Image archive of the Swiss Workers’ Fund (SAH) — Oeuvre suisse d’entraide ouvrière (OSEO)

During the last years of World War II, the Swiss Workers’ Fund (SAH) began extensive care and support activities in the surrounding countries. What began in 1944 with a few food packages sent to France quickly grew into a major action: The campaign under the name “Colis Suisse” delivered up to 60,000 parcels per month to Italy, Germany, Austria and France at the end of the 1940s.

Thanks to the solidarity of the workers’ movement, the people of the war-damaged neighbouring countries could also be supplied with furniture and clothes.

In Switzerland, the SAH ran several holiday homes, thanks to which families were able to make holidays even financially worse.

The image archive of the SAH contains more than 1,900 photos. The focus is on the 1940s and 1950s. Particularly well documented are the aid operations of the last years of war and immediate post-war years in neighbouring countries. Hermann Freytag and Ernst Koehli, two Zurich photographers from the context of the workers’ movement, have followed the SAH’s activities for years and recorded them in a sober manner. The activities of later years are only sparsely documented in photographs.