The previous post, Face of Time, was about the recent Magnum Photos exhibit at TMU’s Image Centre. There was another exhibit of post war photographs that was shown at the same time. This second set were taken by David “Chim” Seymour (a co-founder of Magnum Photos) and they feature some of the 13,000,000 orphaned or abandoned European children. His work was commissioned by UNESCO and took him to Germany, Austria, Italy, Greece, Poland, and Hungary. Seymour was Polish, born Dawid Szymin (1911-1956); he died in Egypt at the close of the Suez Crisis.
below: Some of David Seymour’s photos ended up in the UNESCO publication “Courier”. This is the front cover of the February 1949 edition, with the headline ‘The Children of Europe’. The photo was taken in a Warsaw orphanage. The printed story starts with: “Europe is a stone wilderness and the smoke which has since long lifted from the last war still discloses a shattered continent. Where it is not shattered physically, it is hurt within its mind and its courage for life. The child groping his way out of the ruins must make his way to life now in this Europe.”
below: “Millions of children first knew life amid death and destruction.”
below: Rehab hospital, Vienna Austria
below: We can also make clothes for ourselves, and we’ll learn to print our own books.”
below: Ionanina Greece
below: Tuberculosis Sanitorium, Otwock Poland
“Children of Europe” is online on a UNESCO website
as I walk Toronto 