To count or not to count: British politics of framing and the condition of “illegal infiltree” in the Bergen-Belsen DP camp (1945–1948)

Abstract

This article explores the politics of humanitarian assistance in the aftermath of the Second World War, by examining the act of framing certain groups of Jewish refugees as “infiltrees”, in the context of the British occupation zone of Germany, and the Bergen-Belsen DP camp more specifically. Based on archival sources and the available literature, it dissects this legal categorisation to help understand who the different individuals categorised as infiltrees were, the wider political conjuncture that informed this framing, and the real consequences felt by those who were framed as such. This article demonstrates the extent to which the attribution of legal categories to those on the move, with tangible effects for those individuals, represents a deeply politicised practice in Europe, which has been operating at least since the first half of the twentieth century, and which continues today.