UNRWA & Partners Commemorate 1948

UNRWA is grateful to the generous support of the Swiss Development Cooperation, (SDC), the British Consulate General, the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture and the Qattan Foundation.

Between November 1947 and July 1949, over 700,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled in fear from their homes in historic Palestine. Sixty years on, no lasting solution has been found to their exile and it is more important than ever to return the spotlight to their narrative.

UNRWA’s commemoration theme is “I Come from There… and Remember” - a line by the beloved Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish. A photo exhibition based on this theme will feature the faces, lives and landscapes of pre-1948 Palestine, illustrating how permanently the fabric of Palestinian life was torn asunder by Al-Nakba.

The exhibit, conceived and curated by Gina Benevento and Dr. Issam Nasser, will be held in cooperation with the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Centre in Ramallah, the French Cultural Centre, Dar Al-Tifl (The Children’s House) museum in East Jerusalem and the Bethlehem Peace Centre.

With a view to changing the iconic image of Palestine refugees, “I Come from There… and Remember” will show them not as a desperate people fleeing, but rather as men, women and children with deep roots to their cities and villages and a rich culture prior to 1948 -- thereby re-humanising the “Palestinian refugee” who is all too often presented as a victim with no active past. The photographs and related exhibits will also show that the land of Palestine in the early twentieth century was prosperous, with a developed trade and infrastructure network and a vibrant social and intellectual scene.

Poignantly, most refugee family albums stop in May 1948: these photographs, taken just before people began to flee, are all the more striking as they portray a normality that was never to be regained.