slum dwellings in leeuwarden

This is what the slums in Leeuwarden looked like around 1930. Small, dilapidated houses, lived in by labourers and other working class people and their families. The government promised to improve this deplorable situation, but due to the economic crisis and the Second World War it was not until the 1950s that the situation was effectively dealt with.

^{Slum dwellings in Leeuwarden, Charles Gombault, 1930}

All those years, the often large and always poor families had to live in these dwellings which often had only one room. Photographer Charles Gombault, who worked for the daily newspaper Leeuwarder Nieuwsblad, immortalized the distressing situation with his camera.