To mark World Refugee Day, celebrated yearly on 20 June, we’re telling you what was uncovered by these formidable archivists from the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, the UN Office in Geneva and the UN Archives and Data Administration Part (ARMS), which has been preserving the Group’s reminiscences because the very starting in 1945:
UN Photograph
Portrait of Margaret Bruce, a social affairs officer with the human rights division of the UN Division of Financial and Social Affairs. (file)
“When the world commemorated the seventieth anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Conference, ARMS was introduced with a thriller.
The Workplace of the UN Excessive Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) seen {that a} {photograph} caption from the 1951 Conference recognized three males who had been current, however failed to call the one lady seated on the desk.
In a quest to seek out a solution, archives groups from UNHCR, the UN Workplace in Geneva and ARMS joined forces to determine this lady.
The primary clue got here from Knud Larsen, President of the Convention, seated in the course of the {photograph}. In his conference speech, he thanked a “Miss Kitchen”, Deputy Govt Secretary – positioned on his proper – for protecting the convention on observe. Extra analysis disclosed that her first identify was Margaret.
We then found that shortly after the 1951 Conference, she married and altered her identify to Margaret Bruce.
This discovery opened her life story to us.
UN Photograph
Margaret Okay. Bruce (left), Chief of the Standing of Ladies Part on the UN Division of Human Rights, conversing with Helvi L. Sipila of Finland, Chair of the Fee on the Standing of Ladies session in 1967. (file)
Margaret (Kitchen) Bruce was born in the UK, becoming a member of the Secretariat on the first UN Common Meeting in London in 1946.
Transferring with the Group to New York, she later married a fellow staffer, William James Bruce.
Initially becoming a member of the Human Rights Division, Margaret labored straight with Eleanor Roosevelt in the course of the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
She served in lots of key roles all through her 32-year tenure, together with the Deputy Director of the Centre for Social Improvement and Humanitarian Affairs.
She retired from the UN in 1977.
UN Photograph/Marcel Bolomey
In the course of the first UN Common Meeting session in 1946 in London, former US First Woman Eleanor Roosevelt referred to as a gathering of girls delegates. (file)
By means of ARMS’s cautious evaluation of the documentary proof, her identification was rediscovered, and thus her contributions had been lastly revealed to the world!
Following the invention, the caption of the photograph was amended and now consists of Margaret’s identify.”
That’s proper. The caption in UN Photograph’s archive now reads, in full:
“On July 28 [1951], on the Palais des Nations, Geneva, twelve nations signed the Conference Referring to the Standing of Refugees, drafted by the World Convention on Refugees and Stateless Individuals which met right here from 2 to 25 July. Israel signed later. Nations signing had been Austria, Belgium, Colombia, Denmark, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Liechtenstein, United Kingdom and [then] Yugoslavia.”
Seated on the desk from left to proper: “Margaret Kitchen, Deputy Govt Secretary; John Humphrey, Director of the Human Rights Division; Knud Larsen (Denmark) President of the Convention; Dr. G. J. Van Heuven Goedhart, Excessive Commissioner for Refugees.”
UN Photograph
In 1963, Chief of Part for the Standing of Ladies on the UN Secretariat Margaret Okay. Bruce (left) speaks with the Chair of the seventeenth session of the Fee on the Standing of Ladies (CSW), Maria Lavalle Urbina of Mexico. (file)
UN Information showcases epic moments and excellent people who’re a part of UN historical past, cultivated from the UN Audiovisual Library’s 49,400 hours of video and 18,000 hours of audio recordings alongside UN Photo and archives rigorously cultivated throughout the UN system because the Group’s inception in 1945.
Make amends for UN Video’s Tales from the UN Archive playlist here and our accompanying sequence here.
Be a part of us subsequent week for an additional dive into historical past.
