How is history mobilised in current social sciences research on responses to the large-scale refugee arrival in Germany since 2015? Some research seems to pay little or no attention to historical factors that might influence how newly arriving refugees are received by local residents. A second strand of research explores the dynamics of how specific communities of migrants who came to Germany in the past have responded to the arrival of Syrian and other refugees in 2015 and 2016. And a third strand of literature has started to analyse refugee reception through more local and contextualised case studies. In social science research, excluding past forced migrations from present understandings may contribute to reifying fixed boundaries—and that might prevent us imagining what a collective future could look like.