Collection: Fotosammlung der Heimatlosen | Photographs of the stateless and travellers (Switzerland: 1852–1853)
Description: A collection of 221 police photographs of stateless persons and travellers taken by Carl Durheim in a city prison in Bern, commissioned as part of a campaign to document and naturalise stateless persons in Switzerland. Women are well represented in the collection, and brief notes that record their age and other details such as parents’ names and place of origin. The sample image (no. 9) from the collection shows 59-year-old Maria Magdalena Avondo, originally from Sardinia.
Archive address: Archivstrasse 24, 3003 Bern
Reference number: CH-BAR# E21#1000/131#20507
Links: Visit the Swiss Federal Archives’s official website. Online access to the Federal Archives is available here.
Publications: A small online exhibition of the collection was featured on Archives Portal Europe in 2017.
Contributor: Katelin Parsons
