15 Photos To Remind Us Of Our Past... As Refugees!

The Famous Time Magazine recently published a series of photos dating from the Second World War.

These photos, originally in black and white, have been colorized.

They show the exodus of Europeans fleeing the war, as the Syrians are doing today.

Photographer Sanna Dullaway colorized these photos of European refugees during the war.

Why ? Just to remind you that history repeats itself.

Only the victims have changed :Europeans yesterday, Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans today.

Remember that between 1939 and 1948, more than 60 million Europeans had to abandon their homes to escape the tragedies of war.

Decades later, Europe has become the refuge of hundreds of thousands of refugees from Africa and the Middle East.

70 years separate these two eras.

The Washington Post in an article titled The Forgotten History of European Refugee Camps in the Middle East , also recalls a forgotten historical fact.

In 1942, the MERRA (Middle East Relief and Refugee Administration) was created by the United Kingdom.

Thanks to this system, 40,000 Europeans have been able to reach refugee camps... in Syria, Egypt and Palestine!

Here are 15 photos that remind us that history often repeats itself, but with different protagonists. Sometimes the roles are reversed. Watch:

1. On May 1, 1945 in Tangermünde, Germany, residents fled Soviet troops by crossing a bridge over the Elbe destroyed by the German army. Then, the photo colorized by Sanna Dullaway

Credit:Fred Ramage/Keystone/Getty Images

Credit:Fred Ramage/Keystone/Getty Images/Colorized photo by Sanna Dullaway

2. September 26, 1945 in a refugee camp in Berlin

Source: Fred Ramage/Keystone/Getty Images/Colorized photo by Sanna Dullaway

3. In March 1945, in a refugee camp in Germany

Source: AP Photo / Colorized photo by Sanna Dullaway

4. These Polish refugees, huddled under their blankets, are the only survivors of a group of 150 people who left Lodz in Poland to reach Berlin, to find help and food. They hope to get on a British Army train

Source: Fred Ramage / Keystone/ Getty Images / Colorized photo by Sanna Dullaway

5. A homeless German woman. The city was destroyed following a bombardment of the allied forces

Source: John Florea, Courtesy of Steven Kasher Gallery / Colorized photo by Sanna Dullaway

6. On January 2, 1945, a group of refugees wait to leave the town of La Gleize in Belgium

Credit:AP Photo / Peter J. Carroll / Colorized photo by Sanna Dullaway

7. On August 10, 1944, American forces forced German troops to flee. These French refugees are trying to return to their home in Saint-Pois

Source: AP Photo / Colorized photo by Sanna Dullaway

8. In 1940, the German invasion is imminent in Paris. These men, women and children, all refugees, are fleeing the capital

Source: FPG / Hulton Archive / Getty Images / Colorized photo by Sanna Dullaway

9. In 1945, this woman reads a magazine in an emergency camp for refugees

Source: Fritz Eschen / ullstein bild via Getty Images / Colorized photo by Sanna Dullaway

10. East German refugees cling to a train at a station

Source: Berliner Verlag—Archiv/picture-alliance/dpa/AP / Colorized photo by Sanna Dullaway

11. In January 1945, these Belgian refugees walk along the railway line with their luggage

Credit:Allan Jackson/Keystone/Hulton Archive / Getty Images / Colorized photo by Sanna Dullaway

12. In 1940, a family of Belgian refugees tries to reach France on foot

Source: Three Lions / Getty Images / Colorized photo by Sanna Dullaway

13. On May 18, 1945, dozens of refugees are parked behind barbed wire waiting to reach Liechtenstein, a neutral state during the war

Source: Keystone-France / Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images / Colorized photo by Sanna Dullaway

14. On August 7, 1944 in Roncey, France, a man tows the stroller of a refugee, attached to her bicycle by a rope

Source: Fred Ramage / Keystone/ Getty Images / Colorized photo by Sanna Dullaway

15. On May 31, 1944, Portuguese people arrived in Philadelphia in the United States

Source: AP Photo / Colorized photo by Sanna Dullaway

My family of Italian origin also immigrated. Not to flee the war but to find work, in France, in the 1960s.

Many of us have in our history a strong bond with another people, another country.

These photos are moving. They show that hope exists despite war, even if that future is in another country.