Women Facing the Committee: Decision-Making on Abortion in Postwar Hungary

1 1949. évi XX. Törvény 47. § (1) A Magyar Népköztársaság védi a dolgozók egészségét és segíti a dolgozókat munkaképtelenségük esetén. (2) A Magyar Népköztársaság ezt a védelmet és segítséget széles körű társadalombiztosítással és az orvosi ellátás megszervezésével valósítja meg (in English: Act X of 1949, Article 47 (1) The Hungarian People’s Republic protects the health of workers and helps workers in the event of their inability to work. (2) The Hungarian People’s Republic implements this protection and assistance through extensive social insurance and the organization of medical care.)

2 In Hungary in the 1950s, a significant number of peasants held onto their land and continued to work as independent farmers without insurance. Only the third attempt at collectivization, from 1958 to 1961, was successful, so most agricultural workers were not insured until the 1960s. (Statisztikai évkönyv, Gaál et al., Szociálpolitikánk két évtizede, 25.) Health Act no II of 1972 § 24 (1) “Effective measures must be taken to improve the health of the population, and the effects of these measures must be continuously monitored and evaluated. The causes of morbidity and mortality must be monitored regularly.(2) The method of care must be used in curative and preventive care, and it must be gradually extended to persons who are in need of it and who are exposed to the risk of illness due to their health or other reasons, or—based on the provisions of the law—to the entire population.”

3 See e.g.: Nakachi, Replacing the Dead, 59. Lišková, Sexual Liberation, Socialist Style; Lišková, “History of Medicine in Eastern Europe”; Doboş, “Whose Children?”; Varsa, “Sex advice East and West”; Ignaciuk, “In Sickness and in Health.”

4 For this reason, the sources examined are fragmentary, but they do offer glimpses into the two years of the 1950s when, after a period of severe restrictions, abortion was increasingly permitted for a variety of reasons. Thus, they provide insight into how women adapted to the rapidly changing legal environment of the period. Between 1956 and 1973, the committees remained in place, but they lost their importance as a result of liberalizing tendencies and only regained their relevance in 1973.

5 Szabó, “Abortusztilalom anno,”137–58.

6 However, this is not an entirely fair evaluation, since Anna Ratkó was only Minister of Health for a brief period, between April 18, 1951 and April 18, 1953. In the changed national political situation after Stalin’s death, she fell out of favor and was replaced by Sándor Zsoldos.

7 Pongrácz, A Ratkó-korszak, 1–4.

8 MNL OL M-KS 276. f. 96. cs. 3. ő. e. Jelentés a Magyar Dolgozók Pártja Központi Vezetőség Adminisztratív Osztálya részére az Egészségügyi Minisztériumnak az abortusz elleni küzdelemben végzett munkájáról [Report to the Administrative Department of the Central Executive Committee of the Hungarian Workers’ Party on the work of the Ministry of Health in the struggle against abortion].

9 MNL OL M-KS 276. f. 96. cs. 3. ő. e. 1952. Feljegyzés a magzatelhajtás bűntette miatt indított büntetőeljárás alakulásáról 1953. január 1-től január 30-ig terjedő időben [Record of the Criminal Proceedings for the Crime of Abortion from January 1, 1953 to January 30, 1953].

10 Sándor, “From Ministry Orders towards the Constitutional Debate.”

11 Karrer, “The National Right to Life Committee.” Even the ruling in the famous Roe v. Wade class action case brought before the U.S. Supreme Court allowed states to regulate abortion as a pregnancy progressed. After a fetus reached viability, the state could even prohibit abortion, except when necessary to protect the health or life of the mother. Protection of human life is a compelling state interest.

12 The moral view of abortion was not monolithic in Western countries. Dagmar Herzog’s analysis shows that in these countries, abortion was genuinely a subject of moral debates, but this moral aspect of the problem was treated differently in West Germany, Switzerland, France, Great Britain, and Italy. Cf. Herzog, “Christianity, Disability, Abortion.” In the Hungarian context, there is no trace of such arguments in the minutes of either the Council of Ministers or the Party’s Central Committee. Nevertheless, a more profound study of the different laws and the various political initiatives coming from different political and social agents has not been done.

13 Nakachi, Replacing the Dead, 59; Lišková, Sexual Liberation, Socialist Style, 100–2.

14 Decree No. 81/34/1952 EüM.

15 Pető and Svégel, “A háborús nemi erőszak,” 57.

16 Ibid.

17  MNL OL M-KS 276. f. 96. cs. 3. ő. e. 1952. Az I. és II. fokú Bizottságok munkájáról szóló jelentések értékelése. Anemia is a reduction in the number of red blood cells in the blood and the amount of hemoglobin (the protein that carries oxygen) they contain. The link between this problem and malnutrition was known before the 1950s. See: Barta, “Az anaemia felosztása,” 386.

18 We have no medical records from 1953, but in March and April 1954, five out of 19 requests for permission to terminate a pregnancy were authorized partially or fully on the grounds of anemia in Pesterzsébet. BFL VIII.1144 Pesterzsébet Város Szülő- és Nőbeteg Otthona irata, vols. 21, 22, 23.

19 BFL VIII.1144 Pesterzsébet Város Szülő- és Nőbeteg Otthona irata, vols. 17–38.

20 Valuch, Everyday Life, 213–314, 416–29.

21 The housing shortage was a prominent problem in postwar Budapest, and it was not solved until the 1970s, when new architectural technologies (such as panel construction) were applied. For more details on housing conditions during the first period of state socialism, see: Keller, Szocialista lakhatás? These social problems could have been more visible among the patients of the Pesterzsébet Maternity Hospital. This institution was responsible for the women of the 20th (Pesterzsébet), 21st (Csepel) and 23rd (Soroksár) districts of the capital, which were among the poorest areas of Budapest. Pesterzsébet was hit by several bombings during the war, and reconstruction progressed slowly. Many of the remaining housing facilities were without utilities. In the late 1940s, 72 percent of its population (25,000) were members of the working class. The working class played an important role in Csepel and Soroksár as well, as both areas were dominated by heavy industry factories and suffered from a lack of housing. (Ránki et al., Csepel története, 466–68, 483–86, Bogyirka, Pesterzsébet története, 290–96.)

22 Korányi and Tauffer, “Anaemia és graviditás,” 583; Stefancsik, “A terhességi anaemia perniciosa kérdéséhez.”

23 MNL OL M-KS 276. f. 96. cs. 19 ő. e. A gyógyszerellátás problémái [Problems with medication supply].

24 In the first few months of the new abortion regime, neurological and psychiatric problems were responsible for nine percent of all abortions, ranking them as the third most common reason for termination. (MNL OL M-KS 276. f. 96. cs. 3. ő. e. 1952. Az I. és II. fokú Bizottságok munkájáról szóló jelentések értékelése.)

25 Szakcsoportközi Bizottság, “A neuraszthénia betegellátási és társadalombiztosítási vonatkozásai,” 679.

26 Csorba, Neurosisok, 481–82. The constructed nature of madness and psychiatric diagnoses has been pointed out by various scholars, including Michel Foucault. According to Foucault, these diagnostic categories, unlike other diseases, are not established on the basis of symptoms or organ dysfunction, but rather by taking into account the person’s life history and social problems. As a result, the diagnosis is much more socially constructed than it would be in the case of organic diseases. Foucault, Le pouvoir psychiatrique, 171–98.

27 This authoritative aspect of medical knowledge extended beyond the boundaries of health care. For more details see: Lászlófi, “Doctors into agents.”

28 Although they were required to attend the hearings in person, they could write to the committee if they were unable to be present.

29 In this period, fetal health concerns were also raised in Western countries. Starting from the late 1950s, thousands of babies were born with severe birth defects after their mothers took the morning sickness drug thalidomide while pregnant. Following the thalidomide scandal, an epidemic of rubella, or German measles, appeared. Babies that survived rubella in utero were often born with a wide range of disabilities. At the end of the 1960s, these serious health issues were also prompting more lenient approaches to abortion based on medical reasons in the Western world. (A rubella vaccine did not become available until 1971.) Malacrida, “Dangerous Pregnancies.”

30 Papp, Egy szülészorvos naplójából, 26.

31 Népszava, 27 May 1956, no. 124, 5.

32 The only exceptions among the socialist countries were the GDR and Albania, where abortion remained banned. Although liberalization took place at almost the same time in these socialist countries, it seems that different political motivations preceded the decision. While in the Czechoslovak case the impact of the ban of abortion on individual lives was assessed through research prior to legalization, no such evidence was found in the Hungarian case; the decision was made purely on political grounds (Lišková, Sexual Liberation, Socialist Style, 102–7; Lišková, “History of Medicine in Eastern Europe,” 182.)

33 Herzog, Sexuality in Europe, 155–61.

34 Although the introduction of stricter regulations seems to have been motivated specifically by the results of demographic research in Hungary, similar trends can be observed in other countries in the socialist block. While the influence of the Soviet example was undeniable during the liberalization process, the tightening was influenced by the different relationship between society, the political leadership, and experts in each country. In Romania, abortion reappeared in political discourse as a cause of population decline as early as the mid-1960s, leading to the recriminalization of abortion in 1967. In Poland, in contrast, abortion was recognized from the 1970s as a harmful alternative to contraception and an obstacle to the spread of modern contraceptive methods. Parallel to the discourse on contraception and the modernization of sexual life, abortion was no longer seen as a solution for women in a poor social situation, but rather was perceived as a means of getting rid of sick, “biopolitically useless” offspring, who would have been a financial burden to the state. In the Hungarian case, both arguments can be observed to a certain extent. While in the rhetoric of some sociographers (e.g., Gyula Fekete), the visions of abortion, population decline, and national death are linked. Eszter Varsa’s research shows that in the Hungarian context, the promotion of healthy offspring gained priority in the 1970s. This goal was supported by experts, and the instruments of social policy were more and more directed towards promoting childbearing among highly educated women. Doboş, “Whose Children?” 88; Varsa, “Sex advice East and West,” 659–60; Ignaciuk, “In Sickness and in Health,” 93–95.

35 Szabó and Kalász, Egészségügyi helyzet 1971, 39.

36 The Decree No. 4/1973. (XII. 1.) EüM on the evaluation of the application for termination of pregnancy enumerated grounds for an abortion.

37 Article 29 (4) of the Health Care Act of 1972.

38 Fears of demographic and national decline have existed since the beginning of the twentieth century. One cause was the individualization brought about by modernization. After 1920, when the Treaty of Trianon led to the annexation of significant parts of Hungary’s territory and population by the neighboring states, these fears intensified. Criticism resurfaced in the 1960s, but the concerns were based on consumer lifestyles and female employment. Majtényi, “A Kádár-korszak társadalma,” 178–87; Fekete, Éljünk magunknak?

39 Female doctors could be members of the committees, in principle. However, the printed and archival materials consulted in the course of our research reveal not a single example of a female physician serving on one of the committees.

40 This process is part of a larger trend that Michel Foucault and Dominic Memmi, among others, have called the “emergence of biopolitics” in the second half of the twentieth century. The essence of this shift is that the expanded management of biological issues has become subject to societal and political considerations. While Foucault emphasized that the emphasis in state policies regarding previously criminalized bodily practices (homosexuality, abortion) has shifted to consistent control rather than discipline, Memmi argues that in addition to control, states provide material incentives to encourage citizens to behave in a manner seen as proper by the state. Cf. Memmi, “Governing through Speech,” 645–58.

41 1970. évi népszámlálás, vol 1, 24.

42 MNL BAML XIII. 158e Pécs MV Tanácsa VB Terhességmegszakítási Bizottság iratai, 1974. I.II. félév. [Documents of the Abortion Committee of City Council, Pécs]

43 On the history and complex role of visiting nurses in mothers’ lives and in society, see: Neményi, Egy határszerep anatómiája; Kappanyos, “Hajlékában kell felkeresnünk őt.”

44 MNL BAML XIII. 158e Pécs MV Tanácsa VB Terhességmegszakítási Bizottág iratai 1974. I.II. félév.

45 Majtényi, A tudomány lajtorjája, 199–203.

46 Levine and Staiger, “Abortion Policy and Fertility Outcomes,” 225.

47 Parliamentary Act No. LXXIX of 1992 on the protection of fetal life.

48 Ibid. 5. § (1)

49 Parliamentary Act No. CLIV of 1997 on health care.

50 Sándor, “Legal debates.”

Czech Anesthesiologists on Their Way to the Netherlands: Motives, Expectations, and (Dis)Engagement (1968–1970)

In 1970, the Third European Congress of Anaesthesiology was held in Prague. Paradoxically, many leading Czech and Slovak representatives of the field were absent, having emigrated to the West, predominantly to the Netherlands, following the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968. This emigration, however, did not result in Czechoslovak anaesthesiologists being entirely disconnected from their former colleagues or losing touch with the domestic development of medicine. Despite the Cold War and the Iron Curtain, medical knowledge continued to be exchanged between the West and the East. The congress exemplified how Western anaesthesiologists could meet their Soviet bloc counterparts. Informal contacts, crucial for Czechoslovak (future) migrants, facilitated knowledge dissemination. These contacts with Dutch anaesthesiologists, who became a ‘window to the world,’ enabled them to join European or global medical-scientific networks. The study probes why a significant number of anaesthesiologists emigrated from Czechoslovakia to the Netherlands post-1968, their integration into Dutch society, and their recognition. It questions whether they engaged with the Czechoslovak expatriate community or primarily focused on their profession and relationships with Dutch colleagues. Using anaesthesiology as a lens, the study illustrates how these doctors, having emigrated during 1968–1970, established themselves professionally in Dutch society. They shared a strong professional identity, which assumed a transnational and partly denationalized form. Their medical vocation, along with the experience of living in socialist Czechoslovakia for twenty years, led to a reluctance to partake in exile activities for the ‘homeland cause,’ a sentiment not fully understood by some of the 1948 migrants.

Keywords: Czechoslovakia, Netherlands, migration, exile, anaesthesiology

Introduction

At the turn of August and September, 1970, leading European experts in the field of anesthesiology met in Prague for the Third European Congress of Anaesthesiology. Paradoxically, many important Czech and Slovak representatives of the field were absent. After the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, they emigrated to the West, specifically to the Netherlands, thus committing the crime of fleeing the republic from the point of view of the Czechoslovak state. This did not mean, however, that these anesthesiologists from Czechoslovakia were completely cut off from their former colleagues and lost contact with developments in medicine back home. Despite the Cold War and the Iron Curtain, there was transfer of medical knowledge between the West and the East, and this congress was one example of an occasion when anesthesiologists from the West could meet colleagues from the Soviet bloc. In addition to these official events, knowledge was also spread through informal contacts, which were crucial for Czechoslovak citizens who would later leave the country. Through their contacts with the Dutch anesthesiologists, who became a “window to the world” for them, they were able to connect to European and global medical scientific networks.1 However, being part of a global community of doctors with a particular specialization also influenced the behavior of these migrants within the Czechoslovak exile community.

Why did so many anesthesiologists from Czechoslovakia emigrate to the Netherlands after 1968? How did these doctors assimilate into Dutch society and gain recognition? Did they become involved in Czechoslovak emigrant society life, or did they concentrate rather on their profession and relations with Dutch colleagues? For this category of migrants (doctors who continued their professional work in the Netherlands), the phenomenon of “double engagement” played an important role. This term refers to the lifestyles of migrants who on the one hand were involved in activities among the community that were related to the status of this group as national exiles but who on the other hand remained active members of their professions. Thus, social and political life in the host country created a kind of “double engagement” in a national environment and a transnational one.2 How can we characterize the “double engagement” among anesthesiologists from Czechoslovakia? These are the questions that we examine in this study.

Using anesthesiology as an example, the study shows the trajectories by which doctors who left Czechoslovakia in 1968–1970 arrived in the Netherlands and how they managed to establish themselves professionally in Dutch society. First, we offer a brief overview of the general context of Czechoslovak migration to the Netherlands after 1968. The study then focuses on the migration of students and doctors to the Netherlands, with emphasis on the period after the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968. Finally, the third part centers on a specific group of Czech physicians (anesthesiologists) in the Netherlands and their life stories from the perspective of their experiences as emigrants and exiles. The study argues that anesthesiologists shared a strong professional engagement and identity which took a transnational and partly de-nationalized, form. Their medical vocation and the experience of living in socialist Czechoslovakia made them reluctant to engage in activities in the exile community that were motivated by or centered around some attachment to the beleaguered “homeland,” and some of the migrants who had fled the country in 1948 found this difficult to understand.

Little research has been done on the Czechoslovak exiles in the Netherlands after 1948, with the exception of several publications by Sylva Sklenářová.3 However, Sklenářová’s works focus primarily on the interwar period and the diplomatic and political context of Czechoslovak-Dutch relations,4 as well as relations with the other countries of today’s Benelux (Belgium and Luxembourg).5 Émigré psychiatrist Miroslav (Mirek) Kabela (1938–2011) has offered important insights into the Czech émigré community in the Netherlands.6 The emigration of physicians is closely intertwined and has many parallels with the emigration of scientists (and in the case of medical scientists, the two topics overlap considerably).7 The materials on Czechoslovak migrants in the Netherlands, collected by Miroslav Kabela and currently held in the Libri Prohibiti Library in Prague, are also valuable. The written testimonies of the Czechoslovak migrants interviewed by Kabela are particularly useful,8 for instance, as are his experiences in psychiatric practice, during which he also helped migrants from Czechoslovakia (and which he mentions in some of his publications).9 Finally, archival sources stored in the Security Services Archives (SSA) in Prague and the Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic (AMFA) are also relevant to the topic. The files originating from the activities of the communist security services stored at SSA in many cases contain information on the careers, family backgrounds, and (alleged) motivations of the emigrants. It is of course necessary, however, to remain aware of the context in which these materials were created the purposes which they served (for example, strategies in witness statements made by relatives during interrogations).

Czechoslovak Migration to the Netherlands after 1968

The composition of the Czechoslovak community in the Netherlands changed after World War II and especially after 1948, when the communists seized power in Czechoslovakia and established an authoritarian regime that persecuted its opponents. The communist coup in February 1948 was condemned by the majority of the Dutch, and soon the first Czech and Slovak refugees began to arrive. One of the first refugee groups consisted of about twenty Czech and Slovak students.10 In November 1949, the estimated number of Czechs and Slovaks in the Netherlands was about 200.11

The new migrants of the late 1960s and 1970s completely changed the composition and structure of the Czechoslovak community in the Netherlands. Moreover, the new wave of migrants from Czechoslovakia had a different experience of emigration and assimilation in their new homeland. The situation in the Netherlands in 1968 and afterwards was quite different from that just after the war. The Netherlands was no longer a country recovering from war. It was, rather, a country participating in and benefiting from the economic growth of Western Europe as well as a country in need of a workforce. Thus, the composition of the general migrant community in the Netherlands changed significantly. In addition to migrants from the former Dutch East Indies (today’s Indonesia), the number of economic migrants (guest workers) from the Mediterranean, especially Turkey and Morocco, began to increase from the early 1960s. However, in the attitude of the Dutch towards the Czechoslovaks, some features were common. As had been the case in 1948 after the communists seized power in Czechoslovakia, there was outrage in the Netherlands over the brutal intervention by Warsaw Pact troops in Czechoslovakia twenty years later.

