Renaming the stateless as displaced persons enabled ignoring and liquidating the problem.

Evidence

Even the terminology applied to the stateless has deteriorated. The term “stateless” at least acknowledged the fact that these persons had lost the protection of their government and required international agreements for safeguarding their legal status. The postwar term “displaced persons” was invented during the war for the express purpose of liquidating statelessness once and for all by ignoring its existence. Nonrecognition of statelessness always means repatriation, i.e., deportation to a country of origin, which either refuses to recognize the prospective repatriate as a citizen, or, on the contrary, urgently wants him back for punishment. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 687

Categorization

• DEFINE: Distinguishes ‘stateless’ (which acknowledged loss of government protection) from ‘displaced persons’ (invented to erase statelessness by ignoring it).
• XREF: Connects to Arendt’s broader argument about the nation-state, and to Giorgio Agamben’s later work on bare life and the camp.