Acknowledgments
The spark of an idea for this book began over a decade ago in Vienna, Austria. With multiple zigzags and border crossings along the way, the idea traveled back and forth with me across continents, oceans, and cities near and far – from Los Angeles and Palo Alto, to Ankara and Istanbul, to Cologne and Berlin, and finally, to Richmond, Virginia. The idea and the book that emerged from it transformed along the way, as I wrote, revised, and revised again, each time incorporating new tidbits of information, grand ideas, and constructive feedback from colleagues and friends. This may be the “final” version, but, as this book ultimately concludes, the very concept of finality is itself elusive. After all, to paraphrase Jonathan Petropoulos, my mentor at Claremont McKenna College and the person who first inspired me to become a historian, “Our writing is never done. We just give up on it.”
At Stanford University, I began putting this idea on paper. My doctoral advisor, Edith Sheffer, both grounded me and encouraged me to “chase rainbows,” as I have often quipped. She infused this project with empathy and humanity, modeling how to center the history of everyday life and the power of ordinary people to shape geopolitical change. Ali Yaycıoğlu pushed me to tell a Turkish story, not only a German one, and to think in broader terms about space, place, landscapes, and journeys across layers of time. J. P. Daughton introduced me to transnational history, expanding my narrow idea of what “Europe” means, who “Europeans” are, and where the boundaries of “Europe” lie. Tara Zahra generously joined my committee from afar, helping me place my story within the larger histories of European migration, gender, sexuality, and the family.
Many others at Stanford pushed me to think across geographic, temporal, and disciplinary borders. In our quest to find new narratives for German history, our tight-knit cohort of Germanist doctoral students – Ian Beacock, Benjamin Hein, and Samuel Huneke – found intersections among topics as diverse as migration, sexuality, emotions, and capitalism. The History Department faculty – particularly Laura Stokes, Estelle Freedman, Ana Minian, and Steven Press – infused my work with insights from the Early Modern period to the present, and from Europe to the Middle East, Latin America, and the United States. Members of the European History Workshop, Gender History Workshop, Program in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and the Haas Center for Public Service offered feedback on the early stages of my writing and helped me conceive of this project within the broader scope of feminist and community-engaged scholarship.
Generous funding made this research possible. The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, through its German Chancellor Fellowship Program, funded fifteen months of research in Germany. Grants from the Central European History Society, the Europe Center at Stanford University, and Stanford’s Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies supported summer research and language training. The Beinecke Scholarship Program and the Stanford History Department provided financial support throughout my graduate career. For sabbatical-year support that allowed me to balance revisions to this manuscript with research on a new project, I thank the American Historical Association for awarding me a Bernadotte E. Schmitt Grant and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum for granting me a visiting fellowship at the Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Center.
Over the last decade, many colleagues have offered practical advice, read drafts, shared feedback at conferences, and even worked alongside me in the archives. I am especially appreciative of Frank Biess, Astrid M. Eckert, Esra Özyürek, and Edith Sheffer for participating in a manuscript workshop that fundamentally reshaped some of the core arguments of this book, helped me refine my interpretations, and sparked exciting new ideas. For their engagement with this book project at various stages, I thank Rita Chin, Christopher Ewing, Brian J. K. Miller, Jennifer A. Miller, Christopher Molnar, Lauren Stokes, Brian Van Wyck, and Sarah Thomsen Vierra. Participants in numerous conferences, workshops, and invited lectures have further shaped my work. Among them, I am grateful for Jeremy Best, Brandon Bloch, Gideon Botsch, Austin Clements, Jazmine Contreras, Anna Duensing, Jennifer Evans, Atina Grossmann, Paige Newhouse, Gavriel Rosenfeld, Kira Thurman, Janet Ward, and Jonathan Wiesen.
My colleagues at the Documentation Centre and Museum for Migration to Germany (DOMiD e.V.) in Cologne hosted me in-house for eighteen months during my field work. They welcomed me with open arms, invited me onto their team, provided me with my own office, and served as a surrogate family. For their research assistance, guidance, and companionship, I thank the whole DOMiD team: Robert Fuchs, Beate Rieple, Bettina Just, Bengü Kocatürk-Schuster, Timothy Tasch, Sandra Vacca, Fatma Uzun, Burkhard Eiden, and Arnd Kolb. I remain forever inspired by their tireless efforts to bring migration history and migrants’ stories to light.
Countless others in Germany made this research possible. I especially thank the staff of the German Federal Archives in Koblenz, the Political Archive of the Foreign Office in Berlin, and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung in Bonn. Professor Dr. Ralf Jessen hosted me as a guest scholar at the University of Cologne Historical Institute, and the members of the Kolloquium zur Neuren und Neusten Geschichte provided feedback on my early ideas. Steffi De Jong not only sharpened my intellectual ideas and helped me navigate German academia but also made Cologne special by sharing her friendship, laughter, long hikes, museum excursions, evening teas, and many homemade cakes.
In Turkey, many people helped me convey migrants’ stories while navigating the limitations of official Turkish archives. The librarians at the Milli Kütüphanesi found documents when I thought none existed. My host mother in Ankara, Emine Zaman, cooked for me every day for six weeks and passed a dictionary across the kitchen table to teach me Turkish. Burcu Karahan, my Turkish language professor at Stanford, hosted me at her parents’ home in the beach town of Şarköy during two summers of oral history interviews. She took me door-to-door to visit all the return migrants in her parents’ neighborhood, sat in on hours-long interviews, and translated orally when needed. On my second visit to Şarköy, my bus arrived just three hours after Turkey’s 2016 military coup, and the Karahan family took great care to make sure that I felt secure.