The influx of Czechoslovak migrants from the post-1968 wave was reflected in the numerical increase of the Czech and Slovak diaspora in the Netherlands. From June 1968 to June 1970, a total of 1,203 asylum seekers applied for asylum in the Netherlands, the majority of whom (938) came from Czechoslovakia. The second most numerous group was consisted of people from Portugal, but this group was almost ten times smaller (97 people). In comparison, 49 Poles and 32 Hungarians applied for asylum during this period.12 In 1973, the estimated number of Czechs and Slovaks in the Netherlands, according to the data of the Czechoslovak embassy in the Netherlands, was about 900 persons.13 Seven years later, this number reached 1,000.14 This was a very small number compared to, for example, the 200,000 migrants from Suriname who emigrated to the Netherlands during the migration wave related to Suriname’s declaration of independence in 1975.15 Thus, although Czechoslovakia was significant in terms of asylum requests in 1968–1970, from a numerical point of view, the Czechoslovak migrant community was not a very significant minority in the Netherlands. In the 1970s, almost half of the immigrants to the Netherlands came from either Turkey, Morocco, Suriname, the Netherlands Antilles, or Indonesia.16

The new wave of migrants, however, created rifts within the Czechoslovak exile community. The post-1968 emigrants did not have much confidence in the Czech and Slovak migrants who had come to the Netherlands after 1948. The differences were not only “generational,” but also political. While most of the migrants from the post-February wave were anti-communist, in the case of those who emigrated from Czechoslovakia in 1968–1970, anti-communism did not play such a fundamental role. Some of these migrants were even former members of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia.17 Many of the older émigrés criticized the new ones, complaining that the new wave of Czechoslovak immigrants did not have to grapple with the same material and financial challenges that they had faced in the immediate postwar years. The post-1948 emigrants had arrived in the Netherlands at a time when the country was still struggling with reconstruction after the war, whereas the “post-1968” arrivals were coming to a prosperous country with a high standard of living. The post-1968 migrants envied the “older” generation of émigrés, however, particularly their good professional positions and material standards. Some from the “new” migrant community also hoped that they would soon return home, to Czechoslovakia, and were therefore reluctant to become politically involved in exile. Many had suffered disillusionment and felt a sense of resignation after they experienced the suppression of the liberalization process in Czechoslovakia, and they therefore did not want to take an active part in social or political life abroad. They were looking for a peaceful life in a new environment.18

Kabela, for example, later recalled meeting a married couple who had emigrated to the Netherlands after 1968:

The couple (the man was a psychologist) talked only about what they had already bought and acquired, they focused only on economic matters and prosperity. I even remember that this compatriot told me that in those chaotic days right after the Soviet invasion, he still quickly returned to the Czechoslovakia to get his books or other things. Understandably, the “post-February” [post-1948] refugees did not have much confidence in these new “refugees.”19

Ivan Gaďourek, a Dutch sociologist of Czech origin who emigrated in 1948, also noted the differences between the two Czechoslovak waves of migration and saw the new generation of migrants as “motivated more by economics than by ideas.”20 According to Gaďourek, the more recent arrivals did not assimilate as much, which was why some of them, anti-communists, maintained more contact with dissent groups back home than with similarly oriented exile circles.21

Miroslav Kabela, however, also noted the view from the other side, i.e. that of an emigrant who came to the Netherlands after August 1968. The more recent emigrants complained that the older emigrants resented the newcomers because the “post-August” arrivals enjoyed more favorable material conditions. The more recent emigrant explained the differences and tensions between the generations by the changed economic situation of the Netherlands. He described the Netherlands in the 1960s as a “prosperous system during the conjuncture, where poverty no longer existed.” He also dealt with the question of unfulfilled expectations concerning the involvement of new migrants in the fight against the communist regime in Czechoslovakia. He explained that it wasn’t just that the new arrivals were afraid of being compromised were they to return to Czechoslovakia. According to him, the prevailing feelings were disappointment with life and a sense of resignation. The issue of consumerism and financial matters also played a significant role, because, as he said, “most people have always limited themselves to consuming what is presented to them and don’t do much activity in that which doesn’t fill the wallet.”22 A similar explanation for the disengagement of the 1968–1970 migrants was given to Kabela by another member of this “generation,” who claimed that people in communist Czechoslovakia were tired of all kinds of organizing and engagement.23

Finally, when monitoring the situation among the Czechoslovak emigrants, the Czechoslovak embassy in The Hague also registered the discord between the two waves and stated that “only a small part of the post-August emigrants passively participates in emigration actions.” And here again we find an economic explanation, because according to the aforementioned report, “the desire to save money for a new car, home furnishings and other household necessities” was particularly strong among the new migrants.24 In justifying the non-engagement of migrants, the embassy materials also include references to concerns over “side doors,” i.e. the anxiety over speaking out too vociferously against the ruling communist regime in Czechoslovakia, which could then make it impossible for them to legalize their residency abroad and thus also impossible for them to return to Czechoslovakia to visit family and friends (emigrants were prosecuted in Czechoslovakia for illegally leaving the Republic and given prison sentences by the courts in absentia). The embassy, however, interpreted the efforts to legalize their stays, which occurred in many cases, as evidence of the will of the emigrants to “return” to Czechoslovakia.25 During interrogations by the State Security Service, relatives often made similar statements, expressing their belief that their emigrant family members wanted to return. On the other hand, however, the argument that someone emigrated for professional reasons and was considering returning was more acceptable to the Czechoslovak authorities than any mention of political motives for emigration. Moreover, non-political or non-ideological explanations could prompt the courts to give more lenient sentences. The question is thus whether any of the statements made in the course of such an interrogation can be considered reliable or revealing.26

Although the testimonies of contemporaries and archival materials clearly point to the division of the Czechoslovak exile community in the Netherlands, it is also necessary to mention the efforts made to unite the community. An attempt to unite the Czechoslovak exile community in the Netherlands was made through the launch of the periodical Okno dokořán (Window Wide Open), which was intended as an open democratic platform that would appeal to the whole community. This magazine was founded in February 1969, and members of both generations of migrants contributed to it (both as authors and editors), including Miroslav Kabela, who initially headed the editorial staff.27 Another example of joint activities of both generations of Czechoslovak migrants was the establishment of the association Nederlandse Stichting Comenius in April 1969. This association was recognized by the Federation of Refugee Organizations (Federatie van Organisaties van Vluchtelingen, FOVIN) as the central organization for Czechoslovak refugees in the Netherlands.28 There were also efforts to cooperate with other emigrants from Central Europe. For example, Czechoslovak embassy staff noted the cooperation of Czechoslovak exiles with Polish and Hungarian emigrants. The latter, for example, offered the premises of the Hungarian Cultural House in Amsterdam to other exiled national groups.29

One of the ways of meeting members of the Czechoslovak exile community was through activities and events associated with the exile branch of the Sokol organization.30 The exile branch of Sokol in the Netherlands was short-lived, however. Several Czechoslovak emigrants who settled in the Netherlands after August 1968 founded the first Sokol unit in Delft in October 1973.31 But by 1982, the Sokol Delft no longer existed due to loss of members and little activity.32 Even earlier, at the beginning of 1980s, the smaller section of Sokol Utrecht, which had been established five years earlier, was also dissolved.33

Other associations played important roles in connecting Czechoslovak migrants, such as the scouts. In 1975, the “Czechoslovak Exile Scouts Holland District” was established, which was divided into three smaller sections (North, Center, and South).34 However, in 1987, this branch of exiled scouts was forced to suspend its activities due to the lack of active members.35 The main reason was the fact that the children of emigrants, mostly of those from the second wave of migration after 1968, had “grown up.” But even before that, it was already apparent that the Czechoslovak exile scouts in the Netherlands, which were nationality-oriented, were no longer appealing to the children, who had already assimilated into Dutch society. This is confirmed by the words of one daughter of post-1968 Czechoslovak emigrants, who as a child went to exile scout camps and later, as an adult, shared her feelings with Kabela:

I did not like their overly Czech feelings and often unkind attitude towards everything Dutch. These scout leaders lived perhaps mostly in a closed Czech environment and did not realize that we were already mostly Dutch children, accustomed to the Dutch way of way of life.36

The Netherlands as a Center of Czechoslovak Students and Doctors

In the first years after World War II, Dutch migration policy was characterized by a rather conservative approach and a reluctance on the part of the government and authorities to accept large numbers of refugees. The postwar economic recovery of the Netherlands was still underway, and the country was faced with an influx of migrants from former Dutch colonies.37

The exception to this approach and a key moment for future Dutch students (and future doctors) from Czechoslovakia was the founding of the University Asylum Fund (Universitair Asiel Fonds, UAF) in the Netherlands in the spring of 1948.38 The creation of the UAF was a reaction to the events of February 1948 in Czechoslovakia and the takeover of power by the communists. However, the path to establishing this fund was not easy. Although representatives of the Dutch government expressed their outrage about the developments in Czechoslovakia, they nevertheless refused to accept Czechoslovak refugees and returned illegal immigrants to West Germany. Eventually, the Dutch administration agreed to accept 100 students from Czechoslovakia at most on the condition that an organization be set up to guarantee that “undesirable persons shall be obliged to leave and to arrange for sufficient funds for the asylum seekers to actualize their stay.” Therefore, on April 9, 1948, the Dutch universities founded the UAF, the first refugee organization in the Netherlands dedicated to supporting émigré students at universities.39 In May of the same year, a committee consisting of representatives of the Dutch Student Council and the Dutch Refugee Aid Federation visited refugee camps in West Germany and selected Czechoslovak students to receive scholarships.40

Thanks to UAF scholarships, the Netherlands became one of the centers of Czechoslovak émigré students. UAF statistics show the predominance of students from Czechoslovakia in the first year of the fund’s existence. In November 1948, 56 scholarship recipient were registered, 43 of whom came from Czechoslovakia. The second largest group (Hungarians) were represented by “only” ten scholarship holders. The other students came from Poland (three), Latvia (three), and Bulgaria (two). In the early years after the UAF was founded, around 400 students applied for the few available scholarships each year. By the mid-1950s, however, the fund’s budget (which consisted mainly of donations from the Dutch) had declined significantly, as had the number of scholarships awarded. For example, in 1953, only 26 people were still studying on UAF scholarships. This trend changed after the Hungarian Revolution in 1956. Thanks to the UAF, more than 100 Hungarian students were given the opportunity to study at Dutch universities. This was made possible by an extra budget from the Dutch government, which was responding to the support that Hungarian refugees enjoyed in Dutch society. This was also reflected in the fact that the Netherlands accepted a total of more than 3,000 Hungarian refugees at the time.41

After the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact troops in August 1968, like after the coup of February 1948, the Netherlands again offered Czechoslovak students the opportunity to attend Dutch universities on UAF scholarships.42 According to Miroslav Kabela, in the 1970/1971 academic year, there were 97 Czechoslovak students (58 male and 39 female) enrolled at Dutch universities. Most of them studied in Amsterdam (22), followed by Nijmegen (19), Utrecht (16), Delft (eight), Eindhoven (eight), and in smaller numbers in other university towns as well.43 In the aftermath of 1968, however, students did not make up as high a proportion of Czechoslovak émigrés as they had in the post-February emigration wave. The language barrier, especially in the case of students, seems to have played a more significant role for this generation of migrants. According to Kabela, many students choose Slavic languages as their field of study precisely because they did not know Dutch. He even recorded the story of a student who initially decided to study medicine in the Netherlands but ended up switching to Slavic languages because of the language barrier.44

In some cases, the offers of scholarships and university educational opportunities for migrants brought students to the Netherlands who otherwise would not have chosen the country as their place of exile. This was the case for one young university student from Czechoslovakia who shared his feelings with Kabela:

I’m miserable here, but as I have a scholarship here, I am condemned to live in the Netherlands for three more years. To me, this country is unfamiliar, I feel somehow distant from everything, even objectively nice things don’t appeal to me, and nothing touches me emotionally. (...) I know that I will not find what I have lost here and that I cannot live here. Once I graduate, I will go to France or Germany. I am convinced that a Czech feels better there.45

One of the reasons the student gave for his dissatisfaction with the Netherlands was the local landscape. According to him, it was a “flat, empty, hollow country, cut into geometric rectangles by straight canals.”46

Other migrants from Czechoslovakia also found it difficult to get used to Dutch culture and habits. For example, for one young woman, Czechoslovakia remained her home and country because it was “a picturesque landscape, hills and forests, meadows and little fields where potatoes, onions, and all sorts of things grew; roads lined with fruit trees with juicy apples, plums and pears—just pick them, little villages, old houses, churches, people mowing the grass.” In the Netherlands, on the other hand, nature was understood as “a cow in a meadow,” and the last remains of “real nature” became “reserves surrounded by fences with ʻno entryʼ signs.”47 This was probably a more general trend, or at least this was suggested by the results of a survey of 105 Czech and Slovak migrants conducted by Kabela in March 1970. According to the results, 69 percent of the respondents missed the landscapes of Czechoslovakia. In this context, it is noteworthy that “only” 32 percent of the respondents mentioned a problem with the Dutch language.48

In addition to students emigrating to the Netherlands, the 1968 migration wave was also characterized by many qualified middle-aged emigrants, including doctors. As of 1977, for example, there were 108 physicians of Czechoslovak origin (or physicians who had studied medicine in Czechoslovakia) working in the Netherlands. This was the third largest number of physicians of foreign origin, after Belgians (183 physicians) and Indonesians (142).49 The proportion of doctors and particularly anesthesiologists Czechoslovak origin becomes even more remarkable given the relatively small size of the Czechoslovak exile community in the Netherlands. If we look at specializations, we find that, in addition to anesthesiologists, many psychiatrists of Czech and Slovak origin worked in the Netherlands after 1968.50 The doctors from Czechoslovakia working in the Netherlands also included surgeons, gynecologists, and other specialists.51

In the 1960s, at the time of the partial liberalization process in Czechoslovakia, many of these people in the medical profession traveled to Western countries, including the Netherlands, for internships or at least conferences. They thus became involved in international networks of their medical specialization.52 For some doctors, the foreign internship or congress, for which they left Czechoslovakia legally, then became the beginning of life as an émigré (and they were abroad illegally the moment when their permitted period of stay expired).53 This involved not only Western countries, but also Third World countries, especially Africa.54 However, some doctors also emigrated in a more common way, i.e. by not returning from permitted vacations abroad.55

Doctors usually had no problem finding employment in the Netherlands. Indeed, they often emigrated at the invitation of Dutch colleagues, having already been promised a job. As doctors, they also enjoyed social prestige, as reflected by the many Dutch newspaper articles about their fate and work in Dutch hospitals. Miroslav Kabela collected many of these articles and published some of them in the book Zdravotnictví v Holandsku (Medical Care in Netherlands).56 Not knowing Dutch was probably not a major problem for the doctors who had graduated in Czechoslovakia and were already experienced practitioners. Most of them spoke English, and knowledge of German was also widespread among them. Language skills were naturally also related to foreign experiences and stays.

Czech Anesthesiologists in the Netherlands after 1968

The Third European Congress of Anaesthesiology, mentioned in the introduction to this article, took place in Prague from August 31 to September 4, 1970 and was attended by more than 1,500 people. The decision to hold the congress in Prague was taken by the World Federation of Societies of Anesthesiologists (WFSA), which was established in the Netherlands in 1955.57 The Czechoslovak press of the time described this decision as “a great recognition of the work of Czechoslovak anesthesiologists.”58 The importance of the Congress was also underlined by the fact that its representatives were received by the then Czechoslovak President Ludvík Svoboda at Prague Castle.59 One of the anesthesiologists who contributed to the organization of the congress was prominent anaesthesiologist Bořivoj Dvořáček (1920–2014). However, at the time of the congress, Dvořáček was already living in Rotterdam.

After the suppression of the Prague Spring, when many doctors emigrated from Czechoslovakia, the Netherlands was struggling with a shortage of anesthesiologists.60 Thus, many Czechoslovak anesthesiologists emigrated to the country, knowing that they would be able to work in their field there. In several cases, these émigrés already had contacts in the Netherlands, i.e. they knew local doctors who had arranged jobs for them. The aforementioned Bořivoj Dvořáček,61 for example, who emigrated simply by not returning from his internship in a Rotterdam hospital,62 maintained contacts with Dutch anesthesiologists, including D. H. G. Keuskamp (1915–1992), who not only made Dvořáček’s internship in Rotterdam possible, but also arranged internships for other anesthesiologists from Czechoslovakia in Nijmegen and Amsterdam. This was happening before August 1968, when travel from Czechoslovakia was still relatively free.63

Zdeněk Kalenda (1927–2010), another prominent Czech anesthesiologist, was also connected to international medical networks before 1968. He maintained contact with Bob Smalhout (1927–2015), a Dutch anesthesiologist from Utrecht. After 1968, Kalenda and Smalhout continued their collaboration in Utrecht, focusing mainly on research on capnometry, and together they became “recognized worldwide as the founders of the use of capnometry in a variety of clinical settings.”64 In the field of capnography Smalhout also collaborated with other Czechoslovak experts who, unlike Kalenda, did not emigrate after 1968. One example was anesthesiologist Václav Trávníček (1924–2010), who worked at the Military University Hospital in Prague.65 Smalhout also traveled to Czechoslovakia on various occasions after 1968, and in some cases, he served as a messenger, carrying the suitcases and letters of Czechoslovak emigrants across the Iron Curtain from the Netherlands to Prague. However, he seems not to have been happy about playing this role. As Václav Trávníček reportedly said in 1970, “Professor Smalhout would very much like to visit Czechoslovakia next year, and he certainly does not want to do anything that might endanger this visit.”66 Smalhout’s involvement in the Czechoslovak exile networks thus probably had its limits, which were largely due to the connection of the Czechoslovak environment to the security services.

Something the anesthesiologists shared, as was true of doctors in general, was their experiences as recipients of foreign internships. Zdeněk Kalenda had lived in Guinea in the early 1960s, and he also traveled to France, Belgium, Austria, and Switzerland. He had numerous professional contacts in an array of countries. He was in contact with the leaders of clinics in Vienna, Munich, Paris, Brussels, Montreal, and New York.67 Foreign internships were also important for the career of Bořivoj Dvořáček. He spent a year in Copenhagen at the WHO training center in the late 1950s. In Prague, he then tried to apply the Danish experience in creating the concept of anesthesiology-resuscitation departments.68 Two others Czech anesthesiologists emigrating to the Netherlands after 1968, Květoslava Malínská (1923–?) and Karel Otruba (1918–1997), had worked in Africa for some time through programs run by the Czechoslovak government.69 Květoslava Malínská, who emigrated to the Netherlands with her husband, surgeon Ladislav Malínský (1918–2005), worked in Kenya in the mid-1960s. Their friend Karel Otruba, a pediatrician and later an anesthesiologist, worked in Morocco before emigrating to the Netherlands.70

However, some anesthesiologists from Czechoslovakia came to the Netherlands without prior acquaintanceship with Dutch anesthesiologists and also without the experience of stays abroad. Miroslav Květ (1934–), for instance, reached the Netherlands by being approached by Dutch officials in an Austrian refugee camp with the offer of a job in the Netherlands. In fact, Dutch officials were deliberately looking for qualified people in the West German and Austrian camps, and anesthesiologists were in great demand at the time. As in the case of some Czechoslovak students in 1948, an offer received during a stay in a refugee camp led the emigrant to choose the Netherlands as his or her new home. The aforementioned Bob Smalhout was allegedly behind the efforts to recruit Czechoslovak anesthesiologists. Smalhout asked the Dutch embassies to conduct a survey in West Germany and Austria to find out whether there were any emigrant anesthesiologists in those countries. At least one of them (Miroslav Květ) ended up coming to the Utrecht hospital this way.71 Květ later worked in Delft, and at the end of the 1980s, he married a Polish student who was in the Netherlands on a study stay.72

The fact that anesthesiologists were in high demand in the Netherlands is evidenced by the case of Karel Otruba. He was originally a pediatrician who, before emigrating, had worked in Prague as a trainer in infectious diseases at the Institute for the Further Training of Physicians. As already mentioned, he emigrated to the Netherlands from Morocco, where he had been sent by the Czechoslovak Ministry of Health at the beginning of 1968 on condition that he return to Czechoslovakia in mid-January 1971, which he did not do.73 As Otruba’s colleague from Utrecht, the surgeon Ladislav Malínský later recalled, Otruba, as a specialist in pediatric medicine, was at first unable to find employment in Utrecht. Zdeněk Kalenda, who was already working in the anesthesiology center of the Utrecht hospital, came with an offer to Otruba to specialize in anesthesiology, with which he helped him. Thus, Karel Otruba became an anesthesiologist and continued to practice this specialty until his retirement in 1983.74 Otruba’s story is thus a case of mutual aid between Czechoslovak migrants and doctors, both of whom emigrated after 1968. However, there was also cooperation across migration waves in the Czechoslovak exile community (i.e., the earlier migrants helped the new migrants after 1968).75

Ladislav Malínský later recalled that as a surgeon it took him longer to find employment in Utrecht. His wife, anesthesiologist Květoslava Malínská, with whom he had also emigrated to the Netherlands from Africa (Kenya), got a job in Utrecht immediately.76 Thus, a large Czechoslovak anesthesiology group was formed in Utrecht.77 Malínský later recalled his colleagues and their visits: “Our flat was occupied by a group of complementary anesthesiologists, and I was condemned to the role of a non-participating listener. My attempt to return the conversation to a more general level was not even helped by a signboard that said, ʻtalking about anesthesiology is forbidden in this apartment and punishable during meals.ʼ”78 However, it should be remembered that the large group of Czechoslovak anesthesiologists worked in Utrecht only for a limited time, and the doctors gradually moved to other Dutch cities. For example, Malínský and his wife moved to Achtenhoek after about two years.79 Miroslav Květ, as mentioned above, eventually moved and worked in Delft.80

