Figure 1.-- Voula Papaioannou was not a war photographer, but she photgraphed Greece during the war years. And the Greek prople like other countries suffered under Axis occuption. (Not just German, but also Bulgarian and Italian.) Even after the German were forced to withdraw from Greece (October 1944), the situation was terrible because of the occuption and the Greek people required massive humanitarian aid -- mostly privided by the Unuted States through the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA). This photograph by Papaioannou shows the conditiins in Greece, especially in rural areas, at the end of World War II.

Voula Papaioannou with the Italian invasion of Greece, she pursued documentary photography (1940). She photographed Greek-Italian War (1940-41), includung the troops departing for the front and the resulting casualties of war. With the German invasion (1941) she documented the resulting German and Italian occupation (1941-44). This of course had some political overtiones, but she managed to steer clear of the occupation authorities. She captured images of the terrible Great Famine the Gernmans caused. She photographed hungary, emaciated children. She documented the hunger, poverty and destitution that Greece was subbjected by the NAZIs. She was not a war photographer. She photographed during the war years, but the war was not the suject of her photography. For historians the impact at the front was not of great interest. In fact the HAZI offensive zans miklitasry vicgtory is basrely covered. It was over in a few weeks, what is of greater interest is the barbarity of the NAZIs in the countries that they occupied and exploited. She stayed behind and photographed the impact of the war on the Greek people. She left a detailed record of the Greek Famine. She does not seem to come under scrutiny of the NAZI occupation authorites. At least we have not found any record of it. Even though her photographs documented what the Germans were not prticularly interested in having publicized. For example, the hospitals where many famine victims died, were off limits to photographers, but Papaioannou managed to get in just the same. Her most important work is the hand- made 4 copies only "To lefkoma tis peinas" (The album of starvation) with photographs of emanciated children in Axis (German and Italian) occupied Greece during World War II. These images of children in occupied Greece (along with those of the concentration camps) are among the most shocking we have ever seen. With liberation, working with the photographic unit of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), she traveled ravaged Greek countryside recording what thec Germans left in their wake. The Germans withdrew from Greece (1944) but conditions in Greece wee severe and made woese by the Civil war that followed. She then recorded the impact of the Greek Civil War (1948)

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Created: 12:05 AM 4/18/2023
Last updated: 12:05 AM 4/18/2023