Transforming a Broken World: Children’s Communities in Post-War Europe as Experimental Spaces for Education

After the Second World War, when many European countries began to emerge from a period of destruction, aggression and authoritarian rule, humanitarian interventions in the domain of childcare and child rescue were perceived as important initiatives that would usher in new beginnings and investments in the future of mankind. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), founded in 1945, forged bonds with children’s communities as a way forward to transform the lives of both children and educators. Children’s communities had been established all over Europe to offer orphaned child war victims a safe place and a caring atmosphere. Most of these communities advocated a learner-centered and emancipatory approach rooted in the New Education movement. Not least, children’s communities were expected to become self-governing communities of educators and students while serving as models of democratic societies.
Already in 1948, UNESCO had taken the reins to coordinate these promising childcare activities and organized a conference on “Homeless Children” with international representatives of children’s communities at the Pestalozzi Children’s Village in Trogen, Switzerland. The proceedings and documentation of the conference were published in 1950. One of the issues highlighted in the report was how to re-establish dignity and strengthen democratic values – not only by educating children but also by training teachers and educators. Teachers and educators were expected to restore mutual trust between children and adults, thereby repairing what had been damaged by a war initiated by a fascist German government that caused physical and moral devastation all over Europe.
Also in 1948, the same year that the children’s community conference was held in Switzerland, UNESCO and the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) had commissioned Magnum photographer David Seymour to document humanitarian interventions in childcare and child rescue in Europe. Seymour used more than 250 film rolls and his impressive work shows that he too concentrated in particular on children’s communities.
The paper focuses on the ethical framework of children’s communities and how the personal and professional qualities of teachers and educators were discussed during the 1948 Swiss conference. It will then analyze how David Seymour’s photographs documented and visually orchestrated children’s communities as experimental places. Finally, it will be discussed how photographs served as visual communicators that advocated for participatory and community-oriented education.