The fate of Miloš Zvonař (1937–) offers a somewhat distinctive case. Although Zvonař was younger than the anesthesiologists mentioned above, he managed to complete a foreign internship before his emigration, or rather he emigrated from this internship to the Netherlands. He first traveled to the Austrian Institute of Anesthesiology in Innsbruck in 1967 for a fellowship and then received an invitation from the University of Leiden. He thus worked there after his arrival in the Netherlands and completed his postgraduate education, which he had begun in Prague. After some time, he settled with his wife, also an anesthesiologist whom he had met during his studies in Prague, in Raamsdonksveer. For Miroslav Kabela, Miloš Zvonař was an example of a doctor who did not want to get used to the Dutch way of working. According to Kabela, some doctors exaggerated their social status as doctors and did not respect the rules at their workplaces. This was allegedly true Zvonař, who wanted to continue working according to the habits he had acquired in Czechoslovakia. This concerned, for instance, working hours. In Czechoslovakia he went skiing or shopping at three o’clock in the afternoon in the winter, but in the Netherlands, he was expected to work until six o’clock in the evening. He didn’t want to join the coffee and tea breaks with his colleagues and other employees; he preferred to go home earlier.81

Miloš Zvonař eventually made a career also in another field, however. He became a Dutch politician. He was elected to the Dutch House of Representatives in 2002 as a member of the Pim Fortuyn List.82 Zvonař retired from Dutch politics in 2003 and moved back to the Czech Republic. When he was a member of the Dutch Parliament, his past caught the interest of the Dutch media. As Kabela stated later, the media comments were not “favorable” to Zvonař in this regard. Dutch journalists, for example, described Zvonař as “a man of conflict who did not stop arguing even at the operating table.”83 The media also recalled Zvonař’s conflicts with coworkers, which had led to his firing. In December 1974, for example, thirteen of his colleagues asked the director of the hospital where Zvonař was working to dismiss him, and he was asked to leave the following June. The media also quoted the hospital’s lawyer (Zvonař unsuccessfully sued the hospital after his dismissal). According to the attorney,

he treated his colleagues in a very unpleasant manner, did not attend weekly medical conferences, not even when it came to important analyses of deceased patients, did not take enough interest in the pre-operative examination, did not know where the medical records were, did not actively participate in the post-operative treatment, did not maintain sufficient contact and cooperation with other specialists, etc.84

It seems that Zvonař had problems with other coworkers even before his emigration from Czechoslovakia, and this was not merely a problem of “adaptation” to work habits in a foreign country. In fact, his mother stated during an interrogation by the Czechoslovak State Security in 1977 that her son emigrated not only because of his desire to complete his medical education abroad and the opportunity to work in research in the field of anesthesiology and heart transplantation, but also because of “the poor working conditions at his last workplace, where he had many enemies among his co-workers—doctors—because of his political views and open behavior.”85

According to Zvonař’s mother, neither he nor his wife maintained contact with Czechoslovak emigrants in the Netherlands, and he was not active in any compatriot association. He continued to express “progressive views” abroad and did not change his beliefs as a “communist-functionary.” Zvonař and his wife expressed themselves in similar language in their application to the Czechoslovak authorities to have their residence legalized, which they eventually achieved in 1980. Thus, their prosecution for the crime of leaving the Republic was postponed.86

However, it was not true that Miloš Zvonař was not involved in emigrant associations. As Kabela later recalled, it was Zvonař who came up with the initiative to establish an association through which Czechoslovak emigrants in the Netherlands could meet regularly. Thus, he was at the foundation of the Comenius association in 1969 and even became its first chairman, if only for a short time. Zvonař was allegedly afraid of “empty politicking” and thus of creating contradictions among his compatriots. Therefore, he wanted “to keep the management of the association firmly in his own hands and only use the help of others when organizing a compatriot meeting.” That is why many people did not like his “undemocratic attitude” and therefore soon, on February 27, 1970, a new leadership of the association was formed which did not include Zvonař.87 His relatively short involvement in this association was probably also based on the fact that he was trying to legalize his stay in the Netherlands. It should also be noted that Zvonař did not see the association as politically oriented. To him, it was merely a means of socializing. In any case, Zvonař’s file from the Security Services Archives did not mention this involvement, although contemporary documents from the Czechoslovak embassy in The Hague mentioned Zvonař as the chairman of the Comenius association (or rather mentioned his replacement by Theodor Vondráček in 1970).88

In the case of anesthesiologists from Czechoslovakia, the sources reveal little about their involvement in “association life” or the Czechoslovak exile movement. It cannot be said that they were not engaged at all, however, but professional motives again seem to have prevailed. For example, Bořivoj Dvořáček maintained contacts with his colleagues in Czechoslovakia even after his emigration. He helped organize a fundraising campaign which made it possible to bring professional publications to Czechoslovakia and thus keep Czechoslovak anesthesiology at a high professional level. Moreover, thanks to his support, the Third European Congress of Anaesthesiology was held in Prague in 1970.89 Doctors also socialized and met informally, especially among themselves. However, the sources indicate no significant involvement in exile activities among members of this community. Ladislav Malínský, for example, contributed literary articles to Okno dokořán (and his texts were reportedly popular among readers),90 but this was a matter of literary activity rather than political engagement. What one can say about the post-1968 wave in general was true of doctors and anesthesiologists in particular: its involvement in the fight against the communist regime in Czechoslovakia was very small, especially compared to the generation which had emigrated after 1948. Zvonař’s involvement in the aforementioned exile association could not have been very significant, given that this involvement was not noted by the State Security and thus apparently not perceived as a threat to the communist regime in Czechoslovakia. And it probably wasn’t really a threat, since it was more a meeting of compatriots than “politicking.” In other words, it was something that was commonly and informally happening among emigrant doctors.

Conclusion

The story of the Czechoslovak anesthesiologists who emigrated to the Netherlands in 1968–1970 was the story of the intersection of the histories of two countries divided by the Iron Curtain. On the one hand, there was a significant milestone in Czechoslovak history, namely 1968 and the suppression of the Prague Spring by the invasion of Warsaw Pact troops and the resulting migration wave, which included a large number of experts, scientists, and doctors. On the other hand, there was the situation in the Dutch health sector, which suffered from a shortage of doctors in certain fields in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Anesthesiologists were members of a sought-after profession in the Netherlands, and this probably explains in no small part why migrants from Czechoslovakia, who probably would have ended up in another country, eventually settled in the Netherlands. The decisive moment for them was the offer of employment in their field of specialization. Many of these migrants had already had experiences with foreign internships or had established contacts with Dutch doctors. It was certainly no coincidence that many Czechoslovak anesthesiologists emigrated to the Netherlands from Africa, where they had been on missions for several years.

However, history is influenced by people, and in the case of the path of Czech anesthesiologists to the Netherlands, anesthesiologist Bob Smalhout was an important figure. He maintained contacts and helped not only Czechoslovak emigrants (doctors and specifically anesthesiologists) in the Netherlands, and he also maintained contacts with doctors in Czechoslovakia. This position between Czechoslovak experts in exile and those who did not emigrate placed him (probably unintentionally) in the role of an intermediary between Czechoslovak exiles in the Netherlands and their families and acquaintances back home.

The stories and experiences of the anesthesiologists showed that in the case of doctors, we can talk about a certain professional identity, not only in relation to other doctors in the Netherlands, but also within the expatriate community. Czech and Slovak doctors in the Netherlands formed informal networks, especially if they shared the same workplace. Thus, in terms of the concept of “double engagement” mentioned in the introduction, there was a considerable overlap of professional and national identities in this case.

The existence of a certain professional identity (shared with their Dutch colleagues) was a prerequisite for Czechoslovak doctors to integrate more easily into society in the Netherlands. In this case, however, although this may not have been the rule, political engagement as members of the exile community was usually more marginalized. If we add to this the efforts of some emigrants to avoid definitively “closing the door” to returning to or at least visiting Czechoslovakia, we can see why the migrants of 1968–1970 could not meet the expectations of those who had emigrated from Czechoslovakia 20 years earlier and who expected the new migrants to be more politically involved (more anti-communist) in the migrant community. Each generation of migrants was specific in this respect, although in some cases it was impossible to speak of two different generations in terms of age (while the time of emigration separated the two “generations” by more than 20 years, the age difference between the migrants was generally much smaller). However, belonging to the post-1968 migrant community was also a certain status that was attached to doctors from this migration wave, whether they wanted it or not.

Anesthesiologists who emigrated to the Netherlands after 1968 continued to work there. Thus, as was true for doctors from Czechoslovakia in general, the Netherlands was not a “transfer station” for them to other countries, and they did not return to Czechoslovakia (before 1989). From this point of view, we can assume that their lives in the Netherlands met their expectations or at least were such that they had no need to return or travel elsewhere. The unfulfilled vision of life in the Netherlands after 1968 concerned younger people and students more. For Czechoslovak doctors who had employment and a certain economic level in the Netherlands, further migration abroad was not on the agenda. However, as the example of anesthesiologists shows, internal migration within the Netherlands was not rare. Their professions, jobs, specializations, and work contacts all seemed to act as a kind of safety net on which they could rely to overcome the widespread mood of post-1968 migrants from Czechoslovakia, which one of them, whom we have already quoted above, defined as “life’s disappointment and resignation.”

Archival Sources

Archiv Ministerstva zahraničních věcí [Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic], Prague, (AMFA)

Nizozemsko [Netherlands] TO-O

Libri Prohibiti Library, Prague.

Archiv bezpečnostních složek [Security Services Archives], Prague (SSA)

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Mügge, Liza. Beyond Dutch Borders: Transnational Politics among Colonial Migrants, Guests Workers, and the Second Generation. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2010.

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Sklenářová, Sylva. “Čechoslováci v Nizozemsku v první polovině 20. století – I. Hornické kolonie v Limburgu” [Czechoslovaks in the Netherlands in the first half of the 20th century – I. Mining colonies in Limburg]. In Emigrace: sborník historických prací Centra pro československá exilová studia, vol. 2, 9–28. Olomouc: Univerzita Palackého v Olomouci, 2008.

Sklenářová, Sylva. “Krajané v belgické hornické obci Winterslag v období mezi dvěma světovými válkami ve vzpomínkách Karla Svobody” [Compatriots in the Belgian mining village of Winterslag during the interwar period in the memories of Karel Svoboda]. Historica Olomucensia 52 (2017): 131–47.

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Sklenářová, Sylva. “Nizozemská špionážní aféra: Proces s Janem A. Louwersem v březnu 1950” [The Dutch espionage affair: The trial of Jan A. Louwers in March 1950]. Soudobé dějiny 15, no. 1 (2008): 62–83.

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“The Past Must Be Given a Place”: Migration, Intergenerational Transfer, and Cultural Memory Practices in Belgian Families of Hungarian Descent

This article investigates the intergenerational effects of migration on the memories of Belgian families of Hungarian origin, focusing specifically on how these effects can prompt the second and third generations of migrant families to bring their private memories and identity constructions into the public sphere. Their social participation becomes a crucial element in their quest to uncover their families’ histories. While the memory of the migration experience was initially contained in the “archive” (the private sphere), it eventually transitions into the “canon” (the public sphere), becoming accessible to those outside the family circle. Using published biographies of second-generation members about their immigrant parents, photographic images, texts of a theatre play, group conversations on social media (Facebook), and interviews with members of the second and third generations, this article offers a varied source material to explore these questions. By pushing the boundaries of historical research and memory studies, it demonstrates that the memories of migration can have long-lasting effects that connect people and families with larger communities and the social sphere.

Keywords: migration, identity, memory, memory work, family, intergenerational relations, cultural memory, archive and canon, Hungarian child relief project, Belgium

In the course of governmental negotiations in 2019, the Flemish government under the leadership of Prime Minister Jan Jambon reached an agreement to follow the Dutch example and develop a Flemish cultural canon. An independent committee of experts worked on the Canon of Flanders for almost three years before presenting it to the general public in May 2023. From more than five hundred possible subjects, they selected sixty Flemish “windows” focusing on politics, culture, archaeology, economy, science, ecology, and sports. The purpose of the governmental agreement on the Canon is to create anchor points in Flemish culture, history, and sciences which can be used for support and inspiration in three fields: education, integration processes, and the heritage and tourism sectors.1 A wide and controversial social discussion surrounded the preparation of the Canon in the course of which historians and other experts got into heated public debates on the question of how to canonize national history and whether it is desirable or even possible to do so. The fragmented Belgian cultural and political landscape made these debates even more intriguing and created a challenging problem. As a result of the public discussions, it was also necessary to refrain from generalizing the concept of Flemish identity, and the commission responsible for the project decided to separate the Canon of Flanders from Flemish identity. Following the principles of tolerance and diversity, the heritage and memories of the different migrant communities in Belgium also got a place in the Canon. Among them there is a photo and a short note on the history of the Belgian-Hungarian child relief project, which is a very interesting fact from the perspective of this paper.2 Its mention is surprising, as the migration of Hungarian children to Belgium in the mid-1920s was a largely forgotten episode of shared Belgian-Hungarian social history a few years ago. What happened in the meantime? How did a mostly privately shared history of a now small (a couple hundred families) group of people (Belgians and Hungarians) became part of the Canon of Flanders? How did this “forgotten” history of a once widely known event in the lives of the Catholic communities of Belgium again become a noted part of the public/national/regional canon? The aim of this paper is to venture answers to these questions by looking at the private and public activities of the second and third generations of descendants of the Belgian-Hungarian child relief project and the processes by which memories have been shared in this community across generations. I consider how these activities helped dislodge family memories from the private sphere and gave them a place in public knowledge. Three specific cases of transgenerational activities will be examined to uncover how memory of migration can define generational ties and how these memories in return become public heritage.

Short History of an Old Story and Its Consequences

The Belgian-Hungarian child relief project was a humanitarian transnational initiative between Hungary and Belgium. The idea of temporarily placing Hungarian children with foreign families where they could regain their strength after the devastation of World War I came from Dutch citizens who worked during the war as volunteers in Hungary, which was in a difficult situation economically and socially.3 The project started in 1920 in the Netherlands. Other European countries, such as Switzerland, England, and Denmark joined the Netherlands shortly thereafter, and in 1923, Belgium followed suit. The project was organized along denominational lines. Therefore, as Belgium was an overwhelmingly Catholic country, the organization of the project rested in the hands of the large Catholic community and its networks. The children were transported by trains from Hungary to Belgium, and they were distributed upon arrival among the volunteer host families. The original intention of the organizers was a so-called “holiday” of six months for children who were malnourished but not sick. They were supposed to be fed well, attend the local schools together with their Belgian peers, and follow the Catholic traditions of the local community. The Hungarian organizers took care that only Catholic Hungarian children were placed in Belgium. While the various aspects of the journey to a foreign country and the placement of the children with families once they had arrived were relatively well organized, the decision of which children would return and when remained flexible. This decision was left up to the Belgian and Hungarian families. They were able to discuss and decide among themselves or sometimes even unilaterally when the child would return to Hungary or whether, in some cases, he or she would remain in Belgium. This had serious and often unforeseen consequences later, not only for the ways these children came to understand their identities but also for their children’s and grandchildren’s perceptions of themselves.

Many Hungarian children remained in the care of their Belgian families longer than six months. Some of them stayed years with their host families, and some remained in Belgium forever. Altogether approximately 21.000 Hungarian children came to stay in Belgium in the framework of this project. Due to the scarcity of contemporary administrative data, we can only make a rough estimate of 4 percent concerning the number of children who never returned to Hungary or, after having returned, decided (or had the decision made for them) to travel back to Belgium and settled there for good.4 The children who remained in Belgium for good became immigrants, whether of their own decision or not. Their migration experience was unusual, in that it was shaped in no small part by the constraints of childhood. Like adult migrants, they experienced the cultural rupture that is an inevitable part of migration. They were separated from their native culture and from the environment and people they knew and, most importantly and most formatively, from their parents and other family members. As children, they quickly learned the language and the local habits, attended school, joined youth organizations, and thus, unlike adult migrants, they were socialized in Belgium rather than in Hungary. They did not differ, from the perspectives of religion and skin color, from the local population, and this contributed to their successful structural integration.5 Although they remained Hungarian citizens until marrying a Belgian man or woman or completing the process of naturalization, because of their integration and socialization into Belgian society as children, the question of citizenship remained a minor administrative factor in their lives.6 While their structural integration seems to have been very successful, their identificational integration, how they perceived themselves vis-à-vis the rest of the society, was more complex and problematic. Very often feelings which bordered on melancholy seem to have lingered, as well as some attachment to their country and culture of origin, at least to the extent that they either knew or imagined it. If they preserved transnational connections with Hungary (for instance with their Hungarian families), the two identities, Hungarian and Belgian, intermingled. Moreover, for many of them, separation from the early childhood environment and especially from their birth parents proved a traumatic experience. They sometimes developed traumatic disorders or depression. They were often unable to form healthy relationships with their partners and incapable of performing healthy parental roles.7 In their late life-testimonies, these people often shared the difficulties they faced while growing up and establishing their own families in Belgium.8

Why Memory Matters and How It is Transferred

The secondary literature on cultural memory has persuasively shown that movement and memory are closely intertwined. Memories are on the move.9 They travel with migrants as intangible possessions that migrants cannot and will not get rid of because memories connect places and help preserve existing social ties and build new ones.10 As the process of migration involves dislocation not only from people and social connections but also from biographically important places, remembering these places and people is a way for migrants to bridge the gap between their past and future lives. These memories, however, are not stable entities. They are also on the move, not just in space but also in time. They change together with the migrants and their circumstances. In general, memories change over time. We remember different aspects of the same event at different moments of our lives.11 The concept of moving memories in time can also refer to a generational transfer, when memories in the form of family stories, tacit knowledge, mnemonic objects, and even bodily habits are passed down to the offspring of the person who migrated.

While in the past, memory was often the most important or even only possible way migrants could maintain some form of psychological and emotional connection to the social networks and family in the home country, in recent years, technology has changed communication without necessarily dislodging memory from its crucial position. One of the main reasons for this is that memory is closely connected to our identity construction. If we look at the process of migration, we can see that both memory and identity are in an endangered position. The experience of migration causes rupture and alteration in both processes. This is why migrants often struggle with the reconstruction of both. This process of recovery, however, often takes a long time and might not be completed before the migrant dies. If this is the case, another generation may inherit the incomplete reconstruction of their family history and a fragmented personal identity.12 As Leo Lucassen very aptly put it, “integration, just like assimilation, is viewed as a non-linear, long-term, and thus intergenerational process.”13 The adults who had come from Hungary to Belgium as children and later took Belgian spouses established mixed families in which their children often shared the cultural heritages, identities, and personal memories of both parents. Moreover, the children and sometimes even the grandchildren of these families regularly struggled with the unfinished projects of their parents to resolve problematic integration from the perspective of personal identity. In other words, they had to figure out the most important questions faced by people who had undergone some cultural rupture in the past caused by movement. These questions included the issue of cultural belonging, how the cultural identities of members of the second and third generations in migrant families evolved, and most importantly, where the origins of their identities as people who had inherited more than one cultural tradition lay. They often faced the challenging necessity of reconstructing the stories of their parents. These reconstructions sometimes became very painful processes. This was particularly true when the parents had shared traumas or painful memories of their migration experiences, intentionally or unintentionally. In certain cases, we can talk about the concept of postmemory, when “the relationship of the second generation to powerful, often traumatic, experiences that preceded their birth but that were nevertheless transmitted to them so deeply as to seem to constitute memories in their own right.”14 However, within one family not every sibling necessarily experienced the need of reconstruction and the need to resolve traumatic legacies in the same way. Some felt compelled to research their parents’ past while others were content to know only what had been shared with them.

