Een kapotte klok 1945 - 1947

Anefo, the Dutch national press agency, created this photograph titled ‘Een kapotte klok’, or ‘A Broken Clock’, but the date is unknown. The image captures a moment frozen in time, yet shattered by circumstances we can only speculate about. The broken clock face, with its hands stilled, lies amidst debris and overgrown grass, with a simple building in the background marked with a cross, evoking a sense of abandonment. The clock, once a symbol of regulated time and communal life, is now just a relic of a past disrupted. What cataclysmic event led to this broken moment? What kind of lives did people lead here? The photograph invites us to reflect on the fragility of time and the often invisible forces that shape our collective memory. In remembering this image, we are not just looking at a broken clock, but perhaps glimpsing a moment where history disrupted lives and changed a community forever.