Figure 1.--Here we see a European boy in an ethnic outfit. We have no information when it was taken, but would guess the 1930s. It may be German. I'm not sure if the swasticas are ethnic symbols or NAZI additions.

We have found some photographs of European ethhnic costumes that we cannot yet identify. Insome cases te country is known, but the specifif details are unavailable. In other cases we do not even know the country involved. Hopefully our European readers will provide some insights to help identify these images.

Image 1: Probably German

Here we see a European boy in an ethnic outfit. We have no information when it was taken, but would guess the 1930s. It may be German. I'm not sure about the clothing, but I thought the boy looks German. I'm not sure if the swasticas are ethnic symbols or NAZI additions. A reader writes, "Interesting puzzle, this one. Probably somewere in Eastern Europe. Slavic/Hungarian/Romanian, even the Baltics come to mind. But definitely not German, unless belonging to one of these groups in the German diaspora that have to a large extent assimilated with their host population. I'm not sure that there will be swastikas on a closer look. The embroidery makes me think of Hungary or Romania. The footwear (those strings wound up around the calves) recall pics of the Balkans, some country that has been under the Ottoman Empire? Outside this area I can only recall having seen them in parts of Italy (Sardinia) and the Basque country, but with that the embroidery isn't consistent. I really wonder what other readers are going to make of this."

Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing ethnic pages:
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[Amish] [Dutch] [France] [German] [Greek] [Irish] [Lapps]
[Malays] [Native American] [Scottish]

Created: 5:03 AM 2/18/2005
Last updated: 7:18 AM 2/18/2005