These descendants of the people who had come as children to Belgium through the Hungarian relief project mostly shared their memories within the limited circle of family and friends. In some cases, they maintained a connection with their Hungarian families and Hungary. In the 1960s, for example, when traveling between the two countries became easier, many families spent holidays in Hungary or in Belgium visiting relatives or old host families. As a natural consequence, after the death of the parents (the original participants in the migration experience), the children slowly started to lose their connections to the other country and to the memories of their parents. This was when they often realized that they needed to know, research, and talk more about these memories and this heritage. Until recently, with very few exceptions, these private memories remained within the family.15 They were talked about and showcased in the form of photographs, artifacts, and other mnemonic objects within the private family “archive.”16

The influential theories of Aleida Assmann on cultural memory draw a distinction between active and passive remembering. Assmann calls active remembering the canon, which is accessible to the wider audience in the form of books, articles, and other publications (published by mainstream publishing houses) or in exhibitions held by museums and other cultural institutes. Assmann refers to passive remembering as the archive, to which access is limited because the objects in the archive remain within the private spheres of individuals and families. Most interestingly, the elements of the two forms of remembering can change places. Memories of events that remained in the archive thus can suddenly appear in the public canon and vice versa.17 The second and third generation of the original participants of the Belgian-Hungarian relief project are increasingly engaged in the process of bringing family memories from the archive into the public canon. They remember and reimagine their childhood memories, deconstructing and recontextualizing them in the transfer process from archive to canon. These descendants are actually engaging in “memory work.” 18 In her fascinating book, Annette Kuhn actively stages, recontextualizes, and analyzes her memories of childhood. She also demonstrates how, while processing the raw material of personal memories through memory work, she produces new memories, and she shows how potentially therapeutic this process might prove. This therapeutic effect has been observed and experienced by the descendants during their memory work. It brings an additional sense of relief not only to confront painful personal family memories but also to share them with the larger public.

Over the course of the past ten or fifteen years, there has been an upsurge in public activities in the form of publications, theater performances, interviews, films, exhibitions, and online community building.19 These activities have played a major role in how the story of the relief project is becoming better known by the Belgian general public and how it found its way into the Flemish Canon. There are key participants, however, who regularly drive this process forward with their efforts. Their active memory work is being shared with the public through their publications, performances, and social media activities, so one can follow how family memories are gradually being transferred to the public sphere.

The Hermans Family

The members of the Hermans family are among the most ardent participants in the public memory work. They have been recreating and recontextualizing the story of their mother, Magda Horváth. Magda was the mother of ten children from two marriages. She was thirteen when she arrived in Belgium as part of the Belgian-Hungarian child relief project on March 14, 1927. She was not lucky with her Belgian host family. They did not treat her well. When she first went back to Hungary in 1929 and decided a year later to return to Belgium for good, she was only sixteen years old and did not know what a hard and emotionally lonely life was waiting for her. According to her son Edgar Hermans, his mother had “a very tough and at times tragic, but also a very courageous and meaningful life.”20 When she was only 23 and pregnant with her second child, she was tragically widowed. For eight long years, including the years of World War II, Magda supported her two young children entirely on her own, as well as her elderly parents-in-laws and her young sister, who arrived from Hungary to stay with her. As she wrote in one of her letters to her family, “I tried to earn some money: I sewed, I knitted stockings, and sheared sheep so that we would have enough to eat.”21 In 1945, she made another life-altering decision. At the recommendation of the local priest, she married the local baker Eugène Hermans, who “was also widowed and had three children, while I had two. It was very difficult to start afresh, but we promised each other to be good for the children’s sake.”22 It became a difficult and complicated marriage, and Eugène and Magda had five children of their own. They thus formed a household of twelve people, in which the mother and father ran their own bakery downstairs. Eugène showed little interest in or concern for Magda’s Hungarian roots, so she had to deal with the traumas and painful memories of migration and homesickness on her own.

The events of her life had a significant influence on her children, more specifically, her two youngest sons, Edgar and Rudi, who were the most receptive to their mother’s difficulties with her private memories of migration and integration and are still processing her legacy. Rudi Hermans is a well-known Flemish writer. His oeuvre is inspired by and touches closely on his knowledge and experience of his mother’s story.23 His narratives are fictionalized versions of her story. These works are part of the public canon, as they are available to the general public in print by well-known publishers.24 These widely disseminated literary works thus offer an opportunity for rereading and re-interpretation, which are fundamental conditions for cultural memory creation.25 Rudi’s brother Edgar also wrote a book about Magda. He too took a strong interest in her history and the nature of his connection to her and to her painful past. As Judit Gera states, while Rudi’s writings are widely disseminated and thus form part of the public canon, Edgar’s book is a non-fiction story based on historical facts which was privately published as part of an archive.26 However, Edgar’s publication, which resembles a detective story27 and intertwines the story of his own research and the biographical facts he discovered about his mother’s life, was just the beginning of his process of joining Rudi in bringing the story of Magda and with it the story of the relief project into the public canon. This is how Edgar describes the beginning of his research:

Initially, the book was intended for my family. My mother was 100 years old in 2014 and I stood there at that grave, and I thought, my children remember that she is from Hungary and that’s it. My brothers, some know something, some nothing. I thought, I’m going to write down what I know. Just like that, short. I thought five pages will be enough. By chance, I ended up with you [Vera Hajtó] through an ad in the newspaper […]. And that is how it started to come to life. That was unbelievable. And that search took almost two years, a year and a half and it was something different every week.28

Edgar started a journey to collect everything in the family archive:

I started talking to my brothers, who knew a bit, but that wasn’t really much. Then you [Vera Hajtó] found everything for me in Brussels. Then I accidentally came into contact with Zsuzsanna Bálint [a historian in Törökbálint]. I sent a message to the municipality in German, French, and English asking if someone would speak to me. […] One thing led to another. Then I started talking to old people, etc., etc.29

Edgar describes how, while he was collecting information within the family (i.e. as part of the private archive), he also started to build connections with the public sphere. He contacted me, a professional historian, and also the aforementioned Zsuzsanna Bálint, who is a local historian in Törökbálint, Hungary, the town from which Edgar’s mother Magda had come. That also proves that the archive of family memories is not entirely separated from the public canon.30 They are close to each other and feed off each other. Transfer between the two can take place at almost any point.

Edgar’s research and writing had an influence on the family across generations, as he himself mentioned. “After my book was published, one of Rudi’s sons, who was 30–35 years old, called me, I have had little contact with him. [He said,] I just called to thank you for making that book. […] the idea of what is in Rudi’s book. That is very heavy stuff.... […] When they read my book, it became completely different.”31 And at a certain moment, some of them joined Edgar’s efforts to share the story of the mother and grandmother with the public in the form of a play: “Then came my brother Jean Pierre, who is an actor, and he said to Rudi, the writer, couldn’t you do anything with that [Edgar’s book], couldn’t you write a play out of that.”32 Through the cooperative efforts of the different members of the second generation, the self-published book, which was meant for the limited circle of the family, became the source on which the script of the theater play Een bijzondere vrouw (A special woman) was based. The play was first staged during the annual Heritage Day of the Flemish community in the small church Kerkje van Laak in Houthalen-Helchteren on March 14, 2018. The Hermans brothers also organized a small exhibition dedicated to their mother in the church, which helped them establish many contacts with other families who shared similar memories of the parents’ histories.

There are often silences in painful family stories, and there is one such silenced memory in the case of the Hermans family as well. 33 Magda’s return to Hungary as a young girl in 1929 and her own choice to live her life in Belgium remained hidden from her children for decades. The decision to return was a crucial choice for her, since it altered her future. It also clearly had significant consequences for her children. Edgar and Rudi believed that their mother could not return to Hungary before 1964. They thought that her troubled family circumstances had not allowed her to return earlier and that these circumstances had decided her future and that she herself had been helpless in this matter. However, in the course of his research, Edgar discovered that she had had a choice. This came as a shock to Magda’s sons. This key fact stands in the middle of the story of the play. Magda has to answer this question, posed by Saint Peter at the gates of Heaven, who was played by her actor son Jean Pierre. Curiously, the play was staged in a church. Magda speaks with Saint Peter about her wonderous journey, much as her son, Edgar, spoke about his ongoing journey in his interview:

And just keep going. Moreover, I have discovered so much in the meantime, I am still busy. […] Moreover, the last time in Budapest, the two cineastes, I find that unbelievable. When I showed my first book to my cousin in Hasselt, he said Edgar that should be made into a movie. […] And now those people just come up to us and say, we want to make a movie. Unimaginable!34

Alongside the books, the play, and the plans for a film, the activities of Edgar and his family in the public sphere also extend to a place of remembrance in Belgium. As it so happens, Magda Horváth has a lieux de memoire in Belgium. In 1956, the old farmhouse where she lived as a young widow with her small children and her parents-in-laws was dismantled and placed in the Flemish openair folklore museum of Bokrijk due to its architectural value. Edgar and his family are currently working with the heritage experts at the museum on making the family story publicly visible in the museum.

Une Petite Hongroise

Like the Hermans brothers, Betty Leruitte also wrote a biographical book about her mother, Teréz or Terry Beck.35 Betty’s book is a narrative of Terry’s life story. As she puts it, “what I told in my book, everything is true, down to the smallest anecdotes, everything is true. She told me it all, and it seems a bit like a novel.”36

Betty describes the chain of events that led to her discovery of her mother’s childhood home in Belgium, but compared to Edgar’s book, she brings a new dimension to her writing. She intentionally goes into dialogue mostly with her mother and, at the end of the book, with her father as well. Betty Leruitte is concerned not simply with learning more about her mother’s past, including how and why she came to Belgium, how she grew up there, how she found work, and when she got married, had a child, and faced many difficult choices. Betty also seems eager to learn more about her own place in her mother’s life. She confronts her own fears and childhood traumas in the dialogues in her text, which she puts in italics. In certain cases, she also uses photos as a gateway to her mother’s past.37 Betty does not always provide the information that one would usually expect from a photo in her captions, such as the names of the people depicted or the occasion of the picture. Instead, she shares her own impressions or memories, and by doing so she brings past, present and future into a very close relationship. She also interrupts her narrative at times to make comments situated in the moment of narration rather than the narrated moment:

Freeze frame: I am looking at this photo where you are looking at me. I want to tell you that much later, in eighty years exactly, your daughter will find this photo at the neighbors’. But you’re there with your doll, you don’t know yet that you’ll have a girl. Many peripeteias await you before I show up. So I can only shut up, and let you live.38

Above this text we see a group photo of nine people. The photo was made on the occasion of a trip made by Terry’s Hungarian father to Habay-la-Neuve, a small Walloon village where Terry was placed by the relief project. She lived with two sisters in the Belgian Ardennes. Unlike Magda Horváth, she had a very happy, idyllic childhood with them. The picture, at least, gives this idyllic impression. Everybody and everything that presumably was dear to the little girl can be seen on the photo. Terry is sitting in the middle of the group with her doll in her hand, and the family dog is at her feet. Her father is next to her, as is her elder sister, who was also staying with a family in the neighborhood. Next to her Hungarian relatives, we see her Belgian family as well. They are all sitting in a line in front of the house in Habay. Sometimes Betty makes mention in her narrative of memories she has of a photograph that no longer exists, or a “memory of a memory,” to borrow a phrase from poet Maria Stepanova.39

Figure 1. Terry Beck with her father, her sister and her Belgian foster family around 1930, Habay-la-Neuve (Private collection of Betty Leruitte, Louvain-la-Neuve)

The main narrative of the book is written in the second person, which emphasizes the intimate relationship between the mother and daughter. In the excerpts attached to the photograph’s, on the other hand, Betty addresses her mother directly in the first-person. She asks her questions and pleads with her, especially in the second part of the book, in which these discussions and arguments are increasingly intense due to the childhood traumas Betty suffered because of her parents’ stormy relationship:

A comedy? I don’t understand what I’m hearing, but I’ve learned everything, and the day will come when I’ll ask you questions. I know it’s none of my business, but you shouldn’t tear yourself apart in front of me. What comedy is he talking about, mom? Tell me, you didn’t play comedy to make him believe that... no! ... Yes?40

Another important feature of Betty Leruitte’s book is how she incorporates the kaleidoscopic images and impressions of the many different national and regional identities of her family. Betty is Hungarian on her mother’s side and Belgian on her father’s side. Her father had a Dutch mother and a Belgian father. Moreover, Terry grew up in the French speaking part of Belgium, in Wallonia, and she acquired from her host family a strong sense of regional Walloon identity, which she passed on to her daughter. The folklore, legends, and habits of the region are prominent features of her story. And she notes, with a specific reference to place, “among the Ardennes, the pain is discreet, feelings do not spread out in the public square, one keeps one’s grief for oneself.”41 She also mentions how her mother, “an incorrigible romantic, told me more than once the story of Louise de Lambertye, last Marquise du Pont d’Oye where, according to legend, Voltaire sometimes came to rest.”42

Betty Leruitte’s use of imaginary dialogues with her mother and her references to Walloon identity suggest a great deal about her possible intentions. After the death of her own son, Betty wrote a book about his life, which was followed by Une Petite Hongroise, the book about her mother. She contended in Une Petite Hongroise that “those two books have been like therapy for me, I felt so good after writing those two books, […] I didn’t expect it to do so much good.”43

In an interview, Betty spoke about her intention to write a story of a Hungarian girl who ended up in Wallonia and not in Flanders:

I searched for information for five years before I could write my book, and it is thanks to your [Vera Hajtó’s] book that I could find my information, […] so I wrote my book and my intention was to make the case of the Hungarian children known because no one knew anything about it among the French speakers (Walloons).”44

Indeed, due to the smaller influence of the Catholic Church in Wallonia, far more Hungarian children were placed in Flanders during the relief project. The story of the child relief project is thus also more forgotten in Wallonia than in Flanders. Betty Leruitte’s book is the first attempt in this region to make the story part of public memory. As it was published by L’Harmattan (a well-known publishing house), the book is widely available to the public, which will increase its chances of becoming part of the public canon. It is also on permanent display in the MigratieMuseumMigration in Brussels. Betty is currently working with the cultural center of Habay-le-Neuve on a play based on the story of her mother and the other fourteen Hungarian children who were welcomed in the village in the 1920s. While Betty and the Herman brothers were authors of their creative endeavors, others choose social media to share, process, re-imagine and contextualize their family memories.

Facebook – Forming an Online Community

“Dear members of this group. This group is especially intended for (grand)children and those involved with children from Hungary who went to the Netherlands after World War I. Much is still unknown. With this group, I hope to collect stories and information, which may benefit everyone in his or her own way.” – These were the first welcoming words of the founder of the Facebook group Hongaarse Kindertreinen bestemming Nederland en België. The group was formed in October 2018, and it now has 181 members. It was established by a Dutch woman whose grandmother participated in the Dutch part of the Hungarian child relief project and who remained in the host country for the rest of her life. Although in her introductory words she only mentions the Netherlands and indicates that the group is meant to be open to the descendants of the children who went there, the group was from the outset open to people whose parents or grandparents had come to Belgium. By organizing an online community, they became publicly visible, even if this Facebook group is a closed group, which means that if someone wants to join, he or she needs the permission of the host. One can only post to the page and read the comments posted by others after having obtained the permission of the host. The group is supposed to provide a safe place to share private information. Still, it remains a relatively small community the members of which are sporadically active. There are very different expectations regarding the purpose of the group among its members. For many of them, it is a forum to which they come primarily for information. They are looking for information on experts, books, genealogical sites, and other sources on the history of the relief projects. Some of them share photos and stories, but in spite of the organizers repeated requests that every new member share the history of their family and the relatively safe, private environment, many members remain reluctant. Willem Suys is the most active member of the group. He often coordinates among members and helps them find information, and he also shares his own family history as well as his own private quest for information.

I think there is still a lot of interest in the group in getting information and that people are also willing to comment in the group if the subject is not too private, but it is a bit of a difficult group. I am also in a number of other groups, mostly public, sometimes private, and there I see, if I compare it with the children’s trains, […] that this group also has a little information that would be of interest to others, or the information is too personal and they feel they cannot even share it with a private group.45

With the information he provides, Willem often triggers members to react and share more private experiences. Sometimes there are dialogues through which members of the group confront experiences of painful unresolved family memories. Anne Marie Himpe is one of the few members who very openly shares her struggles to come to terms with her mother’s past. For her, the Facebook group is a platform where she can join discussions and compare her experiences with the experiences of others who might share her struggles. She uses this public sphere to post her private family memories and confront them. In October 2016, Willem shared a Swiss online article on new research about the biological transmission of family traumas from parent to child.46 Eleven people posted comments concerning the article, including Anne Marie: “Interesting, but what can we do about it now? I really believe that acceptance of our body and those of our descendants sends good signals. Lett -ing- go.” She adds, “We cannot change or undo what happened, although we so often wish we could. I would like to believe that what was possible then would be unthinkable today. I consider it one big learning process.”

Anne Marie’s daughter Lieselotte, who is a member of the third generation, is part of the group but is not very active. She seems also to struggle with the memories of the migration experience of her mother and grandmother, but she tries to distance herself from the painful, ongoing memory reconstruction process. As she said in the course of an interview,

I understand that the past has happened and that this must be given a place […] You have been given a life, you must move forward. And I do think that people like me read messages on the Facebook page about the children’s trains. You cannot solve the pains of your mother, grandmother. You can’t, you can’t heal those wounds. I don’t want them to become my wounds.47

The Facebook group also offers Anne Marie a chance not only to see her memories echoed in other people’s work but at the same time to distance herself in order better to understand what particular memories might mean to her. As she commented in a post to the page,

Nice weather, ideal for retreating with Rudi Hermans’ De Troonpretendent. Not reading it at once, it came too close to me for that, too recognizable, which was pleasant on the one hand and quite difficult at times on the other. […] Because mother is always silent, the son interviews the mother. Come on, I did exactly the same thing, and when mother prompts him not to share her experience with strangers, then I know better than anyone what possesses the mother, but also what the son wants and needs to know. 48

Both Anne Marie and Liselotte testify that with the creation of the Facebook group, the history of the Belgian-Hungarian child relief project gained more visibility in the public space. There is one more source to which they can turn and where they have an opportunity to be heard, because, as Anne Marie commented, “that story, that story never comes up. There is no information about it. That is like it never happened.”49 And as Lieselotte puts it,

That [Facebook group] is indeed, together with you [Vera Hajtó], one of the two pillars on which we can finally relax a bit. Yes... Otherwise that’s exactly the same, I’m not going to say a secret, but an unknown piece of something that you couldn’t talk about with other people, or didn’t want to because you were convinced that no one knew anything about it anymore. […] to us that’s just a piece of family history, but it turns out to be a piece of family history for many other people as well.50

It is a family history that is being shared by many Belgian-Hungarian families so that the larger community of the country in which they live and to which they belong can acknowledge their existence and history: “I think that would be a great relief to many people. Somewhere an official recognition.”51

Conclusion

Memories of migration experiences, even if sometimes second-hand memories, are still very much part of the identities of the people who belong to the Belgian families whose parents or grandparents participated in the Belgian-Hungarian child relief project between 1923 and 1927. The transgenerational transfer of memories of migration and of the integration process and painful but healing memory work is actively being pursued by the children and grandchildren. While these children were born in and grew up in Belgium, their complete integration into Belgian society as people who identify exclusively as Belgians is an ongoing process from generation to generation. Their family stories and family heritages have found their way into the collective public memory of Belgian society as a result of the intense public activity of the descendants who belong to the second and third generations. One might think that these personal histories or elements of family heritage are relevant only in private circles, but in some cases they can become important for or interesting to the larger public as responses to external pressures. The histories and thus cultural identities of migrant communities are based on individual or family stories, and they are formed in the host society in symbiosis with mainstream histories. However, the story of migration seems to remain alive in different social forms and interactions, and it can resurface in public or in private unexpectedly. Migrant heritage, which is easily seen as fading with the arrival of younger generations, suddenly becomes visible with every new attempt to define, whether individually or collectively, who we are and where we come from.

