Page 36 - Studia Universitatis Hereditati, vol 11(2) (2023)

ties a form of ‘protective’ narration of their his- aware of certain aspects of refugee life beyond
tory and their past. Těchonín.
The first thing that the Savas photographs
Back to Těchonín or the Paradox on refugees reveal is the place of the family in
of Images? life in exile. Their family photographs immor-
The ‘Hungarian Greeks’ did not stay in Těchonín talize the repair of family ties severed by the ex-
for very long; soon after their arrival, in March odus, a primary preoccupation of refugees in ex-
of the following year, they were sent to industri- ile. In addition to their use as souvenirs of this
al towns near the German-Polish border (Tsivos reunion, which can be found today in the photo
2022, 74). In this way, the barracks, which had boxes of its members, the family photos served
(for a short time) also been transformed into a another purpose: they were both the message
place of shelter, returned to their original use as and the herald of this reunion, which their dis-
36 military barracks. patch to the countries of the Eastern Bloc and
We have not found photographic record to Greece heralded. Family portraits – well-
of the crossing of the ‘Greeks from Hungary’ dressed and carefully presented, prepared to take ti
studia universitatis hereditati, letnik 11 (2023), številka 2 / volume 11 (2023), number 2
to Těchonín, and paradoxical as it may seem, the photo – were a widespread communication
among the photographs of Savas, there are no practice among refugees scattered across differ-
photographs showing sick people convalescing ent host countries and those who remained in
in the barracks. Savas personal photographic ar- Greece. They are photographs that migrate, mi- ta
chive from Těchonín do, in fact, show us a life grant-photographs, in the form of postcards of
around this place of care, to such an extent that, families that circulate among refugees. Among
looking at them, one wonders whether they can these photographs we find unplanned snapshots,
be associated with the place where they were tak- taken at random, but also just the opposite, pho-
en, since none of the clues, apart from the back- tographs taken carefully, by people who have di
ground showing buildings which, however, bear taken the time and care to prepare themselves,
no sign of a health care establishment, or of the with a view to being seen. In both cases, these
Red Cross, provide any indication of a specific photographs convey the message of a reunion
place, located either in a town or in a city (and (occasional or permanent) between members of
therefore in a country). Is it possible, moreover, the same family in one country, or the fact that
that these photographs could have been taken the refugees pictured were living well where they
not in a convalescent home but in other plac- were, thanks to their appearance – well-dressed here
es, located in the towns or villages where the in the host country.
refugees lived and who, on one occasion or an- Savas’ photographs on Těchonin also show
other, found themselves together? Didi Huber- what would come to characterize the lives of ref-
man (2003, 49–49) writes about the four pho- ugees in exile: their proletarianization. Although
tographs of Auschwitz: ‘The images are nothing the refugees initially settled in rural areas, most
but torn shreds, bits of film. They are therefore of them being of rural origin, the introduction of
inadequate: what we see [...] is still little com- heavy industrialization by the countries of East-
pared to what we know.’ ern Europe soon transformed this population
Savas’ photographs of refugee life in from farmers into workers.
Těchonín represent a piece of refugee life in ex- Finally, the life of the refugees in the coun-
ile; Looking at these photographs, we realize tries of Eastern Europe included socialization
that we do not know who took the photos, who among themselves, part of which was the crea- studiauniversitatis
the people in the photos are – with a few excep- tion of musical groups and choirs created by the
tions – or on what occasion they were taken. Yet, refugees, which were a way of linking them to-
despite these gaps, these photographs make us gether. Involving people of all ages, older and