Private photographs offer special insight into the lives of Jewish people in the 1930s and 1940s. Of immeasurable importance for family memory, they have so far received little public attention.

Käte Frank’s photographs present a unique collection. They begin in Berlin during the Weimar Republic and reflect the optimistic spirit of those years. As a young woman, Käte Frank became part of the city’s cosmopolitan life. In the early 1930s, she set off for Spain with a friend, finding new freedom in a left-wing bohemian community. In 1933, the Nazi seizure of power prevented her return to Germany; in 1936, the Spanish Civil War became a threat to her immediate environment. That same year, she gave birth to her daughter Miriam. What had begun as an experience of liberation turned into a life on the run: Käte and Miriam Frank escaped to France in 1938, to Mexico in 1941 and finally to Neu Zealand in 1948.

All along, Käte Frank kept her photos with her, documenting her remarkable life in ten albums. In a time of profound crisis, her evocative images show how private photography becomes a means of registering an increasingly fragile sense of freedom.