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Challenging Systematization in Romania: Human Rights, Transnationalism, and Dissidents in Campaigns by Opérations Villages Roumains (OVR), 1989–1990

Keywords: Opérations Villages Roumains (OVR), cultural heritage preservation, human rights, transnationalism, dissidents, exiles

In the second half of the 1980s, the favorable reputation of Romania’s leader Nicolae Ceauşescu in Western Europe as an idiosyncratic leader who defied Soviet policy steadily crumbled. Notably, the juxtaposition between Mikhail Gorbachev’s reformist aura and Ceauşescu’s pertinacity accentuated the authoritarian character of the Romanian regime.1 Although international condemnation of Romanian repressive state policy steadily increased following the dispersal of worker demonstrations in Brasov by Romanian military forces in 1987, the country only became front-page news in Western media after the so-called project of systematization entered a new phase in March 1988.2 Systematization was a project by the Romanian state which had been launched in 1974. The aim of the project was to transform the rural areas of the country into large agro-industrial sites, while the urban centers underwent serious infrastructural changes. The project’s international and domestic notoriety stemmed from the destructive measures accompanying the restructuring. Historical centers in Bucharest were demolished, and rural villages were essentially demolished to make way for the industrialization of the local economy.3 Additionally, Hungarian minority groups in the Western part of the country (principally Transylvania) felt that the measures and the demolition campaigns were specifically targeted against them.4 Given the ecological, cultural, and humanitarian repercussions of systematization, Romanian critics (including some Romanians living in exile) dubbed it the “ghettoization of the Romanian countryside” or “Ceaushima.”5

As the pace of demolition steadily increased in Bucharest and Ceauşescu announced the restructuring of almost 8,000 villages,6 organizations concerned with the preservation of cultural heritage, such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) started to raise awareness in Western Europe of the events taking place in Romania. Both UNESCO and ICOMOS had been alerted of these events by the Association for the Protection of Historic and Artistic Monuments and members of La Ligue pour la défense de Droits de l’Homme en Roumanie (LDHR), two Romanian exile organizations based in Paris. In spring 1988, the first demonstrations against the destruction of historic buildings and neighborhoods in Bucharest were held in Paris. In parallel, with the support of the Hungarian Human Rights Foundation based in New York, Hungarian dissidents from Transylvania organized protests abroad, lobbied the United Nations, and even held a march in Budapest.7 As the news of demolished cultural heritage and violations of minority rights spread across Western Europe, a group of Belgians who were active in the media sector became dissatisfied with the lack of interest their government and international bodies had shown in the situation. They decided to take action, and they established an organization that campaigned against the project of systematization. In February 1989, they organized their first press conference in Brussels as Opérations Villages Roumains (OVR) was born. OVR was founded in a basement in Brussels, but it rapidly grew into the most important voice against systematization. By the end of 1989, more than 2,000 local committees had been established in Belgium, France, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and the UK.8

OVR differed from other organizations condemning the project of systematization in its scope, methods, and objectives. Whereas UNESCO, ICOMOS, and the Hungarian Human Rights Foundation focused on certain aspects of systematization (cultural heritage preservation in Bucharest or minority rights in Transylvania), OVR called attention to a myriad of distressing cultural, humanitarian, and ecological repercussions of the project. In particular, OVR sought to defy Ceauşescu’s totalitarian grip on society by mobilizing a multitude of local actors in its endeavors. Hence, OVR’s operations, initially coordinated out of a small basement in Brussels, were an outspoken challenge to state socialism that developed during the last months of the Cold War.9 OVR quickly grew into a transnational organization which drew support from groups residing in countries as far as Hungary, Canada, Finland, and Poland.10 The Fédération Internationale des Droits Humains (FIDH) played a key role in this process and provided OVR with what scholars have referred to as the infrastructure of solidarity.11 For example, the FIDH mediated OVR’s first contacts with the Romanian dissidents and exiles with whom it cooperated since its inception. Most importantly, OVR did not merely differ from the other organizations condemning systematization policy but significantly stood out from earlier campaigns denouncing state socialism in Western Europe.12

The literature on Western European opposition to state socialist regimes in the 1980s has tended to focus on the development and instrumentalization of a human rights discourse entangled with the rise of dissident opposition and transnational links.13 Much scholarly attention has been devoted to Poland and Czechoslovakia, where the emergence of an internationally acclaimed human rights discourse played a determining role in Western support for Solidarity and Charter 77 members. Academics have claimed that, following the fiercely debated Helsinki Accords, human rights were established as a lingua franca that provided a basis for denouncing the repression of Solidarity and Charter 77.14 How Western activists perceived and sought to assert these human rights has fueled academic debate ever since. While some authors stressed the apolitical nature of human rights, as if these notions were derived from some broad moral consensus, others have been keen to describe Western support for Solidarity or Charter 77 and the human rights vernacular in which this support was expressed and interpreted it as a vessel for domestic or international political objectives.15 Whatever the case, Western support for the Czechoslovak and Polish opposition seems to have played an instrumental role in the historiography on human rights. Furthermore, scholars have highlighted the transnational character of support for the highly divergent Central and Eastern European oppositions, who fostered close contacts across the Iron Curtain.16 During this period, human rights became entrenched in the operations and discourse of transnational activism. Alongside a set of (apolitical) moral values, human rights offered Western activists the necessary pieces to build a global puzzle of activism in which the East was connected to the South.17 In this regard, the “transnational” was trans-European and global at the same time. Finally, scholars have underlined how dissidents and exiles benefited, if in some cases quite unevenly, from these transnational links, which were simultaneously strengthened by the incorporation of a human rights discourse. These developments went hand in hand with the attention they received in the Western media.18

This burgeoning scholarship has played a key role in shaping notions of human rights, transnationalism, and dissident and exile activity in the East-West encounters of the late Cold War period. Nevertheless, it is the product of Western attention to a few causes célèbres situated in Central Europe. This contrasts with the heterogenic nature of Central and Eastern Europe.19 Additionally, the focus on Poland and Czechoslovakia has led to analyses of events which took place within a limited timeframe, principally between 1976 and 1982. Therefore, this article focuses on the Brussels-born challenge to the project of systematization in Romania issued by OVR in 1988–1990, while also assessing the infrastructure provided by the FIDH. The Romanian case differs in several ways from the circumstances in Central Europe. Ceauşescu’s plans to transform both the urban and rural environments of Romania received plenty of criticism from the West, but systematization never appeared on the global stage with the same prominence as Solidarity or Charter 77.20 Similarly, Romania’s authoritarian regime was not immune to the rise of dissident protest, although the actual number of dissidents never grew substantially and received little media coverage in the West. According to Dragoş Petrescu, many of the Romanian dissidents, such as Doina Cornea, Gabriel Andreescu, and Dan Petrescu, experienced the loneliness of radical dissidence.21 Furthermore, Romania enjoyed comparatively friendly relations with Western European governments which were characterized by détente efforts, continuous dialogue, and reciprocal state visits.22 Many of these contacts were of an economic nature, through which the Ceauşescu regime hoped to gain more independence from the Soviet Union and thus bolster its domestic legitimacy.23 Indeed, Romania and its Conductor, had a very different place in East-West relations than the Central European countries. Hence, the question: how does the Romanian case alter our understanding of Western European challenges to the practices related to state socialism?

By investigating OVR’s philosophy, objectives, and methods of mobiliza­tion, I argue that campaigns on behalf of Romania in the late 1980s reveal the flexibility and instrumentality of human rights, the extent and limits of transnational contacts, and the varying degree to which dissidents and exiles were integrated. Moreover, the case of OVR also explores how European imaginations and anti-totalitarian ideology interconnected with a multitude of Western European Ostpolitiks in the last decade of the Cold War and shaped the organization’s political activism.24 Finally, an inspection of OVR’s operations reveals how opposition to the project of systematization evolved and gathered strength over the course of the 1980s and was co-created by the networks of the FIDH, which in its turn accentuates the importance of the so-called Helsinki effect.25 Laura Demeter has already indicated the emergence and importance of transnational networks in campaigns on behalf of Romania. She has demonstrated how organizations such as UNESCO, ICOMOS, and the Hungarian Human Rights Foundation were often informed by Romanian and Hungarian dissidents, voiced opposition against systematization, and framed the destruction of cultural heritage as a human rights violation.26 While Demeter convincingly sketched the first traces of transnational resistance, this article offers insights into the proliferation of international condemnation produced by OVR, which in contrast with earlier voices of denouncement, vociferously challenged Ceauşescu’s totalitarian grip on society, of which systematization was the most prominent symptom.27 This also strengthens Demeter’s argument that the transnational networks concerned with cultural heritage preservation laid the foundations for international delegitimization of the Ceauşescu regime. All in all, this research perspective contributes to a broader understanding of the opposition that emerged against the project of systematization.

In the discussion below, I analyze OVR’s philosophy, objectives, and methods on the basis of its archival documents held at the Mundaneum in Mons. These materials have been supplemented by interviews with the founder of the organization, Paul Hermant, and the organization’s international coordinator, Daniel Wathelet. I focus explicitly on the period beginning with OVR’s establishment in December 1988 and concluding with the accomplishment of its founding goal: the abolishment of the project of systematization in Romania, one of the first decisions taken by Petre Roman in 1989–1990.28 This period has been referred to as the “adoption phase” by OVR members, and stands in contrast with the so-called “humanitarian phase,” which began shortly after the country’s 1989 transition.29 This humanitarian phase, which was characterized by Western European aid for Romania, has received the bulk of historiographical and societal attention due to the resonance it created across Western Europe, while the period before the implosion of the Ceauşescu regime has been largely overlooked. 30

The article is divided into three parts. The first part focuses on OVR’s strategies, objectives, and methods. It assesses the role and incorporation of human rights into the organization’s communication and discourse by examining how OVR framed the project of systematization as well as the challenge to it. The second part investigates the transnational dimension of OVR’s undertaking by taking a closer look at the self-proclaimed philosophy of the organization. It reveals how trans-European connections stood at the heart of OVR, which explicitly distanced itself from other global causes. Finally, the third part assesses the integration of Romanian dissidents and exiles who interacted with one another and within the organization. This framework reveals how a focus on Romania during the final Cold War years contributes to our understanding of human rights, transnational dimensions, and dissident and exile activities and how the incorporation of these three key elements differed from earlier protest campaigns against state socialist regimes.

Opérations Villages Roumains and the Evolving Role of Notions
of Human Rights

Apart from the denunciations by UNESCO, ICOMOS, and the Hungarian Human Rights Foundation, West European reactions to the project of systematization were fairly limited. Notably, West European governments remained awkwardly silent. Many West European politicians had continued to prioritize East-West dialogue throughout the 1980s and identified Ceauşescu as a partner in the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE).31 In Belgium, for example, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reasoned that an untimely condemnation of systematization could hinder the diplomatic talks at the CSCE in Vienna between 1986 and 1989.32 Indeed, for several years, organizations concerned with cultural heritage preservation and minority rights in Transylvania were the only voices condemning the plans of the Romanian state. This steadily changed as rural systematization plans entered a new phase in March 1988 and Ceauşescu proclaimed, “We must radically reduce the number of villages from 13,000 at present to about 5000–6000 at most.”33 When he made this statement, a few Belgian journalists and television producers, who felt indignant at the lack of any appropriate international response, decided to take matters into their own hands.34 Paul Hermant and Eric Masquellier, two Belgians who were active in the media sector, launched their own initiative in December 1988.35 Together with ten other founding members, they established Opérations Villages Roumains (OVR). What all twelve had in common was their leftist, anti-totalitarian, anti-communist, and even anarchist inspirations.36 Their initiative emerged independently from the other organizations condemning systematization. UNESCO, ICOMOS, and the Hungarian Human Rights Foundation provided key information, however. The most important difference between earlier challenges to systematization and OVR was the fact that OVR was not merely concerned with the preservation of cultural heritage in Bucharest or violations of minority rights in Transylvania, but rather unambiguously condemned urban and rural systematization across the whole country. According to the founders, OVR was an anti-totalitarian political activist movement concerned with a myriad of cultural, ecological, and humanitarian causes in Europe.37

The very practical objective of the organization was to “save all Romanian villages under threat of destruction.” Given the state of European politics, the opaque positioning of the Ceauşescu regime, and the limited societal knowledge in Belgium about humanitarian problems in Romania (at least in comparison with knowledge concerning humanitarian causes in what was then called the third world), the OVR founders came up with the idea of disseminated opposition reinforced with permanent anti-totalitarian education.38 Practically, disseminated opposition meant that the agency of opposition was installed at the level of the local community (municipality) and the citizen. Inspired by Amnesty International’s methods of adopting a prisoner, the organization set up a framework in which Western European villages or towns could adopt a Romanian village.39 Adoption installed a symbolic bond between a Western European and Romanian village. The symbolic relation between the two villages would principally be represented by the local (Western European) committees founded on behalf of the Romanian villages. These committees included aldermen, representatives of the local center for public welfare, and engaged citizens. Their main task was to raise awareness concerning the project of systematization by organizing events, exhibitions, and fundraisers. These local committees were guided by the coordination team, which consisted of the twelve founding members. They encouraged the multitude of local OVR committees to write letters to the authorities in Romania in which they condemned systematization.40 Several committees also addressed Ceauşescu, and some even wrote to international politicians like Gorbachev.41

Because the organization initially had little information concerning which of the 13,000 villages would be demolished, they decided to adopt them all. This meant they had to find an equal number of villages willing to adopt a Romanian one. Hence, during the first months of 1989, the OVR coordination team had to raise awareness about the project of systematization and its sense of urgency. In order to do this, they framed their own initiative as an “urgent intervention on a European level” against what was seen as “a crime against memory, cultural genocide and a human scandal.”42 Moreover, systematization was framed as a plan “that eradicated all traces of the Romanian past, to root out culture and tradition, to rewrite history in order to fit the coming of ‘the new man.’” The plan was described in some detail:

Most of the time, the inhabitants are warned only the day before the arrival of bulldozers. A real cultural genocide is hidden behind the official justification (a gain of 3.3 percent farming land). Trees, churches, schools, houses, historic edifices, even graveyards must disappear. An important part of the European inheritance will disappear simultaneously.43

Indeed, the severity of systematization was illustrated first and foremost by the destruction of Romanian villages. Moreover, the destruction of these villages was presented as an attack on European cultural heritage, due to the fact that “Most of these villages are older than several hundred years, they bear the markings of successive invasions that swept through the country, they are proud of a ‘Baroque’ style architecture very often decorated with fresco paintings.”44 Incorporating cultural heritage preservation as a motive and concern made sense, since systematization had always been framed in these terms by its earliest denouncers.45 This attracted the support of architectural, rural, and cultural heritage groups such as ICOMOS, Ecovast, and Europa Nostra, which had already been challenging systematization in Romania.46 Somewhat striking, in comparison, was the absence of any appeals to human and minority rights, nor was there mention of Transylvania or German Saxons. This corresponds with Demeter’s conclusions, according to which a narrative touching on human rights concerns was only gradually incorporated into the appeals based on fears concerning the destruction of the built environment. It was only in late 1988, under the impetus of human rights activists focusing on Transylvania, that human rights gradually became part of the discourse used in the campaigns.47

When OVR attempted to convince local municipalities to support their efforts during their first months of operations, they often made a few suggestions concerning how letters could be sent to Ceauşescu and other Romanian authorities. For instance, they suggested the following phrasing: “I ask you to register my vigorous opposition to the projected annihilation of the village and the thousands of others considered. I intend to do anything possible to contribute to the preservation of the rural European inheritance and to the defense of the inhabitants.” Again, the emphasis was placed on the destruction of the village and the protection of European cultural heritage.48 The framing of systematization and communication with Belgian municipalities contained no real appeals to human rights issues. This also translated to the way Belgian municipalities framed their own solidarity. The town of Mons, for example, stated that “in Hainaut and due to our recent history we know the fragility of local agriculture.” They added that their initiative contributed to “the springtime of European relations”, referring to the self-perceived watershed momentum of pan-European affairs.49 Wathelet also observed that the image of a village on the verge of destruction had a tremendous effect on the public opinion.50 Only one month after the launch of the initiative, 220 Belgian villages had adopted a Romanian village.51 Indeed, the image of a village on the verge of destruction successfully encouraged a remarkably high percentage of Belgian, notably French-speaking municipalities to adopt a Romanian village.

Nonetheless, human rights were given a prominent role when the OVR coordination team addressed the European Parliament in March 1989. In order to gain support from the European Commission (EC), OVR contended that “the Romanian government aims to annihilate the societal tissue of the Romanian population, which is a major violation of human rights and the Helsinki Accords.”52 Along with the incorporation of references to human rights in its appeals, the OVR coordination team underlined the real reason behind the project of systematization, i.e. the restructuring of rural society with the ambition of dismantling the socio-cultural networks that could possibly harbor pockets of opposition.53 This was a very different discourse than encountered in the flyers and campaign letters directed to the Belgian municipalities.

Moreover, the international success of the organization prompted it to rethink and recraft its discourse. From the beginning, OVR’s initiative, objectives, and methods attracted a lot of international attention. Notably, in France and Switzerland, two countries particularly interested in the plight of Romanian villages for several reasons, curiosity swiftly transformed into mobilization, as national branches were established during the first half of March 1989. For OVR, the question remained how to internationalize their initiative without creating an unmanageable network of towns and villages all over Europe. In order to do this, the coordination team decided to cooperate with the FIDH, which functioned as an international umbrella organization for national human rights initiatives. The OVR executive committee decided that the establishment of a national OVR branch had to be in cooperation with a national human rights organization affiliated with the FIDH. Cooperation with the FIDH boosted and coordinated the proliferation of interested towns and villages all over Europe, but it also meant a more prominent role for appeals to human rights in the discourse. A wide range of members from national human rights organizations and Helsinki committees were increasingly incorporated, and they framed the project of systematization first and foremost as a violation of human rights and the principles of the Helsinki Accords.54 For example, an OVR committee from Switzerland argued that they felt a duty to make sure human rights were respected, especially by CSCE member states.55 Their emphasis on human rights was no coincidence, since the Swiss branch had been established and supported by Le Comité d’Appui, L’union genevoise contre l’intolérence and La Ligue Suisse de Droits de l’homme.56 OVR’s connections with these kinds of organizations and its modification of its own discourse better to echo the discourses of these organizations were a result of its integration in the networks of the FIDH. The latter became a key partner for the internationalization of OVR, but it also influenced the way in which systematization was framed, perceived, and denounced.

Partly as a consequence of OVR’s cooperation with the FIDH, human rights became more visible and increasingly instrumental. Yet, the cooperation also underlined the importance and existence of human rights networks established in the aftermath of the Helsinki Accords. Over the following months, national branches were established in the United Kingdom, Flanders, Norway, and the Netherlands, and contacts were also formed with human rights organizations and social movements, peace organizations, and activists in Hungary, Canada, Spain, the USA, Italy, Poland, Denmark, the Federal Republic of Germany, and Luxemburg. By late 1989, over 2,000 Western European towns and villages had adopted a Romanian village.57 In retrospect, Romanian dissidents claimed this was a pivotal moment in which the opposition against the Ceauşescu regime finally broke its traditional boundaries delineated by the critical Romanian diaspora.58

In sum, appeals to human rights were used unevenly in OVR’s communication during the first months of operations. While systematization was strategically framed as a violation of human rights when addressing international institutions such as the European parliament, Belgian municipalities were more moved by images of villages on the verge of destruction. Here, the language of human rights was conspicuously absent. Framing systematization as a threat to European cultural heritage seemed to make more sense because it stressed the European dimension of the project and corresponded with the interests and worries of rural villagers in Belgium. Only after OVR had expanded through the networks of the FIDH and human rights activists had lobbied the networks of cultural heritage groups did the OVR coordination team frame the repercussions of systematization as a violation of human rights. The emphasis on the European scale and context of the issue, which was present in many of OVR’s promotional materials, underlined Romania’s European character and its geographical proximity. What happened in Romania, OVR proclaimed, “belonged to all of us, Europeans.”59

Local, Romanian, European, but not Global Activism

As the organization gained traction all over Europe, Paul Hermant was often asked by journalists and fellow activists, “why Romania, and not Chile or South Africa?”60 He repeatedly replied by asking “why not Romania, Czechoslovakia, or Bulgaria?”61 To the OVR founding committee this question depicted the stalemate of European relations characterized by what they called “peur de la proximité.” In other words, Western Europeans were eager to intervene in human rights affairs all over the world but refrained from doing so when humanitarian problems emerged in their neighboring countries.62 OVR was an explicitly European project. It differed in this significantly from the Western supporters of Solidarity or Charter 77, who sought to globalize their support by creating connections with causes in the global south.63 Conversely, OVR did not connect with the opposition against the Pinochet regime, nor was it allied with the anti-apartheid movement. OVR rejected these global transnational connections altogether and reasoned that Western Europe should be more concerned about the state of its own geographical sphere.64 OVR was a European movement.65

For the OVR coordination team, European identity was linked to the notion of “Europe of the Regions.” According to this ideologically divergent interpretation of European structures, which geographers and political thinkers from the French speaking world found particularly entertaining in the early 1990s, regions should replace nation states as the primary political units.66 OVR also held that European identity blossomed because of its regional diversity and local specificities. Romania and the rest of Central and Eastern Europe were unambiguously incorporated in OVR’s “Europe of the Regions.”67 The safeguarding of Romanian cultural heritage, which was always described as part of European cultural heritage, was part of these visions of European structure. The inclusion of Romania in this “Europe of the Regions” not only defied Cold War logic and détente mentalities but also drew attention to the precarious conditions of minority groups in Romania. Because the notion of “Europe of the Regions” was often linked to the ideas of ideologically separatist regions, such as Brest, Corsica, Sardinia, or Catalonia, it highlighted the political impact systematization would have on the two million Hungarians living in the northwestern part of the country, around the city of Cluj, and in the so-called Székely Land, roughly in the middle of Romania. Hence, Hungarian human rights organizations were extremely eager to adopt a (Hungarian) Romanian village.68

