User:Suffokateeee/sandbox

Parisa Damandan collected photos of Polish refugees, mostly women and children located in Isfahan, Iran. Damandan featured these photographs in her book, "The Children of Esfahan". In Poland, Germans and Russians turned their home into a battleground during World War II. Approximately one million Pols were moved to Russia, from there 116,000 were sent to Iran as refugees. Only 2.5% from that group survived labor camps and were transferred to Isfahan. The point of Parisa Damandan publishing these photos in her book, "The Children of Esfahan" was to show Isfahan was a safe haven for many of these people. Damandan found over 11,000 negatives in a shed beside Sharq Photography Studio. The photographs were all labeled "Lahestani-ha, 1321-23 (“Pols, 1942-44”)". The photographer was named Abolqassem Jala, Damandan met his sons, Reza and Ali Jala. The sons explained their father took studio photographs of many Polish refuges in Isfahan during World War II.