Reinventing French Aid

This book explores how humanitarian aid was influenced by French politics of national recovery and the rivalries of the Cold War. It examines the complicated everyday encounters between French officials, members of new international organizations, relief workers, defeated Germans and the sizeable group of Displaced Persons (DPs), who remained in the territory of the French occupation zone prior to their repatriation or emigration to a third country. By rendering relief workers and DPs visible, it sheds lights on their role in shaping relief practices and addresses the neglected issue of the gendering of rehabilitation. In doing so, it highlights different cultures of rehabilitation, in part rooted in pre-war ideas about 'overcoming' poverty and war-induced injuries. Crucially, it unearths the active and bottom-up nature of the restoration of France's prestige. Not only were relief workers concerned about the image of France circulating in DP camps, but they also drew DP artists into the orbit of French cultural diplomacy in Germany--