As different branches were established in several Western European countries, the OVR founders believed that the adoption of a Romanian village should also have a reciprocal transnational dimension. They therefore came up with what they called the aller-retour principle. The logo of OVR contained two arrows. One arrow pointed to the right and represented the mobilization of Western European activists on behalf of Romania. The other arrow pointed to the left and represented the reciprocal effect of the activism. The founders of the organization aimed to achieve a kind of boomerang effect through mobilization. In this regard, a Western European municipality’s commitment to a Romanian village was at the same time a tool with which local citizens or opposition figures could contest domestic deforestation projects, the demolition of cultural heritage, or anything endangering minority interests.69 It was an instrument designed for local (opposition) groups who could argue that their local governments had spoken out against the wide range of repercussions of the project of systematization in Romania but at the same time had neglected the values within this mobilization in their actions in Belgium or France. When a local government would chop down a local forest, demolish local cultural heritage, or endanger minority interests, these groups were equipped with a tool with which to challenge these acts.70 Indeed, the adoption of a Romanian village had a practical reciprocal dimension. The OVR founders also hoped, however, that the adoption of a Romanian village would enhance critical thinking on the level of policy making and democratic structures in Western Europe.71 Challenging systematization became a means with which the political ideas of the OVR founders resonated across a multitude of local branches across Western Europe. This corresponds with Brier’s analysis of American Labor’s support for Solidarity, in which the wider instrumentality did not jeopardize the sincerity of the initiative.72

In the words of the OVR founders, the adoption of a village consisted of three levels of activism: local, Romanian, and European. Firstly, the local level of activism was introduced by the aller-retour principle. Secondly, the letter-writing campaigns fueled the Romanian level of activism. And finally, the European level of activism was created by two elements, the unambiguous inclusion of Romania in any notion of Europe and cooperation among Western European towns and villages. Romanian municipalities often consisted of four or five different villages. Each village nevertheless had to be adopted by a municipality from a different country. This means that in one Romanian municipality you would have different Western European adopters who could cooperate, share experiences, and exchange information.73 OVR founders believed this cooperation would create a stronger sense of connectedness across Western Europe. Obviously, they also wanted to include Romanian villages in these cooperative efforts, but this was not possible, since the most of the country was still isolated and the Securitate had been Argus-eyeing the OVR founders ever since the letter-writing campaigns had begun.74 Before the revolution, in the case of Romania, the only real exchanges taking place across the Iron Curtain consisted of a few Western European activists who had traveled to Romania. After the revolution, which had not been anticipated by the OVR founders, contacts proliferated as a result of the tremendous wave of solidarity and humanitarian aid with which the dramatic changes were met. Western European towns and villages sent trucks filled with humanitarian goods to the village they had adopted. In a later stage, OVR members even attempted to set up tourist networks to continue contacts with Romania.75 In this regard, one of the remarkable achievements of OVR is that, despite its reorientation towards Yugoslavia from 1992 onwards, contacts have survived to the present day. In the Belgian town of Geel, for example, the activists involved in OVR still meet with their Romanian counterparts every two years.

Configuring the Roles of Exiles and Dissidents

Through its cooperation with the FIDH, OVR came into contact with La Ligue pour la défense de Droits de l’Homme en Roumanie (LDHR). This organization, which was based in Paris, had been founded in 1977 by Romanian exiles who saw new possibilities in the political infrastructure provided by the Helsinki Accords.76 The organization raised awareness concerning human rights violations in Romania.77 Their biggest challenge was to close and condemn the gap between the positive image Romania enjoyed in the West and the actual experiences of Romanian citizens.78 The vice-president and cofounder of the LDHR, Mihnea Berindei joined the OVR coordination team in January 1989. More importantly, Berindei had been a vocal critic of systematization since the early 1980s. He predominantly focused on the infrastructural changes in Bucharest.79 His role proved essential. Berindei’s exile and dissident networks provided OVR with important information on the situation in Romania. By skimming through the official Romanian press and other propaganda materials, the team at LDHR continuously provided the latest updates on the project of systematization. Translation work, which was essential for the functioning of OVR, was done by the LDHR team. To get the job done, they even took out advertisements in a Transylvanian newspaper calling on Romanians in France to help them. They also decided which villages would be up for adoption. Each of these villages needed a designated file containing information on the location of the village, the source that mentioned its imminent destruction, details concerning churches and monuments, demographic information, and information concerning local agricultural practices.80

The second part of their job was to inform the rural villages in Romania about the moral support they had been receiving from OVR. Again, LDHR’s network was immensely useful, as OVR’s operations were announced on Radio Free Europe. To what extent these radio emissions reached their destination remains unclear. However, Radio Free Europe received one letter in the summer 1989 from a group of farmers living in Iaşi County expressing their gratitude.81 In general, while the Iron Curtain was still intact, OVR’s endeavor was largely politically symbolic. Most of the villagers in Romania had no clue they were being adopted by West European towns and villages. Moreover, during the adoption phase, the lack of a Romanian response created uncertainties about the real value of the initiative. Exiles, however, helped explain the isolation and limited infrastructure in rural Romania, which was one of the main causes of the lack of responses.82 Furthermore, the writings of exiles were frequently published by OVR. Their accounts attempted to link the experiences of Romanians with the actions of OVR. For example, someone writing under the pseudonym Dinu Flamand authored a chapter titled “Un people adopté.” Someone using the pseudonym Pe(t)re Stroïca, wrote about how OVR offered new possibilities to oppose Ceauşescu.83

Some less established exiles, such as Dan Alexe, who had only recently fled Romania, were quickly integrated into OVR’s organizational practices. Alexe became the Romanian Brussels correspondent for Radio free Europe shortly after his arrival. In retrospect, Berindei’s team was small and certainly did not represent a large group of Romanian migrants. Yet those who wanted to be involved were given a crucial task in OVR’s functioning. Moreover, the unambiguous involvement in OVR’s practices of Berindei and other exiles, such as Ariadna Combes (the daughter of Doina Cornea who lived in Paris), Mariana Celac, Dinu Zamfirescu, Lia Constantinescu, Alexandra Laignel-Lavastine, Dan Alexe, and many others, is remarkable and shows the importance of exiles and their networks when challenging the Ceauşescu regime. This ties in with the important roles other scholars have attributed to Romanian exiles. Not only did Romanian and Hungarian exiles contribute to the incorporation of a human rights narrative into OVR’s discourses, they also filled in key positions in the organization and helped coordinate initiatives. This suggests that perhaps OVR should not be conceptualized as a solely Western initiative. Among the twelve founders, two had a Romanian background.

Unsurprisingly dissidents had a very different role in OVR’s campaigns. The writings by and interviews with dissidents were predominantly used and spread to underscore the severity of the situation in Romania. By providing a rostrum for dissidents such as Doina Cornea, Gabriel Andreescu, and Dan Petrescu, OVR furthered the struggle to destroy Ceauşescu’s positive image in the West once and for all. The British embassy in Bucharest, for example, persistently denied that villages were being demolished.84 The local branches in Belgium, France, and the UK managed to get the testimonies of dissidents broadcasted on national television.85 According to the president of OVR France, these broadcasts had an enormous impact on mobilization in France.86 Television coverage and recognition across Western Europe helped transform Doina Cornea and others into dissidents, as scholars have argued this was one of three prerequisites to be labeled a dissident.87

All in all, OVR’s relations with dissidents weren’t always easy. In the interview, Hermant clarified this by affirming that OVR was not just an organization that supported dissidents or trade unionists. What OVR envisaged was more complex, provocative, and effective. It aimed to rearrange European relations and connections starting at the most local level.88 When Ariadna Combes approached them in January 1989 and asked for humanitarian aid and financial support for Romanian dissidents, the OVR coordination team rejected this proposal and explained this was not OVR’s main objective.89 After the revolution, OVR had established contacts with Petre Roman to discuss OVR’s plans for the future. This infuriated Doina Cornea, because she felt Roman had always belonged to the Ceauşescu regime. Once again, Hermant and others explained that they had not been converted into puppets of Roman and continued to work on the local and rural level. This is remarkable, especially when juxtaposed with the ways in which exiles were incorporated into the organization.

Conclusion

By steering away from the more conventional Western European challenges to state socialism, both in chronological and geographical terms, this article highlights the very late integration and conscious incorporation of a human rights language, transnational perspectives, and dissident and exile perspectives into the opposition discourses crafted by OVR. The OVR coordination team was aware of the strategic uses of these three indispensable elements of any challenge to Ceauşescu’s totalitarian grip on society, but it also recognized their limits. Appeals to human rights were used strategically to condemn systematization in communications with the European parliament. Systematization was portrayed as the annihilation of small peaceful villages that were sites of European cultural heritage. These kinds of narratives corresponded with earlier denunciations coming from heritage preservation groups. Romanian villages were portrayed as part of a shared Europe and similar to their West European adopters. During its first months of operations, OVR specifically targeted rural Belgian villages with less than 15,000 inhabitants, or in other words, communities that could relate to the Romanian villages. Hence, a great deal of effort was put in by the LDHR to provide reliable, detailed information concerning the Romanian villages.

Secondly, the transnational dimension of OVR’s philosophy allows one to interpret the organization as a challenge to the stalemate in East-West relations characterized by détente mentalities. By decisively building links across Europe, that unambiguously included the world behind the Iron Curtain, and by not developing its support through centralized channels, OVR confronted the status quo of European relations, which had been epitomized by the persistently friendly ties towards the Ceauşescu regime. It is thus hardly surprising that OVR collided with the Belgian détente-prone government. In this sense, OVR was explicitly trans-European, but it declined to connect with causes in the global south. The OVR leaderships reasoned that the global south was already taken care of by numerous organizations with a north-south orientation. Moreover, OVR’s successful transnational development was clearly supported by a multitude of organizations that had been established in the aftermath of the Helsinki Accords. This contrasts with the tendency to deny the so-called Helsinki effect in the secondary literature. The accounts of OVR underlined how the Helsinki Accords created opportunities for activists, dissidents, and exiles who increasingly organized themselves. Notably, the crucial role played by the FIDH and its infrastructure clearly reveal the importance of these networks. Although organizations varied in size, their networks, operations, and willingness to participate all contributed to the success of OVR. Notably the unambiguous incorporation of the LDHR was remarkable. In contrast with many Western supporters of Solidarity and their exile offices abroad, OVR did not merely support or financially supply LDHR. They were given a precise task and even included at the decision making level. OVR’s relations with dissidents and exiles reveals how challenges to systematization were not merely driven by actors in the West but were also issued by Romanians themselves, which problematizes OVR’s conceptualization as Western-led.

OVR’s first year of operations reveals an unconventional challenge to a state socialist regime that was shaped by the Cold War logic of the late 1980s and characterized by elements researchers have only recently started to uncover, such as the long détente, the limited apolitical nature of human rights, and the importance of exile and dissident networks.

Archival Sources

Mundaneum, Mons

Diplomatique Archive, Brussels

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“Pro arduis negociis destinandum” – Papal Delegates and the Neapolitan Succession (1328–1352)

Polish Immigrant Community Building in Brussels: The Role of the Polish Catholic Mission

This paper provides the first outline of the history of the Polish Catholic Mission (PCM) in Belgium, focusing on its role in the Polish immigrant community from 1926 to 2023. It examines the transformation of the PCM and its impact on the Polish diaspora, considering the broader context of secularization and social changes. The study utilizes primary sources, interviews, and participant observations to explore the PCM’s influence on community building, cultural preservation, and social capital formation within the Polish immigrant population in Belgium.

Keywords: Polish diaspora, immigration, Catholic Mission, pastoral care, catholic community, history.

The text offers a sketch of the Polish Catholic Mission (hereinafter PCM) in Belgium and its transformation over the course of a century (more precisely, between 1926 and 2023).1 Although a great deal of research has been done on the Polish diaspora in Belgium,2 no systematic history has been written about this institution, which became a center of leadership for both the Polish-speaking pastoral ministry and the Polish immigrant community in Belgium.3 We show that, while it was a conservative institution, the Polish Catholic Mission maintained its role as one of the key places of Polish activity in Belgium, despite an ongoing process of secularization.   

The study is based on a critical analysis of the literature, including primary sources (newsletters, memoirs, immigrant press, webpages), and participant observation and interviews. The primary sources which were examined are stored at the KADOC center at the Catholic University in Leuven and at the archive of the Polish Catholic Mission. The interviews were conducted in a recent study with Polish immigrants and Polish priests, but citations from interviews conducted in previous studies are also used here.4

The process of organizing and changing the Mission is shown in the context of the local Polish immigrant community and in the broader context of the receiving society. Launched in Brussels in 1926, the Polish Catholic Mission initially addressed the needs of Polish Catholics in Belgium, and in 1927, it extended its activities to the Netherlands, Luxemburg, and Denmark.5 The text focuses on the Belgian part of the story. It provides a brief information of the Polish group in Belgium (part one), a basic chronology and data on the Polish Catholic Mission (part two), and an analysis of the changing functions of the PCM within the context of the Polish group in Belgium (part three).

Due to limited space, the text is devoted to the history of ethnic Poles, but it is worth keeping in mind that the influx from Polish lands also brought Polish Jews in the early twentieth century and the interwar period, as well as members of the Belarusian minority from the region of Podlasie since the late 1980s. 

Polish immigrants in Belgium managed to build their own world in the new milieu. In migration studies, this process is theorized as immigrant community building.6 In the case of this community, this process began in the nineteenth century, with each stream of Polish immigrants both contributing to and benefiting from the community. A network of institutions and relationships that comprised an immigrant community/immigrant communities embraced many newcomers.7 An ethnic institutional completeness8 has never been achieved, but the communities made it possible for newcomers to find their anchor in a new surroundings.9 In general, Poles oriented themselves towards their home country, their host society, and their immigrant community, which bridged the two. Today, researchers refer to this ability to create a new space in which migrants function on a daily basis across ethnic and state borders as transnationalism.10 Another concept that is useful in interpreting the findings of our study is social capital,11 which is produced in immigrant communities in a dense net of daily interactions. Bonding social capital is inward-oriented and contributes to internal social cohesion, while bridging social capital is produced in interactions with the new environment and with other immigrant groups.12

The Polish community in Belgium was made and remade, invented and reinvented by the successive streams of immigrants.13 The process of immigrants’ integration and their participation in cultural life of the host society was eased by the fact that the ethnic community helped them overcome the cultural shock that they experienced upon arrival.14 The community structures initiated by the first generation of each wave of immigrants often served the immigrants who arrived later.

The study challenges the traditional paradigms of the ethnic studies developed in the 1960s and 1970s, which portrayed ethnicity as “an insider identity generated in largely closed minority communities whose members struggle in the interaction with society at large.”15 The case of Poles in Belgium makes such an understanding of ethnicity inadequate, which is why one of the concepts underlying the study presented here is the New Architecture of Ethnic Studies (NAES). This new approach shows that ethnicity, as practiced or experienced by recent immigrants, allows and even facilitates the crossing of ethnic boundaries.16

There are many studies on the role of religion in the lives of immigrants.17 As Yang and Ebaugh observe, “Historically, religious institutions were among the most important resources that immigrant groups used to reproduce their ethno-religious identity in a new surrounding and to help them adjust to the challenges of surviving in a demanding and often threating environment.”18 This is certainly the case with the Polish Catholic Mission, which underwent significant evolution, changing its name to the Polish Catholic Community in 2018 and retaining its role as one of the key places of Polish activity in Belgium.

Polish Immigration to Belgium

Poland, a country with a population of about thirty-eight million (2022), has been left by at least seven million inhabitants over the course of the last two centuries.19 Massive outflow began in the mid-nineteenth century, reached its peak in the early twentieth century, and continues to this day with a few interruptions. Emigration produced several centers of Polish diaspora, the largest in the United States but also in Germany, France, and Great Britain. Other popular destinations include Brazil, Canada, Argentina, Australia, and Sweden.20 Belgium and the Netherlands received only a small portion of the Polish outflow, yet Poles built visible immigrant communities there.21 In the 1830s these communities, began to be formed by successive streams of newcomers from the Polish lands. The influx included both political refugees and migrants who came in search of work. 

The Polish diaspora communities in Belgium consisted of various groups of immigrants and their descendants: political refugees of the failed uprisings (who arrived in the 1830s and 1860s), Polish students at the postsecondary schools (Antwerpen, Liege, Glon near Liege, Leuven), migrants who came in search of work in the early twentieth century and the interwar period, World War II refugees, political and economic immigrants from communist Poland, including Solidarity refugees, migrants in search of work in the period of political transition (since 1989), and migrants who were and are taking advantage of greater mobility following Poland’s accession to the EU. Each wave of immigration stream had its particular social profile and contributed to the internal diversity of the immigrant group. While discussing its past and present, historians often tend to oversimplify the situation, usually focusing on working class communities because immigrants who come in search of work were and are the most numerous. As migration research shows, economic migration prevails in international flows, and this has been true in the case of waves of Polish migration. However, political motivations to migrate were usually intertwined with economic considerations. As Norman Davies has noted, in the nineteenth century, when Poland was partitioned, “The émigrés who stayed abroad because their lands and property had been sequestrated, or because they lost their source of livelihood in a home district annexed by a foreign power, were reacting as much to economic as to political factors.”22 The same interplay between political and economic factors in the decision to migrate can be found in the case of the outflow from communist Poland as well.23

It should be noted that this outflow did not stop with the fall of communism (1989), when Poland embarked down the path towards political transition and the free market. In fact, economic reforms of the 1990s (which initially resulted in high unemployment rates) and Polish accession to the EU in 2004 brought new streams of migration to the West, and Belgium became a popular destination for Poles. In 1991, Polish citizens were given an exemption from visa requirements in Belgium, and in 2009, Belgium opened its labor market to Poles. The influx that started in 1990s initially resulted in the undocumented employment of many Poles. At the time, circular migration became common, especially with Polish women working in Belgium for a few months, returning to Poland for a few months, and then coming to Belgium again.24 After 2009, most immigrants were able to legalize their status.

It is very difficult to determine precisely the actual size of migration flows, so we quote various estimates here. Currently, the estimated size of the Polish group in Belgium fluctuates around 60,000, including more than 43,000 Polish citizens.25 This number includes not only members of the first generation of Polish immigrants, but also members of the second and third generations. According to the population census conducted in Belgium in 1930, 48,840 Polish citizens resided in the country, including around 23,000 Polish Jews.26 In 1935, PCM rector Fr. Ryszard Moskwa estimated the group of Polish Catholics in Belgium at 24,000.27 In 1939, it was estimated that there were around 60,000 immigrants from Poland in Belgium, half of whom were Polish Catholics and half of whom were Polish Jews.28

The main Polish communities were found in the industrial regions of Liege, Limburg, and Hainaut (Charleroi, Mons, and the central area between them).29 During World War II, many Polish men who fought alongside the Western Allies ended up in the Benelux countries and took part in the fighting against the Nazi forces.30 After the war, there was a chaotic migration reshuffle. Poles who did not want to return to the communist country stayed in Belgium. This group included earlier immigrants and Polish Displaced Persons, many Polish soldiers among them.31 On the other hand, several thousand Poles left, deciding simply to return home.32

In the Polish collective memory,33 it is believed that the outflow of people from the country was the result of political oppression. In other words, the political dimension of the outflow is overestimated and the economic dimension is underestimated. In a sense, the heroic narrative of Polish émigré streams dominates Polish historiography.34 As nineteenth-century Polish publicist and independence agitator Maurycy Mochnacki famously contended, Polish emigration “has its own separate, historical character, not similar to the emigration of any other contemporary people […]. We are soldiers of the independence of our country, citizens of the future Poland.”35

This perception was shaped by the nineteenth-century Polish refugees who became diaspora leaders and understood their situation in exile as a continuation of the fight for the Polish cause. According to their speeches, memoirs, personal letters, and publications, the refugees believed that, while living abroad, they had a national mission to fulfill, i.e., they felt responsible for Polish cultural continuity, including Polish Catholicism. Indeed, many exiles in the nineteenth century were well-known figures who became symbols of Polish patriotism. Among the refugees from the uprisings there were several dozen officers and representatives of culture and science, among them Joachim Lelewel, an outstanding Polish historian and spiritual guide in a diaspora democratic camp who spent almost three decades in Belgium (1833–1861), and Stanisław Worcell, thinker and social activist of the Great Emigration.36 Another important element of the heroic history is related to Polish involvement in the Allied Forces and the anti-Nazi underground movement during World War II.37 The focus on heroism and martyrdom in Polish history, both on Polish soil and in the diaspora, is evident in the profile of patriotic activities organized by the Polish Catholic Mission in Belgium. Examples are given later in this discussion.

