LONDON (AN) – While browsing in a bookstore in Bath, the renowned historian and author Peter Gatrell stumbled upon a posthumous collection of articles by the late journalist A.A. Gill. During a visit to Greece in 2015, when hundreds of thousands of people fled across the Mediterranean Sea to escape war and persecution, Gill had observed the contrast between the dramatic plight of refugees and oblivious British vacationers nearby.
For Gatrell, an emeritus professor of history at the University of Manchester, the scene set by Gill, depicting the challenges of Syrian refugees arriving on the island of Kos, encapsulated not only some of the ethical dilemmas of amplifying refugees' personal testimony, even with the noble intention of dramatizing human displacement, but it also set the stage for Gatrell’s central theme: the importance of hearing, and critically interpreting, the voices of the refugees themselves in archival material.
