Photographs from the 1936 Olympics in Berlin

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Reference

1711

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1711_WL2006-11-30_WL4552_0001.jpg

Short Description

Family photographs taken at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.

Text Description

In 1936 Germany hosted the Olympic games. The Nazis used the event to showcase their regime to the world, and smooth over international relations following the reoccupation of the Rhineland three months prior.

The response to the games was overwhelmingly positive. Visitors found Germany clean, well-run and efficient. Signs of antisemitic violence were extremely rare, having been removed by the Nazis from the public eye.

These photographs were taken by Edith Brent nee Schlomann who was born to Jewish parents in Swinemünde (Swinoujscie, now Poland) in 1919. She came to Britain with her younger sister Ellen in 1939, first working as a domestic servant before retraining as a nurse. Her father died prior to the outbreak of war, whilst her mother was deported in 1941 and later murdered during the Holocaust. These family snapshots commemorate happier times.