Else Wachenheimer-Moos en haar echtgenoot Eugen Wachenheimer op vakantie in de bossen, 1939, Spa (België) 1939

This is a page from an album containing photographs of Else Wachenheimer-Moos and her husband, Eugen Wachenheimer, taken by a family member in Spa, Belgium, in 1939. The informal snapshots create the impression of a couple enjoying a moment of leisure, but the date reminds us that this was a brief respite taken on the eve of World War II. The couple were German Jews, and Spa was one of the last places they visited before fleeing Nazi persecution. The album page offers a glimpse into the lives of a family caught in the maelstrom of European history. These images carry social meaning, capturing a moment of bourgeois ease for a family that would soon be displaced, dispossessed, and scattered across the globe. How do we use these images today? They are valuable resources for the historian, who might use census records, immigration forms, and other documents to more fully reconstruct the family’s history. This page reminds us that art is always contingent on social and institutional contexts.