The Polish group in Belgium was often compared to the Polish diaspora center in France.38 This comparison is important because in the nineteenth century, Paris became the main center of Polish (unsuccessful) patriotic mobilization for the reestablishment of an independent Polish state. However, life in the diaspora could not focus solely on the old country. Everyday challenges prompted and compelled members of the émigré community to orient themselves towards the host society. Therefore, on the one hand side, there was a narrative about Polish refugees and their patriotic mission, while on the other, there was a more complex reality. The reality of the diaspora included both the integration process and ethnic community building. Subsequent generations of Polish immigrants integrated and dispersed in the host society, especially in the case of those born into binational families.39 Moreover, hope for social advancement was usually an incentive for immigrants to go beyond the (symbolic) boundaries of their ethnic group.40 

The migration path that led Poles to Belgium in the twentieth century is an interesting and little researched topic. Many Polish migrants who traveled to Belgium in search of work came directly from Polish lands before and after World War I, but a significant group came from Germany and France during this period. A priest who ministered to Poles in the interwar period estimated that only one third of the Poles in Belgium came from Poland, while one third came from Germany and another third from France.41 We are dealing here with multiple migrations that involved living and working in the diaspora prior to arrival in Belgium. These migrants moved to Belgium in search of better opportunities from industrial regions in Germany (Westphalia) and France (Pas de Calais and Nord), where Polish men were employed in coal mines. In the case of Westphalian Poles, another major push factor was the requirement to take the German citizenship if the migrant wanted to remain in the country after World War I.42 This push factor, rooted in the migrants’ attachment to their identity as Poles (the decision not to accept German citizenship), can be seen as cultural and political rather than economic. However, the labor market in Belgium (coal mines and work that Polish men were used to) proved a strong pulling force. This shows the interplay of various incentives in the decision to migrate.

Polish families brought with them from Germany and France a tradition of establishing ethnic institutions and associations, which during their stay in Belgium proved helpful in the process of building new immigrant communities.43 The experiences of working-class immigrant communities were thus added to the nineteenth-century traditions of refugee activities. The spiritual connection between waves of immigration, old and new, working-class and intellectual, is exemplified in the name of the (Polish student) Lelewel Society in Brussels.44   

From the perspective of gender, in the refugee streams in the nineteenth century, men predominated. In turn, the Polish economic migrations involved primarily single men and families.45 World War II brought soldiers to Belgium, meaning men, but the group of people referred to as Displaced Persons consisted of both men and women. Emigration from communist Poland involved both sexes, including the Solidarity refugees: families, single men, and single women. Polish immigration to Belgium in recent decades, however, has been dominated by women.46 Many of these Polish women have decided to stay, however, and they brought their nuclear families to Belgium, while earlier they had perceived migration as a short term solution or circular move.47

Today, the migration process has slowed or halted shifts in gender roles on the labor market. Most men are employed in traditionally male occupations, for instance the construction and renovation of buildings and as truck drivers, and most women are employed in typically female jobs, for instance as caretakers, nannies and babysitters, and cleaning staff.48 However, “in a recent study on female migration in Belgium […] it was found that women often perceived migration as an empowering experience: it not only strengthened their economic situations but also changed their intra-familial and gender positions for the better.”49 The most recent study which analyzes changes in the PCM focuses entirely on gender roles within this group.50 Its authors closely examine the intersection of class, gender, and ethnicity (minority status), and they demonstrate that Polish women must fight if they want to exercise agency. In this context, it should be noted that Polish migrants often have been working below their skill level. This situation is gradually changing, with more and more Polish men and women finding jobs in Belgium that are compatible with their education and/or getting education in Belgium to improve their position on the labor market.51

Polish Catholic Mission – Basic Information

In the case of waves of Polish migration, the religious dimension of the diaspora experience is clear. In most diaspora centers, Poles established their churches and developed an immigrant community around them.52 The initiative usually came from the bottom up, with immigrants raising funds to start their own churches and cover maintenance costs. They sent petitions to the Church hierarchy to get Polish clergy. It was a grass-roots activity, but a Polish priest often became the leader of a local group. However, the Polish group in Belgium differed significantly from that in countries with the largest Polish diasporas. Unlike in the religiously pluralistic United States, where Catholics were in minority, or France, where the process of secularization was already well underway, in Belgium, Polish immigrants joined the religious majority. Nevertheless, their religiosity, strongly associated with Polish national and folk culture, differed from the religious patterns they encountered in Belgium. They tried to exert some control over the situation by setting up their own structures. In Belgium, the initiative came from above.

Another important aspect was the existence of several pillars on which the social engagement of the Catholic Church in Belgium rested. From its foundation in 1830 in the wake of the Belgian Revolution, Belgium was a Catholic state, and the Catholic Church controlled education, culture, and charity. Thus, the endeavors of immigrants in these fields necessarily took place within the existing Church structures. Cooperatives, sick funds, trade unions, volunteer associations, the school system, and a Catholic party (from 1921) were the pillars of the institutionalized Catholic system.53 Ironically, however, it was more difficult for Poles in Belgium to become part of this established system than it was for Poles in the religiously diverse but nonetheless predominantly Protestant United States to establish ethnic parishes and schools.

On January 1, 1926, through the efforts of August Hlond, primate of the Roman Catholic Church in Poland, and with the approval of Cardinal Désiré Joseph Mercier, the Polish Catholic Mission in Belgium was established.54 Its purpose was to provide pastoral care for Polish immigrants. A year later, the scope of activity was expanded to the Netherlands, Luxemburg, and Denmark. The Mission, which is a church organizational unit, was responsible for the organization and development of the religious life of the Polish immigrants. The pastoral activities of the Mission were the same as those of any parish in Poland and included celebrating services, administering the sacraments, receiving confessions, granting absolution, and providing religious instruction. The main task of the PCM rector was to organize pastoral care so that every Polish local community would have access to a Polish priest. This was difficult since the communities were numerous and dispersed. Another crucial challenge was to organize religious instruction in Polish. Due to the lack of priests, the first PCM rector, Fr. Kotowski, trained a group of parishioners representing scattered communities and supplied them with catechisms and songbooks.55

Pastoral care by Polish clergy was and still is essential, as many Polish workers in Belgium either spoke neither French nor Flemish or had difficulty with the languages. Until the Second Vatican Council (1962–65), Catholic masses were celebrated in Latin, to which Poles were accustomed, but listening to sermons, singing hymns, and giving confession in French or Flemish seemed alien to immigrants. As diaspora studies indicate, it was often difficult for immigrants to give confession in a foreign language, so they avoided doing do, even though the Roman Catholic Church requires one to give confession at least once a year.56 The Polish Episcopate was aware of this, and in 1921, it issued a decree recognizing pastoral care for Poles living abroad as necessary. In 1969, the legal situation of churches in the diaspora was regulated by the papal decree Pastorialis Migratorum Cura.57

The first PCM rector Fr. Tadeusz Kotowski (1926–28) established eight places of Polish pastoral care in Belgium and one in the Netherlands.58 Before coming to Belgium, he studied in France (Lyon, Nancy) and worked in Polish communities in the industrial regions of France, so he was accustomed to ministering among working-class immigrants.59 The second rector, Fr. Ludwik Kudłacik (1928–1935), also spent several years in France before being assigned to the PCM in Belgium. Both had official contacts with the Belgian Church hierarchy, as well as with the Polish bishops of their home dioceses, where they had worked before their departure. Both left rich correspondence with their Polish bishops, through which we gain some insight into the challenges they faced in their daily activities.60 Their actions were financially supported by Polish Roman Catholic Church and by the Polish Consulates (Brussels, Antwerpen). Thus, in addition to being subjects of the Belgian and Polish bishops, PCM rectors had to know how to navigate the world of diplomats and politicians. There was one more influential actor in the puzzle: the workplace. The owners of the coal mines where the immigrants were employed supported the Polish pastoral ministry. They offered places of worship and education and funded libraries, and in return, they expected the Mission to provide priests.61 This, however, was extremely difficult and caused frustration, and the PCM rectors expressed their dissatisfaction with the situation. In addition, the material support from all sides proved insufficient. The Mission rectors struggled financially, especially during the Great Depression.

In 1939, the Polish Catholic Mission was entrusted to the (Polish) Society of Christ Fathers, a community established in 1932 that has directed its service to Poles in the diaspora. In 1948, the Christ Fathers were succeeded by the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, a community originally established in 1816 in Aix en Provence. This French community decided in 1921 to establish a Polish Province, which consisted of Polish priests dedicated to caring for Polish immigrants. Both Polish communities had been trained to serve migrants and help them keep their faith. The first Oblate in Brussels was Fr. Karol Kubsz, who, like the first rectors, had experience ministering in Polish communities in France (during WWII).62 He became the PCM rector in 1948 and remained in that position until 1961. The Oblates continue to look after the Mission today.

In 2018 the Mission changed its name to the Polish Catholic Community, and its leader, Fr. Damian Kopytto OMI, became (instead of rector) a coordinator of Polish Pastoral Care in Belgium.63

Until 1925, there was no Polish Catholic parish, mission, or any other type of religious center in Belgium. Several Polish communities were served occasionally by Polish priests who studied in Leuven. In the 1930s, the situation improved a little. There were four Polish priests and two Belgian Capuchin Fathers who had learned Polish, and Polish priests who studied in Leuven still helped on occasion. In 1974, there were 14 priests taking full care of the Poles and three more assisting them. There were also roughly 15 students from the Catholic University of Leuven available.64 In 2023, two Polish priests (Oblates) resided in the Mission house at the Rue Jourdan, one at the St. Elisabeth in Schaerbeek and four Missionary Sisters of Christ the King for Polish Emigrants who helped them.

In Belgian society, where overall religiosity was and is diminishing65 and the Roman Catholic Church has been struggling with declining membership,66 the Polish Catholic Mission appears to have been a unique case of success. It has played and plays a crucial role in the local Polish group. There are currently four places in Brussels metropolis where services are held in Polish: Chapel of the Polish Catholic Community, St. Gilles; Sainte-Elisabeth, Schaerbeek; Notre Dame de la Chapelle, downtown; Saint-Joseph, Anderlecht. To this day, there is no Polish parish in Belgium, though Belgian parishes with large or significant numbers of Polish members try to provide Polish language services. The Polish Catholic Mission coordinates the pastoral care and orchestrates activities that are going on around churches. As already mentioned, Polish churches have always been centers of immigrant community life in the diaspora. Ethnic parishes were entwined with a network of associations. In Belgium, the institutionalization of the pillar system of Church life has made it more than natural for the local Catholic Church to go far beyond pastoral care. In these two contexts, the PCM developed its agenda. From the very beginning in the 1920s, the role of Polish priests was never limited to pastoral ministry. Fr. Kotowski, the first PCM rector, initiated social meetings at the Mission which took place once a month.67 He initiated the establishment of Polish Academic Youth Circles (Koła Polskiej Młodzieży Akademickiej) in localities where Polish students lived. In 1927, he opened at the PCM a kind of tourist branch to facilitate Polish student travel and enable Polish students to visit neighboring countries.68

While many decades have passed in the meantime, the situation has remained very similar. In the 1970s, the Rector of the Polish Catholic Mission stated that Polish priests devoted only 25 percent of their time to religious services, while 75 percent was devoted to counseling, teaching, and organizing social life.69 The same was said by a Polish priest in an interview that he gave in 1990s,70 and a similar claim was made in the recent study conducted in 2021–23.

Polish priests became not only spiritual guides for their compatriots but also teachers, translators, and social workers. Indeed, the religious life of immigrants was woven into a network of ethnic associations and institutions: schools, choirs, societies, clubs, and media organs. Catholic societies included women’s, men’s, and youth units, and many of them published newsletters, calendars, and/or regular magazines.71 Together with the PMC, the role of coordinating Polish activities was initially played by the Committee of Cultural and Social Welfare for Polish Emigration in Belgium (Komitet Opieki Kulturalno-Społecznej dla Wychodźstwa Polskiego w Belgii). The Committee published a bulletin, which is now a valuable source of detailed information on activities held in local communities. It should be noted that the editor of the Bulletin was the rector of the PCM.72

In 1923, the Catholic Men’s Association was established (Stowarzyszenie Mężów Katolickich).73 Another example of men’s societies was the (Polish) Association of St. Barbara, launched in coalmining towns. In several places, the local units gathered all Polish coalminers. They worked with mutual aid funds to help families cover the costs of accidents, health crises, and funerals.74 Polish women’s societies had a different range of interests. The Community of Living Rosary (Bractwo Żywego Różańca 1933), which brought together Polish women, was a prayer association, but its purpose was also to remind women of their patriotic mission in raising children. It emphasized the traditional role of the “Mother-Pole” and reinforced the gendered patterns of the family, in which men were breadwinners and women were bread-bakers. Baking bread is used here in its metaphoric sense, including the tasks of managing the daily life of a family, but also caring for the spiritual needs of the young generation.

In 1948, the Oblates founded a (Polish) Catholic Action in Belgium, a religious association modeled on the Catholic Action operating in Poland in the interwar period and banned during the communist period. At the same time, the (aforementioned) Catholic Men’s Association was active, and the local units of the Living Rosary of Ladies fell under the control of an umbrella organization, the Association of Confraternities of the Living Rosary of Ladies. This consolidation was necessary because the number of local Rosary groups had gradually increased.75 In addition, there was a Polish Catholic youth organization that dated back to 1947 (Workers Catholic Youth, Robotnicza Młodzież Katolicka) and later operated under the name Polish Catholic Youth Association (Katolickie Stowarzyszenie Młodzieży Polskiej). Polish (Girls’ and Boys’) Scout Teams, another type of immigrant youth association, were not directly affiliated with the Catholic Church, but scouts in their uniforms participated in Polish religious ceremonies.76  

Educational activities focused on religious instruction and Polish courses, language, history, geography, and literature. In 1952, the Polish Educational Society (Macierz Szkolna Wolnych Polaków) was established. This Society worked closely with the Polish Catholic Mission.77 Currently, Polish language, history and geography lessons are held on Saturdays in buildings owned by the Polish Catholic Community. An important part of the program is the teaching of Catholic religion, now conducted by Polish nuns. After the political changes in 1989, Polish classes are supported by the Polish state. In a 2012–13 survey of Polish women in Antwerp, half of the respondents reported that their children attended both Belgian schools and Polish supplementary schools.78

In the 1980s, the PCM actively supported Solidarity, a trade union in Poland, independent of the communist state. In December 1981, when martial law was declared in Poland, Solidarity was suspended and later outlawed. At the time, Fr. Bolesław Kurzawa, rector of the PCM (1981–1984), collected funds for the families of imprisoned (in Poland) Solidarity activists, and he cooperated with the head of the Solidarity office in Brussels, Jan Kułakowski, and sent secret literature to Poland and provided care for Solidarity refugees who had managed to leave Poland. Thanks to this initiative, a few days after Martial Law was declared, Cardinal Goodfried Danneels celebrated a solemn mass for Poland in the Brussels Cathedral.79 This part of the PCM’s achievements has contributed to the emergence, in Poland and in the diaspora, of a legend of heroic national history and has become an important part of the collective memory of the Belgian Polish community.

Before and after the Solidarity period, the PCM organized Polish cultural events that focused on Polish heroic history. These events aimed to reinforce Polish national feelings by commemorating the Polish uprisings (1794, 1830–31, 1863–64, and the Warsaw Uprising in 1944) and the legacy of Solidarity (1980–81). Another reason for celebration was the anniversary of the May 3 Constitution of 1791, a failed attempt to reform the Polish monarchy. Polish priests were also involved in the ceremonies that were held annually at the Polish war cemetery in Lommel. An interesting detail relates to Fr. Bolesław Kurzawa, who studied philosophy in Leuven between 1951 and 1954 and served during this time as chaplain to Polish war veterans in Ghent. Fr. Kurzawa purchased a plot in Ressaix and initiated the establishment of the St. Maximilian Kolbe Church, named to commemorate a Polish priest who had saved the life of his fellow Auschwitz prisoner by offering himself for execution.80 According to the records, Fr. Kurzawa managed to build a rectory, but there is no trace of the church today.

Polish pilgrimages to the Banneux shrine in Belgium and the shrine of Lourdes in France are an important element of Polish religious life which helps increase bonding social capital in the immigrant group. These events bring together Poles representing various local groups. Moreover, Poles meet occasionally in the Millennium Center opened in 1961 in Comblain-la-Tour in Ardennes, a province of Liege, Wallonia. This holiday center for Polish youth still operates today, and it hosts summer camps for Polish youths from Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. The Millennium Center thus has served as a bridge among Polish Catholic communities scattered around these countries. In the 1970s, some 400 Polish children spent part of their holidays there every year.81 Another place for trips and youth camps was Stella Maris, located in Pas de Calais, France, on the coast. Like the Millennium Center, Stella Maris brought together Polish migrants from several countries and served as a bridge among members of the Polish diaspora from France, Britain, and Benelux. In both cases, the centers were launched by the Polish Catholic Mission (in the case of Stella Maris, it was the Polish Catholic Mission in France), and over time, they opened to serve a wider range of guests. The Millennium Center is now managed by the Polish Educational Society, and it cooperates with the PCM.

 Most records indicate that Polish migrants gathered around the church. In fact, the Polish Catholic Mission became a “miniature Poland” and a kind of “small homeland” where people sought assistance and guidance in difficult moments of life. As the sources suggest, a parallel was even drawn between the experiences of the Polish refugees and the plight of Christ: “it is not unusual for migrants to hear during Mass that they are the same refugees that Christ once was, that they are refugees from communism, the consequences of which they still have to deal with”.82 This message reinforces the narrative of the heroism, although the sermon was mainly aimed at labor immigrants. To those who felt humiliated or exploited, however, it may well have given some consolation.

At the moment, Poles in Brussels celebrate anniversaries of the reestablishment of the Polish state (November 11, 1918), with the central ceremony being a holy mass in Notre Damme de La Chappelle. During the Mass in 2019, the dedication of the banner of the 24th regiment of lancers of the Reconstruction Group of the First Armored Division “Antwerp” was held.83 The event proves that reconstructions of heroic events have become an important part of Polish patriotic celebrations, and the PCM plays an important role in this.

The Polish Catholic Mission continues to serve as something of a substitute for the homeland for Polish emigrants, despite their integration into the host society. In addition, thanks to the size of the Polish émigré community and their attachment to religion and the significant participation in Sunday and holiday services, which is incomparably greater than that of the local community, arguably, the PCM activities have revitalized Brussels’ deserted churches. With more and more services in Polish attended by hundreds of worshippers, the church of Notre-Dame de la Chapelle in the center of Brussels, the church of Sainte-Elisabeth in the Schaerbeek district, and, more recently, the church of Saint-Joseph in Anderlecht have regained their former character, are more readily visited, and parishioners help cover the costs of utilities and building maintenance through contributions and donations. Thanks to the Polish émigré community, some churches in Brussels have been saved from total neglect or even closure. 

 Polish migrants involved in religious activities confirm that the Polish Catholic Mission is important to them:84 “The Mission is our home” (“Misja to nasz dom”); “I feel at home in the Mission” (“Na Misji czuję się jak w domu”); “The church is a substitute for the motherland (“Kościół to namiastka Ojczyzny”); “The church is Poland in miniature” (“Kościół to Polska w miniaturze”); “The Polish church is important to me for religious reasons; without it, life would be more difficult. Besides, it has a tradition here. It is a place to meet other Poles, although sometimes it turns into a big gossip forum.” (“Polski kościół jest dla mnie ważny ze względów religijnych, bez niego byłoby trudniej. Poza tym ma tu swoją tradycję. Jest miejscem do spotkania z innymi Polakami, chociaż czasami zamienia się w wielkie obgadywanie, jeden drugiego.”)85 

The Polish Catholic Mission did not shield immigrants from the host society, however. On the contrary, it helped create bridging social capital between them and the local population. It was anchored in the Belgian structures of the Roman Catholic Church, and despite some tensions in the first decades, it was fully endorsed by the local Church hierarchy.86 Polish priests have cooperated with Belgian clergy in the local parishes, and Polish societies and choirs functioned alongside the parochial Belgian societies. Polish cultural events are attended, moreover, by members of the non-Polish community. Belgian bishops celebrated masses on Polish holidays, especially on the occasions of visits by Polish bishops. As mentioned earlier, they also celebrate Polish patriotic masses in cooperation with the PCM. Polish students at the Catholic University in Leuven have belonged to the Belgian academic world and have been ready to help in the Polish Catholic Mission. Moreover, the Mission supported the (Polish) Workers Catholic Youth (1947), which was born out of inspiration coming from two sides: the French movement (Économie et Humanisme) and the Belgian JOC, or Jeunesse Ouvriere Catholique. This is another example of the creation of bridging social capital, in this case in the transnational Catholic space.

