Refugees On Stamps

There are a number of organizations which award a Wallenberg memorial medal: http://www.raoulwallenberg.net/news...berg-medals/

The surcharge on the French charity stamps (1936 and 1937) went to refugees (between the World Wars) being helped by the Nansen Fonds. Notice that Lady Liberty's tablet has a special inscription.

Fridtjof Nansen, High Commissioner for Refugees of the League of Nations (1921-1930). The Norwegian scientist, Arctic explorer and politician F. Nansen (1861-1930) started his humanitarian work at the end of World War I. His work for the League of Nations as High Commisioner for prisoners of war and refugees between the WWs gave the organization its name: The Nansen Fonds (1919-1947). Nansen was especially instrumental in helping Armenian refugees; he received the Nobel Peace prize in 1922. (Photo: Armenian refugee camp in Iraq, 1916-17?; and fundraising sticker)

A souvenir sheet from Angola for 50 years of United Nations food help to refugee camps. The 27-year civil war in Angola ended in 2002 and left an estimated 500,000 refugees in countries including Zambia, Namibia, Botswana and South Africa, as well as the Democratic Republic of Congo. The UN has been helping them return home.

Somalia issued a set of trees for the UN International Year of Refugees, the emblem tree has a white stork above it, the other tree is a palm. (The Somali Civil War had not yet begun.)

Two more stamps for the UN International Year of Refugees by Somalia. That same year Somalia gained greater independence from British and Italian control.

During the Greek Civil War, which followed upon World War II, tens of thousands of children were evacuated from northern Greece. Many of the refugee children were placed in evacuation camps across Europe, ending up in places from Yugoslavia to Poland, Bulgaria and the Soviet Union. Whether the children were abducted or evacuated from danger, is still being discussed today. The stamps were issued by the National Government seated in the south, and they saw it as abduction: the claw-like hand, the column of walking children, children seeing a memory of Greece only through barbed wire. Photo from that time.

Another set of three charity refugee stamps was issued by Somalia in 1964. The text is in English and Italian as well as Somali. The Ogaden war (early 1960s) led to thousands of ethnic Somalis having to flee areas which were now considered Ethiopian. European colonial powers had drawn national borders with rulers, ignoring ethnicities. Refugee camp from the second Ogaden conflict in the 70s.

Stamps issued for the Conference of Casablanca were overprinted for Algerian refugees. Upon independence, in 1962, 900,000 European-Algerians fled to France within a few months. They were totally unprepared for the vast number of refugees, causing turmoil in France. Almost all Jews of Algeria left, particularly as the Algerian Nationality Code of 1963 excluded non-Muslims from acquiring citizenship. Algeria's 140,000 Jews, who had French citizenship since 1870 left mostly for France, some went to Israel. Photo: Jewish camp of those times.

Here are images of the two stamps in a "World Refugee Year" set, engraved and printed by Thomas De La Rue & Co., Ltd., and issued by Malaya on April 7, 1960, Scott Nos. 94 & 95.

- nethryk

And here is a group of World Refugee Year souvenir sheets from several Latin America countries.
Nicaragua - January 2, 1961
Dominican Republic - April 7, 1960
Haiti - June 22, 1962
Peru - April 7, 1960
Argentina - April 7, 1960

Each year the Society for the German Language selects a word which might be called symbolic or dominating for the year; this year it was the word "Flüchtlinge" (Refugees). The Yugoslavian stamp (1976) shows a painting of refugees fleeing Bosnia-Herzegovina in the 19th century by the artist Uros Predic (1857-1953). In the 1990s Bosnia-Herzegovina was heavily involved in the war following the breakup of Yugoslavia; countless thousands became refugees. Today it lies along the route of 100s of thousands of refugees seeking safety in Europe. http://www.nytimes.com/1992/07/24/w...ce-40-s.html

Bosnia-Herzegovina issued a 50 years of UNHCR stamp (drawing by M. Gerstenhofer) showing a long line of refugees leaving their destroyed homes (hundreds of thousands reached Germany by the mid 1990s). The number of refugees passing through the so-called western Balkan route this year exceeds one million. (Photo taken in Slovenia this fall.)

The stamp issued by Cuba for 50 years of UNHCR shows refugees from many parts of the world, which is an unusual representation, but sadly accurate. (Does anyone know who did the artwork?)

It's almost as if the drawing in the Kyrgyzstan stamp for 50 years of UNHCR were taken from this morning's newscast about Syria. (Does anyone know what kind of plane is in the picture?)