With the refugee crisis in Europe hogging the headlines, we have had quite a few question in the past week+ that relate to the topic of past refugee crisis and mass population migrations in general, but unfortunately, as so many of them are asking about the topic so broadly, we have had to remove many for crossing the line on our "Throughout History" rule. But it is clear that this is the hot topic of the moment, so with that in mind, we are putting up this Megathread as a catch-all for the topic! As with past Megathreads we have run, it is similar to an AMA in that top level posts should be questions in their own right that relate to the topic, but unlike an AMA we have no dedicated panel, so questions can be answered by anyone, as long as they of course follow the rules we have in place here! Additionally, while we aren't throwing it out the window, given the relation to the current matter at hand, there is a little leeway within this thread as regards the Twenty Year Rule, insofar as questions relate to parallels to older events, but we will still be removing any questions or comment chains that turn into straight discussions on current events.
So, while we don't have a panel lined up, a number of flair users have offered to pitch in as they can, on a number of topics that relate to past refugee incidents and population migrations, so while there are countless to choose from over the past millenniums, here are a few that might be worth asking about to start:
and of course there are larger, more academic topics to cover such as the development of the concept of political asylum and international organizations to deal with refugees and stateless persons.
So, with that all said now, have at it!
Is there a general consensus on the relative size of the barbarian groups that moved into Roman territory during Late Antiquity? While these groups were clearly dwarfed by the existing population of Roman territories, do we have any idea about the overal size of migratory groups?
Did the Spanish invasion/colonization of Mexico cause any large-scale migrations or refugee movements?
How did British Palestine handle the influx of Jewish immigrants from Germany and did they work closely with the German authorities?
Greek refugees and the Anglo-Saxon Church in the seventh century.
Are these two related somehow? In what way?
Post-World War I American economic migrations
How did the dust bowl migration resolve itself in California? Tens of thousands of people fled the plains states for California, and the light-history, survey-course level sources talk about what the government did to resolve the erosion problems in the plains, but nothing seems to discuss what happened to those tens of thousands that had left the eroded land. Did those tens of thousands go back to the plains? Did California find jobs and homes for them eventually? Our history books are full of photos of Okies in camps, but I seem to see no photos of people happily breaking down the no-longer-necessary camps.
Put loosely, when we left them, Ma and Pa Joad were in that barn with the starving kids. What happened to them next?
I was taught that when india and pakistan was divided ethnic groups made huge efforts to resettle to their 'respective countries'. Was this an official process, and did it work?
So I vaguely recall being told once that many of the Jews in Antwerp originally came from Amsterdam, and that they came there during some kind of mass migration; the conclusion of the story as I heard it was that this is why Antwerp is now the diamond capital of the world (so maybe it was just that the diamond traders came from Amsterdam?).
The thing is, there still is a big Jewish community in Amsterdam, which kind of appears to be at odds with the statement that they left. Also, there's a wiki page on the history of Jews in Antwerp and Jews in Amsterdam, and neither of them mentions this. So did this migration really happen? If so, when and why?
To what extent did the germanic and other "barbarian" invaders affect North Africa compared to Italy and other former regions of the roman empire?
I've heard a lot about "ethnic refugees" in WWII, most famously the travails of the Jews in fleeing Europe. But how did "non-ethnic" refugees get by? What happened to say, French people who were in the path of war and saw their towns destroyed? Were there refugee camps?
Also, were there refugees who fled from Nazi occupied France to Vichy? How were they handled?
Who proposed the idea of the greek-turkish population exchange? Did any of involved parties object to this idea?
Also how smooth was this exchange? Had any of the parties use violence to make people leave?
Isn't this the theme of the upcoming AHA convention in Atlanta?
Post-World War I American economic migrations
What exactly is this in reference to? My first thought was the Dust Bowl, but that was a decade after the war. So what kind of population shifts was WWI, or I guess the aftermath(?), causing in the US?
How do large scale migrations like the Lombard migration from northern Germany to Italy work/happen?
Did the French during their mandate intend to divide what is now modern Syria among smaller ethnic/religious borders before the various revolts? And If so why did that change and what did the Syrian nationalists want the country to look like?
Does anyone know what countries europeans migrated to due to world war 2? i cant seem to find any data on it. i can find some data on jewish migration and african american migration but it seems impossible to find any information on european migration in general.
I came acros the following picture on my facebook feed and was wondering to what extent European refugees existed (read around 60 million people), where they fled and how they were received. What I could learn from Wiki is the existence of UNRRA and to my knowledge the most chosen countries to flee to were Great Brittain and maybe across the Atlantic Ocean (because of UNRRA)? I'm mostly wondering if and how that refugee and migration crisis can be compared to the one we are experiencing today through expanding my knowledge on the WWII one.
