Hess were taken around 1935 in a Munich
photography studio. Wiener Holocaust Library Collections
This month the Library’s exhibition, ‘There Was a Time’: Jewish Family Photographs before 1939, will be restaged in Paris at UNESCO’s global headquarters.
The exhibition marks the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust on 27 January 2023. It will be on display on the exterior of the Maison de l’UNESCO, Place de Fontenoy from the 17 January until the 10 February.
The Wiener Holocaust Library has the UK’s largest archive of family papers related to Jewish refugees from Nazi Europe, including extensive collections of photographs: portraits, snapshots and albums. Most of these photographs are domestic, everyday images—they span holiday snaps from the 1920s, photo-postcards sent during the First World War, and formal studio portraits from the 1900s.
Family photographs have often been overlooked as historical or artistic objects in their own right. The images displayed within this exhibition are a selection of early twentieth-century photographs from ten collections connected to Jewish families in Germany and Austria, who used photography to express their identities and belonging within national cultures and local communities.
This exhibition documents the lives of Jews in Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, giving us a unique insight into this lost world.
We’re delighted that UNESCO have chosen to exhibit these valuable objects from our collection and welcome the chance to share them with an international audience.
Read the full Press Release here.
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