TRAVEL AGENTS ON TRIAL: POLICING MOBILITY IN EAST CENTRAL EUROPE, 1889–1989

• Published in: Past & present Vol. 223; no. 223; pp. 161 - 193
• Main Author: Zahra, Tara
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Oxford University Press 01-05-2014; Oxford Publishing Limited (England)
• Subjects: Antisemitism; Citizenship; Emigration; European history; Immigration; Jewish migration; Jewish peoples; Litigation; Occupational mobility; Passports; Political migration; Slavery; Travel agencies; World wars; Europe
• ISSN: 0031-2746; 1477-464X
• DOI: 10.1093/pastj/gtu002

In the winter of 1889, a sensational trial in the small Galician town of Wadowice captivated the Austrian press and public. The defendants in the case were Jewish travel agents from the nearby town of Oswiecim--known to the world today as Auschwitz. Oswiecim, located at the juncture of Prussian, Russian and Austrian railway lines, had recently developed a booming emigration business. Since 1880, hundreds of thousands of Eastern Europeans had trekked towards the German ports of Hamburg and Bremen en route to North America. The sixty-five defendants in the case were accused of seducing emigrants into abandoning their homeland with false promises of American riches, whereas, in reality, prosecutors argued, Eastern European peasants were delivered to hard labor in American factories, mines and brothels. Here, Zahra details the emigration policies in East Central Europe from 1889 to 1989.