Abstract (eng)
The present work is a portrayal, from a microhistorical perspective, of forced flight, migration, and its repercussions. The changing history of migrations of my father's grandparents, from Czernowitz, former capital of Bukovina, is used as an example. The study begins with an exploration of biographical events from their childhood years in Czernowitz, and then moves on to their flight to Vienna shortly after the outbreak of World War I in the autumn of 1914. It deals with their social, personal, and material situation during the war in the imperial capital, as well as with subsequent difficulties, when East European Jewish refugees sought to obtain Austrian citizenship and build a new life in Vienna. It will become clear what impact an "official construction of identity" could have for individuals at the beginning of the First Republic. The study then takes a look at their existence as presumptively assimilated Jews in Vienna, taking into consideration the increasing anti-Semitic sentiments in the 1920s and 1930s, and ends with their forced emigration to Uruguay in August of 1938.
The phenomenon of fragmented or multiple identities as a result of displacement and migration are treated in particular, and where this whole subject is closely linked to the question of "a" Jewish identity. Assimilation, acculturation, integration, identification, alienation, stigmatization and isolation of people in the diaspora are some of the concepts that engage the discussion. The portrayal of individual destinies takes always place embedded in historical and sociocultural contextualizations. Theoretical contributions from the established social sciences are employed to allow for a differentiated outlook on the elusive concept of identity, and to apply it in a time-bound manner to the phenomenon in question.