Gerty Deutsch

‘A Child’s View of the War‘, Picture Post,

11 May 1940

Author, Tom Harrisson
 

This article explores children’s feelings on the war, as they draw spitfires and warships for an exhibition.  Deutsch’s poignant photographs accompany interviews conducted by Mass-Observation volunteers. This pioneering social research organisation was founded in 1937 by the author and anthropologist Tom Harrisson.  

 

The children’s comments are a mixture of humorous and serious. Some reflect the frustration about the ‘phoney war‘, which ended in May 1940.  ‘It doesn’t seem like war does it? Where is the war?’ Others wish that Britain would just go and bomb Hitler.  Girls are particularly aware of rising food prices.

 

Deutsch shot the images at Willow Road, Hampstead, the modernist home of another emigré, architect Ernö Goldfinger.