This pocket was made by the firm Thomas Russel & Son, Liverpool. The object was given as a gift to a member of the “The Basket Gallery”. It was bought from an antique shop in Gaziantep, Turkey, before the 2023 earthquake. According to the owner of the antique shop, the watch belonged to a Jewish refugee who fled from France and survived the Holocaust. We do not know if he sold his watch while transiting Turkey on his way to Palestine.
Selling their household goods and belongings
Fleeing home or running for your life is a negative experience in itself. But for the millions of forcefully displaced, this is only the beginning of a series of challenges on most fronts.
The result is often what humanitarians call “negative” or “harmful coping strategies” – a set of responses to difficulties that may provide a temporary means of survival, but can seriously undermine the person’s long-term security.
Selling personal belongings, borrowing money, buying food on credit, reducing health expenses, not sending one’s children to school and asking children to work are some of these harmful copying mechanisms.