On Visual Representation Of Refugees

The photograph discussed in the new EHRI blog post captures a dramatic moment during an attempted deportation of a group of Jews who escaped after the occupation of the Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia. The series of photographs captured on March 30, 1939 at the Croydon airport close to London has attained an almost iconic character; their visual power demonstrates the restrictive approach of Great Britain to Jewish refugees from Nazi occupied Europe. For instance, the photo was used to this effect in the opening section of a recent Wiener Library exhibition. However, the refugee carried by force to the airplane remained unknown and nameless, as do most photographed refugees to this day.

Thanks to a documentation project on the Jews in Ostrava (described below), the identity of the person could be ascertained and the background of these dramatic events much better described. Moreover, it provides a possibility to look critically at how photographic evidence of refugees and of the Holocaust more generally is used.

Although this blog post is just a snapshot of ongoing and unfinished research, the events at Croydon airport can be reconstructed from the press and newly uncovered family archives.

Read the whole EHRI Blog

Image: A refugee from German-occupied Czechoslovakia, being forcibly deported from Croydon airport, Wiener Library, WL25