mobility and immobility.

Lena Christoph is a doctoral candidate at the Department of Contemporary History, University of Vienna, working within the ERC-funded project "GLORE. Global Resettlement Regimes". Her dissertation, "Between Exile and Resettlement: Transnational Journeys of Jewish and ‘White’ Russian Refugees through the Philippines (1945–1953)", examines 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.