History/Political Science paper by Hajtó, Vera
ELTE

The Reception of Hungarian Migrants in Belgium in 1956 and 1957. Refugee Camp, Social Organizations and Charitable Individuals (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Participating in the international surge of solidarity, Belgium opened its borders, society and work market to about 7000 Hungarian refugees in the aftermath of the Hungarian revolution in 1956. The Belgian government set up five refugee camps in former military barracks and entrusted five civil society organizations with one camp each. These organizations were responsible of the management of the camps, of seeking housing for the refugees and assisting them in finding a job. One of these organizations was Caritas Catholica Belgica, the Belgian branch of the international Catholic humanitarian organization, Caritas Catholica, which has been active in Belgium since 1932. Caritas had close association with the political party Catholic Union of Belgium (CVP/PSC) and was assigned a camp near the southeast Belgian town of Tongeren. This refugee camp opened its doors in November 1956 and received hundreds of Hungarians from the first refugee transports. With the mediation of Caritas and the assistance of the Belgian public, the migrants managed to restart their new lives within a relative short period in Belgium. Present paper aims to give an idea about the reception of the migrants in the camp. It will explain how the employees and volunteers of Caritas organized themselves and the camps to accommodate the refugees. Through the case of one individual refugee it will also describe the migrant’s trajectory and experience.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Vera Hajtó is a social historian. She received her PhD in History from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium in 2013. The manuscript of her thesis, entitled „Migration, Childhood and Memories of the Interwar Belgian-Hungarian Child Relief Procject”, was published by the University Press Leuven in 2016. As a researcher at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Research Centre for the Humanities, Institute of History, she is currently engaged in the international CELSA research project ʻÉmigré Europeʼ on the networks of Hungarian, Polish, Czech and Slovakian migrants in the Low Countries. Her research interest lie in the field of social and cultural history, migration, the history of childhood, gender and postmemory.