Webexpo

In the age of continent hopping, travelblogging and mass tourism it's hard to conceive that a simple trip to the Belgian coast once proved an epic undertaking out of reach for the majority of people in this country.

May-June 2020 marks the 80th anniversary of “the Miracle of Dunkirk”. Between 26 May and 4 June 1940 338,000 Allied soldiers (British, French, Canadian and Belgian) were evacuated from the beaches of Dunkirk to England.

With large parts of our collections inventoried, digitised, and safely stored away, it is easy to forget that not long ago all these pieces had a practical function: flags united the members of an organisation or were carried in parades and demonstrations, posters announced activities or had to convince the electorate to vote for the party, busts and paintings commemorated significant personalities and so on.

Canada's immigration policy may have been restrictive in the 19th century, in the decades before World War I the call for skilled labour forces, especially farmers, became increasingly louder.

Animals may not be the first thing you would expect to find in an image collection like ours. And yet, as a good illustration of the wide scope and diversity of our collections, there are plenty of captures of mankind’s four-legged friends available at Liberas.

Photography was one of the main tools of propaganda justifying the Belgian presence in its former colony. From the afterwar years through the Congolese independence in 1960 the official Belgian documentation services and press agencies like Congopresse produced an extraordinary amount of images.

Movie stars, opera singers, maestros and choreographers may not form the core business of Liberas/Liberaal Archief, yet browsing through our photo collections often results in unexpected findings and demonstrates the rich variety of the cultural heritage preserved under our roof.

The 67 kms of pristine sandy beaches of the Belgian coast have long been a popular holiday destination. This was already the case a century ago.

Travelling in Europe is travelling through time. These samples from private collections preserved by Liberas/Liberaal Archief beautifully illustrate how people have always been keen to explore the rich and diverse European cultural heritage.

Gaining access to the image collections of Liberas reveals ever more topics. This gallery focuses on various modes of transportation that turn up in our collections - on land, on sea and in the air – from the late 19th century through the 1950’s.

Jean Pecher (1894 - 1973) was born into a well-to-do family of Antwerp liberals. His great-grandfather Charles had been one of the founders of the Liberal Party in his hometown. Serving in a machine-gun unit in the Belgian army during World War I, Jean corresponded throughout the war with his parents (some 600 documents survive).