"I felt compelled to venture forth and explore the true face of the world. Leading a satisfying life of plenty had blinded many of us to the immense hardships beyond our borders."

"I was driven to get the real face of the world. Our life of plenty blinded many to the immense hardship beyond our borders. We did our bit for charity, and felt this relieved us of any further involvement in the matter. After my first journey – Holland, France, Luxembourg – the magazine Du published my impressions. The outcry – the cover-page with the shattered, wounded face of a child shocked the people, who wanted to be left in peace. At home I wistfully studied my delicate prewar pictures, which had won me so much praise from those around me – but in my mind I saw the hundred thousand suffering people, whose senses had been dulled by their daily fears and who needed our help. In Greece we built a village for orphaned children with the support of the Swiss Relief Fund. In 1947 I went to Budapest, a massive flooding of the Theiss River rendered ten thousand people homeless. All the foreign relief organizations pooled their resources and worked together, this is where my most powerful pictures were shot. In late 1948 my first longer journey ended, but I couldn’t do much in Switzerland with the materials I had gathered. The successful economy made it awkward to convey to the public that elsewhere things were not going nearly as well."
-Werner Bischof

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