Figure 1.--Here we see two unidntified brothers, presumably with their grandmother. All we know for sure about the boys is that the photograph was taken in 1945, presumably just after the War. It looks like a home snapshot rather than a studio portrait. It is similar to family photographs we see throughout the inter-War period, except that the boys are barefoot.

Here we see two unidntified brothers, presumably with their grandmother. All we know for sure about the boys is that the photograph was taken in 1945, presumably just after the War. It looks like a home snapshot rather than a studio portrait. It is similar to family photographs we see throughout the inter-War period, except that the boys are barefoot. That was not very common in the 1930s and early-40s except perhaps in East Prussia, an agrarian area of Germany. The boys are well dressed in short pants suits, slthough they do not wear ties. We suspect that their lack of footwear reflects the devestation suffered by Germany in the final year of the War. Consumer goods were almost impossible to obtain and this was especially true of leargher goods like shoes. Presumably the boys has shoes, but were probably in such bad shape that grandmother or mother decided it would be better to appear barefoot in the photograph.

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Created: 10:38 PM 4/28/2005
Last updated: 8:14 PM 9/24/2009