Polish involvement in the Polish Catholic Mission has not diminished, despite the ongoing process of secularization, with Poland following trends initiated in the West. Today, the PCM is present in eleven places: Antwerp, Brussels, Charleroi, Ghent, Genk, Leopoldsburg, Liege, Maasmechelen, Mons (Tetre), Namur, and Ressaix.87 Many migrants declare that they did not go to church in Poland, but as members of the diaspora, they remain in regular contact with the PCM. The community gives them a sense of belonging and security. This is especially the case of Polish Catholic women from Podlasie, who appreciate the social ties that function within the immigrant community. They do not question gender roles in the immigrant church, where women are denied both leadership positions and the right to assist in services. The relatively new rule allowing women in the Catholic Church to give Holy Communion and serve at the altar (“altar servers”) is not recognized in Poland, so Polish immigrants are not pursuing it.88 It seems that labor migrants are more involved in the PCM than Poles who managed to integrate into the Belgian social structure and who found jobs appropriate to their skills. Indeed, many educated and accomplished women declare that they do not participate in the PCM activities.89 On the other hand, church involvement depends on the migrants’ stage of life. Young couples want to have church weddings, baptize their children, and send them to Polish schools, at least until their first Holy Communion.90 Most of them hold their weddings in their hometowns in Poland, but pre-marriage courses are organized by the PCM.

The religious life of Polish immigrants is becoming diverse, however. In 2000, the Polish Section of the European Catholic Center in Brussels was established, offering services at the Dominican Church (Avenue de la Renaissance). The Polish Catholic Community Coordinator admits that the Section has little in common with the PCM/PCC (2023). As the group of Poles involved in EU structures increases (members of the European Parliament, employees in EU offices and their families), it seems that its role will grow. In addition, a Polish Orthodox Parish has been operating in Brussels since 2015. It was founded by immigrants from Podlasie who belonged to the Belarusian minority. Previously, all immigrants from Podlasie were seen as ethnic Poles, which is a typically ethnocentric/polonocentric approach. Research on the Belarusian minority in Belgium, its relations with other immigrants from Podlasie, and with immigrants/refugees from Belarus would be welcome.

The activities of the Polish Section of the European Catholic Center and the Polish Orthodox Parish contribute to the internal diversification of the Polish community in Belgium and may one day challenge the dominance of the PCM/PCC. On the other hand, their emergence demonstrates the importance of church attendance for many migrants: Catholic and Orthodox, PCM/PCC participants, and outsiders.

The PCM is conservative in every possible way. It preserves a heroic version of Polish history and conducts patriotic missions. It reinforces traditional Catholicism with its folk culture (for example the Corpus Christi processions). It provides religious instruction (led by Polish nuns) which is based on the teachings of Pope John Paul II. It reinforces traditional gender roles, with Polish women seen primarily as mothers. However, to this day, the PCM/PCC is an extremely thriving center of religious, cultural, educational, and social life which unites Poles living in the Kingdom of Belgium.  

To sum up this brief overview of the Polish Catholic Mission/Community in Belgium, the initiative to establish the Polish Catholic Mission sprang from the conviction that faith and national identity are strongly connected. At the time, the Polish diaspora leaders tried to prevent the dispersal of immigrants in the host societies, and their countermeasure was to promote Polish cultural continuity and preserve their understanding of “Polishness.” In this case, cultural continuity meant preserving the Catholic tradition and the heroic narrative of the Polish past and present. The Church hierarchy, in turn, feared losing members or loosening ties with the Catholic Church.91 Both sides wanted the immigrants to stay within the immigrant community, which was to be organized around the religious institution.  The migrant communities have proven an enduring entity and continue to function today.

To put the achievements of the PCMs in a broader perspective, it is worth returning to research on religion in the lives of immigrants. Most of this research has been conducted in the United States, and it has tended to highlight the positive role of religion in easing and facilitating the adaptation process. As Nancy Foner and Richard Alba have suggested, however, this is an oversimplification at best. In some instances, “[i]n contrast (…), religion is seen in Europe as the marker of a fundamental social divide. (…) The focus of scholarly commentaries on immigrant religion [in Europe] is almost exclusively on Islam.” Muslims in Europe, it has been noted, struggle to practice their religion and build up their institutions, and this has triggered conflicts (or been used as a pretext for conflicts) with long-established residents and institutions. Moreover, the incorporation of Muslims into European societies is viewed by some as very problematic.92 Looking from this perspective, the welcome enjoyed by Poles (who are EU citizens) in Belgium should be understood as something of a privilege in comparison with the response shown to Muslim immigrants. In other words, racism and Islamophobia create additional fault lines, alongside the fault lines of class, gender, and ethnicity. However, in the first half of the twentieth century, Poles were seen as mere a labor force and were not expected to integrate. Their Catholicism was perceived as an element that helped the host community exert a degree of control over them but did not bring them closer to the mainstream.

The Polish Catholic Mission at the Center of a Network of Migrant Associations and Institutions

Within the process of immigrant community building, Poles in Belgium supported Polish language ministry, raised funds to secure some form of Polish education, established and maintained publishing houses and libraries, published press materials, newsletters, and books, founded several societies,93 and in the course of time managed to have their own ethnic services: shops, workshops, counseling, medical services, gastronomy, etc.94 The list that gives names and data of many Polish immigrant institutions and societies in Belgium was compiled two decades ago and needs to be updated.95 Here, we provide the most illustrious examples of Polish structures in Belgium. The process of their establishment can be conceptualized as an attempt to achieve ethnic institutional completeness.96 However, nowhere was full “completeness” ever reached. In Belgium, there were no Polish parishes, and at the beginning, church services in Polish were irregular.

Still, in the network of Polish societies on a local level, the Church was very visible. According to detailed data provided by the rector of the PCM in 1936, after the rector’s visitation to the Polish community in Winterslag in Limburg, most of the local societies were connected to the church or directly supported by it (see the table below).97 Among the network of societies were men’s, women’s, and youth organizations, a cultural unit (church choir), and a parents’ association. All were directly controlled by the PCM. The sport units (the Falcons, the Riffle Association, the scouts) and the women’s association seemed to be independent. But the scout teams, established by Polish consulates and formally not under the control of the PCM, were actively involved in Polish church celebrations animated by the PCM.98 And the veteran society had a chaplain who cooperated with the PCM on a daily basis. In the case of the Eucharistic Crusade, it was initiated in the Polish local community by the Belgian Catholic Church and operated outside the influence of the PCM. However, it belonged to the network of Polish immigrant structures and contributed to its dynamic. Moreover, this case shows that the process of immigrant integration was advanced, and bridging social capital between the immigrant and the Belgian Church was generated.99

Table 1. Polish associations in Winterslag, (Belgian) Limburg, 1936.

Organization	Polish name	Supported by	Number of participants
Committee of Local Societies	Komitet Miejscowych Towarzystw
St. Adalbert Mining Society	Towarzystwo Górnicze Św. Wojciecha	Church*	50
Polish Union	Związek Polaków	Neutral (no church affiliation)	70
Sport Society FALCONS	Towarzystwo Gimnastyczne “Sokół”	Indirect Westphalen pattern	40
Rifle Association	Związek Strzelecki	the Polish government	20–30
Church choir	Chór kościelny	Church	30
Confraternity of the Living Rosary (women’s organization)	Bractwo Żywego Różańca	Church	115
Polish Women’s Society	Towarzystwo Polek	Independent	120
Polish Parental Care	Polska Opieka Rodzicielska	Church	30
Union of Former Military	Związek Byłych Wojskowych		25
Scouting	Harcerstwo	the Polish government	50 + 50**
Eucharistic Crusade	Krucjata Eucharystyczna	Belgian Church organization***	20 + 20**

* Polish Catholic Mission, Roman Catholic Church

**Boys and girls

***La Croisade Eucharistique: https://fsspx.org/en/the-eucharistic-crusade

Source: Szymański, “Życie organizacyjne wychodźstwa polskiego,” 64.

Data similar to that for Winterslag was provided following visits by the PCM rector to Polish communities in Limburg’s industrial cities: Waterschei, Zwartberg, Eysden, and Hensen.100 Moreover, Polish newspapers were received regularly from France, and one should note the impressive Polish editorial and publishing achievements in Belgium.101

Another factor particular to the Polish diaspora in Belgium relates to the working-class movement, which (both Christian oriented and secular/anticlerical) proved to be quite strong among Polish immigrants and led them to cross the ethnic boundary in their activity.102 On the other hand, it must be noted that there were Polish sections of the local trade unions, and the Polish Socialist Party (Polska Partia Socjalistyczna – PPS) was quite visible both before and after World War II.103 This means that the Poles’ participation in working-class activity was accepted in Belgium. Immigrants were welcome to launch their ethnic organizations within the broader structures, and they knew how to take advantage of these opportunities. Being active, whether in the structures of the Catholic Church or in the labor movement, Poles gradually integrated into the host society. Immigrants who joined the Belgian labor movement were simple workers, but there were some well-known figures among them. Edward Gierek worked as a teenager in the Arenberg coal mine in France, and around 1930, he joined the Polish Section of the French Communist Party, which caused him to be deported to Poland. In 1936, he arrived in Belgium, where he was employed as a coal miner in Limburg. He joined the local (Belgian) and Polish units of the labor movement. In this case, we again see a direct link between the Polish immigrant experience in France and Belgium and the advantages that knowledge of the language provided in the French-speaking regions of Belgium. After World War II, Gierek returned to Poland, and he eventually became a leading figure in the Polish United Workers Party, which gave him the highest position in the communist state (1970–1980).104 His participation in the left-wing parts of the anti-Nazi movement during World War II was probably exaggerated, since the research was done under the communist regime.105 Another key figure was Jan Kułakowski (1930–2011), a World War II refugee and graduate of the Catholic University of Leuven, who became a high-ranking official in international Christian trade unions and the International Labor Organization. Kułakowski is also an example of return migration. He settled in Poland after the fall of communism, reclaimed Polish citizenship, successfully led the process of Poland’s accession to the EU, and was elected to serve as a member of the European Parliament in 2005.106 As already noted, alongside these well-known figures were hundreds of anonymous Polish members of the labor movement who contributed significantly to the dynamics of the host society.

As shown above, Poles established a wide variety of associations and institutions in Belgium. In the late 1920s the leaders of the Polish group presented a typology of these structures: church societies, educational societies, mutual aid societies, and sports societies. At the same time, Polish consuls distinguished three types of associations: social, cultural, and sport.107 As for the labor movement, Polish leaders distinguished three branches: communist groups that were hostile to the Polish state at the time (Seraing near Liege); a radical group which questioned the role of the Church; and a Christian group which included Polish immigrants from Westphalia and the province of Poznan/Poznan. All typologies show that ethnic associations and institutions formed a very dense fabric within the immigrant communities.

After eight decades, a 2001 research report revealed information about Little Poland in Brussels. The list of the entities and activities in this community included Polish-language church services at two locations in the city, several associations, Polish language schools, choirs, small business (hairdressing, car repair shops, medical and legal services) and markets (South Market, Butchers’ Market), discos, and gastronomy.108 The religious activities (in Polish) were listed first in the report, which indicated the key role played by the Polish Catholic Mission.  

However, it should be noted that formal membership in Polish societies in Belgium is rather low. This situation is similar to the situations in other centers of the Polish diaspora, and generally it indicates a decreasing level of social capital in the modern/postmodern world.109 It is estimated that about 20 percent of immigrants are somehow involved in community life. This is probably an overestimate, since the typical level of Polish immigrants’ involvement does not exceed 10 percent.110 It is estimated that in Antwerp 14 percent of Poles belong to an immigrant organization.111 Still, migrants feel that they belong to an ethnic community. Many young Polish couples send their children to Polish schools, and they attend the events organized by the school communities. Many Polish children in Belgium attend Polish religious instruction, at least until the First Holy Communion. Whole families are eager to participate in the most important Polish holidays, such as Christmas Service and Easter ceremonies (blessing food on Good Saturday), but they avoid involvement in other activities. Moreover, ethnicity that is practiced or felt by the recent immigrants is often observed among those who do not engage much in ethnic institutions.112 Indeed, while Poles in Belgium have managed to produce high levels of bonding social capital,113 many still construct their identities outside the traditional structures of the diaspora.

Despite a certain level of social anomie, subsequent streams of Polish immigrants and geographical dispersion produced not just one but many local communities.114 These communities are comprised in part of people who belonged to various immigration streams, and they are diverse in terms of class and region of origin. Because the Polish Catholic Community operates in very traditional ways, which include reinforcing conservative gender roles,115 competing forces are gaining members, such as the Polish Section at the European Catholic Center and the Polish Orthodox Parish. However, these are religious institutions, and there is no secular body strong enough to take over the leadership of the Polish Catholic Community.

Living together and apart, over the course of the last half century, Poles in Belgium met for patriotic holidays and /or in the Millenium Center, and quite often they competed with one another. The main dividing line both before and after World War II was politics. Before the War, there was a division between groups that identified with the Roman Catholic Church on the one hand and groups that were involved in the working-class movement on the other. However, the strong position of Christian trade unions in Belgium has kept many labor activists in the Catholic Church. There was also a division between the groups that supported the Polish government after 1926 and groups that decided to remain neutral. After World War II, the division between pro-communist and anti-communist Poles was the most visible and rigid fault line. This division led to two separate celebrations in Lommel at the cemetery where Polish soldiers who died in World War II are buried.116 Admittedly, conflicts always attract attention and make headlines in the media. In other words, conflicts produce many records, which is why many researchers who examine organs of the Polish media emphasize disagreements within the Polish diaspora, both in Belgium and elsewhere.117 Daily cooperation and harmony are undervalued because they take place quietly and leave little trace.  

There is another interesting and disturbing aspect of diaspora studies. In traditional Polish historiography, the diaspora is characterized as a group that is an immanent part of the nation.118 From this perspective, researchers have focused on documenting the process of immigrant community building, highlighting the community’s successes in promoting Polish culture, and they have paid a lot of attention to outstanding individuals (Polish immigrants) with whom average immigrants wanted to identify. This is true in part simply because these outstanding individuals produced a lot of records, such as memoirs, letters, interviews, and other publications. The main sources for Polish studies on the diaspora were the files of Polish institutions and associations abroad and personal records. These files highlighted all Polish patriotic efforts in Belgium and usually contained little or no information about how Poles had integrated into the host society and culture. Therefore, the researchers’ perception of the diaspora reality was biased. Subtle indications of the integration process are often implicit, except for lamentations about members of the younger generation, which (according to these lamentations) preferred not to speak their native language (especially in public, but also with their siblings) and tried to avoid ethnic events.

The other side of the coin (the integration process) is usually overlooked by Polish researchers. However, studies on the integration of immigrants are being conducted by Belgian scholars and have yielded interesting findings. A new perspective was introduced by Idesbald Goddeeris, who noticed the interconnectedness of the political and economic causes of migration and has pushed for the de-heroization of the Polish experience in Belgium. Goddeeris later joined a group of researchers from Antwerp, and the whole group skillfully showed that Poles gradually integrated into their host society.119 Immigrants’ integration was a slow and quiet process that has been going on in daily life, e.g. children at school, adults at work, and in regular contacts with neighbors representing the host society. Such a process is usually not documented, except on rare occasions, for example celebrations of Polish religious holidays in Belgian churches (as reported sometimes by local media). However, one can examine the process by taking into consideration several key indicators of integration. These key indicators are markers and means (employment, housing, education), social connections (within an immigrant group, with the host society), factors that facilitate integration (language and cultural knowledge, safety and stability), and rights and citizenship.120

On the Polish side, we have studies on immigrant integration by Aleksandra Grzymała-Kazłowska and Kamil Bałuk. Their works are unique in the sense that both authors understand the significance of the integration process and use some indicators of integration. Grzymała-Kazłowska has analyzed Polish women’s migration experiences in liminal time of their lives, and she has found connections between “doing family” and the integration process.121 Bałuk also noted a connection between migrant family life and the integration process, and he demonstrated that members of the second generation of recent immigrants feel at home in Antwerp (where the study was conducted) and motivate their parents to stay in Belgium. The decision to stay (instead of to live as circular or short-term migrants), in turn, results in participation in language and vocational courses in Belgium, which leads immigrants to integrate into the host society.122

Conclusion 

The history of the Polish diaspora in Belgium began in the 1830s and continues to the present day. It included various migration streams and counter-streams: emigration from Poland to Belgium; return migrations from Belgium to Poland (especially after World War I and World War II); multiple migrations, such as the arrival of Poles from Germany and France to Belgium, and the emigration of Poles (mostly DPs) from Belgium to the USA, Canada, and Australia (1950–55);123 and circular migrations in recent decades. At the moment, we witness each of these phenomena at the same time. Many Poles arrive in Belgium and settle there, while others move between Poland and Belgium on a regular basis. Migrants who seemed to be well established in Belgium decide to return to Poland, while seasonal migrants prolong their stay and change their status (in documented or undocumented ways) from temporary to permanent residents. After having spent several years in Belgium, many Poles decide to move on and they go to France or Quebec. Moreover, young people born in Polish families (or mixed families) in Belgium often decide to spend a longer time in Poland, and sometimes, they stay. At the same time, Polish students at the Belgian universities often marry Belgian classmates, and the couples move between Belgium and Poland. On the top of that, the number of Poles employed in EU institutions is increasing, and many of them live their everyday lives in Brussels. Almost all Poles representing these groups are or have been in touch with the Polish Catholic Mission/Community. There is a group of people who are connected with the PCM on a regular basis, but they are a minority among the local Polish diaspora. A larger group appears typically on Polish holidays and celebrates Polish traditions of Christmas carols and Christmas meetings (sharing wafers or opłatek), Easter traditions (pisanki), Corpus Christi processions, etc.  Many Poles show up in the community when they engage in ceremonies involving rites de passage, which they want to celebrate in accordance with Polish traditions. These rites of passage include First Holy Communion, confirmation, weddings, and sometimes funerals. An even larger group has contacts with the PCM that have little to do with religious life but are related, rather, to teaching children the language or getting a job.   

Nevertheless, studying the evolution of the PCM/PCC over the century, we found evidence that this institution, which had to struggle since its early years, managed to overcome the various difficulties it encountered. It has played a leadership role in the Polish community in Belgium and has contributed to the survival of this community to the present day.

In the age of online communication, it seemed that the traditional community was obsolete and would be replaced by online groups. The experience of the Polish immigrant group in Belgium shows that these expectations were premature. The diversity of Polish groups and the central role played by the Polish Catholic Community are indisputable. The immigrant church and school in their traditional form, with buildings, meetings, and celebrations in person, are still central in the lives of many immigrants. 

The question that researchers have not asked so far is whether Poles moved within Belgium and/or the Benelux countries. It would be important to know whether Poles, if they changed their region of residence, moved between Polish communities or (what seems much more likely) whether they left their communities and settled in places where there was no ethnic infrastructure. One must consider that today it is possible to participate in many forms of ethnic activity without residing in an ethnic neighborhood. However, as shown above, traditional forms of immigrant activity, with in-person meetings and a degree of religious decorum, have proven attractive.

The history of Poles in Belgium resembles the history of Poles in other destination countries and generally resembles the history of any diaspora center. In examining this history, we have focused on general trends that are common to all large diaspora centers (founded by immigrants from different countries), as well as on the characteristics of Polish immigration to Belgium. Each migration stream and each local immigrant community has its own unique set of experiences, but common patterns can always be identified.  

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Websites

https://stat.gov.pl/en/topics/population/

https://bib.kuleuven.be/ebib/project-belgische-historische-tellingen/centrale-dienst-voor-de-statistiek-bevolking-algemeene-telling-op-31-december-1930-office-central-de-statistique-population-recensement-general-au-31-decembre-1930

https://bruksela.oblaci.pl/historia/ 

https://mchr.pl/index.php/missionary-sisters 

https://www.pmsz.be 

https://zhp-shpbelgia.org 

http://orthpol.be/pl/kontakt/ 

https://www.foyersekcjapolska.eu/o-nas/

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