This is a rather unsatisfactory book about a fascinating subject, with many contemporary resonances: its foci are the thousands of refugees who crossed illegally from Yugoslavia to Austria in the 1950s. Its basic flaw stems from Engelke's proximity to the sources, a cache of interview transcripts (Aufnahmeprotkolle), which in most cases were conducted by the police (Sicherheitsdirektion) soon after the refugees crossed the Styrian border. These transcripts also include accompanying documentation (for example, Yugoslav court judgments), official assessments of the refugees’ character and veracity, and recommendations for further action, most commonly deportation or the granting of asylum.
The author certainly recognizes the problem of drawing wider conclusions from this single-source base, a chance discovery in the cellars of Graz's provincial archive, and hedges her inferences with appropriate caveats and cautionary subjunctives. But the overall impression remains that the material might have been better used as a starting point for a number of separate studies. For example, there is plenty of insight into the “official mind” of the Styrian police force, including its frustrations with the Federal Interior Ministry. More systematic scrutiny of the discourse of these police reports, and their often highly subjective assessments, might have widened Engelke's interesting discussion of their sexist assumptions. As it stands, the reader is overwhelmed by the sheer minutiae of the individual life stories.
Another related question concerns mental and biographical continuity. After all, the Wehrmacht “abolished” this border in 1941 when the state started to draw a very different, racial border through the population. Engelke appears uninterested in this and, for that matter, in the preceding decades of ethnonational politics. Instead, we read that when the Communists took over Yugoslavia, “the neighbors suddenly became enemies” (“die Nachbarn wurden plötzlich zu Feinden”) (18).
The nature of the Yugoslav regime, as the title indicates, is a central topic, and with it comes the thorny question of the relative importance of political and economic motives in the decision to cross the border. Engelke sees 1955 as an important turning point, arguing (not entirely convincingly) that in preceding years refugees had almost no reason to fear being sent back and therefore provided more authentic accounts of their motivations. However, she also stresses that because the accuracy of their accounts cannot be checked in detail, we are left with only subjective accounts. This stands in some tension with the skepticism evident in the many police assessments that accounts of persecution were much exaggerated or even “fairy tales.” For a large section of the public (though not farmers in need of seasonal workers), many refugees appeared as little more than untrustworthy spongers. Those who were not being recruited to work overseas were described by the head of the Styrian Security services in 1956 as the “garbage” (Mist), left over after the better or fitter examples had moved on (88).
Embedding refugee accounts more firmly in an analysis of postwar Yugoslavia might have helped to assess the “push factors” that led the refugees to take on the risky, sometimes fatal step of crossing the border. Beyond stressing the brutality of the UDBA (Yugoslav secret police) and dismal everyday conditions, Engelke is not really in a position to assess the level of discontent, the extent of political opposition, or economic or regional tensions at work. However, a recent Slovene research project by Mateja Čoh on an anti-Communist resistance group is inserted rather awkwardly in chapter 11. It argues that these “crusaders” (Križari/Kreuzritter) had no connection with the White Guards and Domobranci who had earlier collaborated with the Italian and German occupiers.
After Austria regained full sovereignty in 1955 and signed on to the Geneva Refugee Convention, Engelke notes that the number of registered illegal border-crossers rapidly increased and by May 1957 had reached 500 refugees per month. With the application of the Geneva criteria, she argues, more refugees tailored their accounts to show political motives (from 4 percent in 1954 to 10 percent in 1955), although in 1955 nearly a quarter of these were rejected.
Engelke is far from insensitive to the human tragedies, hopes, and disappointments contained in her files, but it is a pity that she has not succeeded in doing them more justice with greater focus or a more structured argument.
