Archive Photography That Forms a Personal and Collective Memory

Abstract

Personal and family albums created by Latvians in the period from 1939 until the 1950s are placed in a wider social and historical perspective by analyzing its content, as well as the individual intent to create it. This work explores photography album as a tool to organize memories and how historical, personal photography albums serve and interact as evidence of private as well as a public past. The research tries to prove the historical authenticity in two personal albums created by Latvians during the Second World War and the following years – a visual diary illustrating the imprisonment in the Soviet working camp in Siberia and a family album memorializing the way and life of the Latvian refugees in the Alt Garge camp, Germany. Two personal albums (currently stored at the archive of the Museum of Occupation of Latvia) have become objects of historical value and are an informative source for learning, analyzing and educating about historical events.