Relief and Rehabilitation for a Post-war World

Humanitarian Intervention and the UNRRA

Samantha K. Knapton, Katherine Rossy, Samantha K. Knapton, Katherine Rossy

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9781350179110
• eBook ISBN: 9781350179134
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: 20th Century History
• Index: History

One of the world's first truly international humanitarian organisations, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) was championed as a beacon of postwar philanthropy that sought to rehabilitate as well as provide relief. This edited volume offers the first comprehensive study of the UNRRA and seeks to identify the key successes, limitations and enduring challenges it faced in the postwar period. Tracing the rehabilitation of displaced children in the camps of Germany and Austria, to mountainous Greek villages without access to food or medical supplies and refugees in postwar China, it will assess the immediate impact of UNRRA rehabilitation policy on postwar reconstruction, international development and broader humanitarian processes. Through these international case studies it will explore the ways in which a fundamental inability to define 'rehabilitation' made it seemingly impossible to meet its objectives. As a predecessor to modern specialised agencies such as UNESCO, WHO and UNICEF, studying the UNRRA is crucial for our understanding of the history of the United Nations, the circumstances that shaped its future policies and the foundations of modern humanitarianism.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of contributors
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• Introduction: Beyond relief and rehabilitation: UNRRA in historical perspective Samantha K. Knapton and Katherine Rossy
• 1 ‘UNRRA: You never really rehabilitate anyone’: Problems of rehabilitation in definition and practice Samantha K. Knapton
• 2 ‘Low in health and spirits’: The hygiene and health campaign in UNRRA camps in Germany and Austria as a form of rehabilitation Katarzyna Nowak
• 3 Paving the way for a new democracy? UNRRA in Italy Silvia Salvatici
• 4 The muse of rural assistance in Greece for relief and rehabilitation: The Near East Foundation and United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, 1944–7 Joshua Thew
• 5 Looking at refugees: Relief and rehabilitation in UNRRA/CNRRA photographic representations of refugees in post-war China Caroline Reeves
• 6 The forgotten ‘R’: UNRRA’s Central Tracing Bureau and the recovery of missing persons in post-war Germany, 1945–7 Katherine Rossy
• 7 The Pate Reports and UNRRA: The beginning of UNICEF, 1946 Lisa Payne Ossian
• 8 The UNRRA: The ambiguity of ‘rehabilitation’, suppressed discourses, and unlearned lessons from FDR’s post-war assistance operation Dan Plesch and Grace Schneider
• Afterword UNRRA: An overview Peter Gatrell
• Select bibliography
• Index
• Imprint