It became clear early on that Cambridge University Press, the German Historical Institute (GHI), Washington DC, and the Friends of the GHI would be strong partners in this project. Liz Friend-Smith at Cambridge guided me clearly and efficiently through the acquisition process. The GHI has supported this project since 2017, when I presented one of my first conference papers at the inaugural Bucerius Young Scholars Forum. Two subsequent talks at the GHI elicited lively audience questions that enriched this book. One of those talks occurred in November 2019, when I was fortunate to be awarded the Fritz Stern Dissertation Prize of the Friends of the GHI. I thank the members of the prize committee and the Friends in general for their support for and endorsement of my work. David Lazar and Richard Wetzell first encouraged me to publish my book in the Publications of the GHI series. Simone Lässig and Kelly McCullough have been fantastic editors; their enthusiasm, intellectual engagement, clear communication, and logistical guidance have enriched the book itself and made the publication process smooth and enjoyable. I would also like to thank GHI intern Jacob Forbes and indexer Christine Brocks for their contributions.
Many individuals and institutions generously granted me permission to reprint photographs, cartoons, song lyrics, and text in this book. The second chapter is a revision of my previous article: “The Long Road Home: Vacations and the Making of the ‘Germanized Turk’ across Cold War Europe,” The Journal of Modern History 93, no. 1 (2021): 109–49. Likewise, certain parts of this book contain text from another one of my previous articles: “Rethinking Central Europe as a Migration Space: From the Ottoman Empire through the Cold War and the Refugee Crisis,” Central European History 55, no. 1 (2022): 118–37. I am grateful to Central European History editor Monica Black for encouraging me to write the latter article, which proved instrumental to my thinking as I revised this book.
The University of Richmond provided an ideal home as I completed my revisions. I am immeasurably grateful for the warm welcome, encouragement, and mentorship of my colleagues in the History Department. Across disciplines, colleagues in the Global Studies Program, German Studies Program, Jewish Studies Program, Faculty Learning Community on Migration, Humanities Connect Program, and Interim Jewish Life Advisory Committee have enriched my experience at the university. Completing these revisions while adjusting to a new campus would have been impossible without the administrative support of Debbie Govoruhk, Sabrina Anderson, Liza Carpenter, Nancy Probst, and Emily Woody Tarchokov.
Most rewardingly, I have had the privilege of working with many talented undergraduate students. Robert Bentley, Maggie Castelli, Simon Curry, Carly Kessler, Ian Levy, and Caroline Martin provided invaluable research assistance. Janis Parker read the entire final draft of this manuscript and provided sharp critique of both its ideas and style. Joe Haines and Adelaide Tracey engaged astutely with my writing at numerous stages. Countless other students – especially Christopher Barry, Saige Beatman, Courtney Ford, Kristin Joostema, and Rachel Matthews – supported my work with enthusiasm and provided much-appreciated moral support as I balanced scholarship, teaching, and academic service.
I am likewise grateful for my strong network of friends. During our writing retreats and strategy sessions, Mackenzie Cooley kept me on pace, helped me think more expansively, and pushed me to achieve more than I ever thought I could. Rebecca Gruskin not only deepened my ideas but also encouraged me to treat myself kindly, know my limits, and remind myself that “everyone is doing their best.” The broader graduate student community at Stanford provided support, stimulation, and levity, especially Branden Adams, Lukas Dovern, Ali Karamustafa, and Vladimir Hamed-Troyansky. Nisrine Rahal provided crucial guidance and friendship during the final stages of production. Special thanks go to Samantha Goldman, Evan Faber, Samantha Wendler, Christopher Lawyer, Maddie McElfresh, Kevin Clatterbuck, and all my fellow athletes at the Weight Room.
My family endured their own “separation anxieties” while I was away researching for months and years. Bettie and Gene Mathless have supported my education since childhood, and Lonna, Marvin, and Susan Kahn opened their homes to me as a refuge. John, Sharon, Matthew, Jennifer, and Ella Douglas warmly welcomed me into their family. My brothers, Michael and Daniel Kahn, continually remind me that there is, in fact, life beyond history. Michael has instilled in me crucial habits for success, and Daniel has provided wisdom beyond his years. My parents, Carole and Richard Kahn, have given me more than I can express in words. With her biting wit, take-charge attitude, and relentless perseverance, my mother has ensured that I work hard, play hard, and never give up. By inviting me to sit in on his classes when I was just a child, my father inspired me to become a professor, and discussing our shared profession has been among the greatest honors of my life.
Finally, maintaining work–life balance at the final stages of this book – and at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, no less – would have been impossible without my wonderful husband, Andrew Douglas. Not only is he the world champion of fixing the printer, but he is also the sounding board for my ideas. He listened to me talk incessantly about this book, from its major arguments to the very last image caption, and he sat patiently as I read thousands of words aloud to him. Somehow, he tolerated working from home together even as my excessively loud voice echoed throughout the house during Zoom meetings. And he graciously spent six (or, if you ask him, ten) months doing the dishes and watering the vegetable garden – without me lifting a finger – so that I could focus on revisions. Perhaps my greatest thanks go to our three cats: Marty, Minnie, and Sherlock. Although their incessant meowing for food and sitting on the keyboard distracted me from my work, they more than made up for it with their love, warmth, and cuteness.
Open access