For over 70 years, the letters lay undisturbed in the wreckage of the S.S. Gairsoppa, sheltered from the ravages of ocean currents by well-positioned mail bags. Now, conservators are piecing together these undelivered messages from the past.
Tag: Archives and Records
How a Historian Got Close, Maybe Too Close, to a Nazi Thief
Over nearly a decade, Jonathan Petropoulos met dozens of times with a man who helped the Nazis loot Jewish art collections, a complicated relationship he explores in “Göring’s Man in Paris.”
The ‘Detective Work’ Behind a War Novel
Maaza Mengiste spent years on “The Shadow King,” not only writing but also learning Italian, living in Rome and amassing an archive of historical photography that informed her book.
How Crowdsourcing Aided a Push to Preserve the Histories of Nazi Victims
With people around the globe sheltering at home amid the pandemic, an archive of records documenting Nazi atrocities asked for help indexing them. Thousands joined the effort.
Excerpts from the Sanders Files in a Russian Archive
Here are five excerpts from an 89-page Soviet-era file that tracked the efforts made by Bernie Sanders in the 1980s to find a sister city in Russia for Burlington, Vt.
Exposed as Stasi Spy, a Newspaper Owner Tries to Reclaim His Story
An entrepreneur took over a venerable Berlin daily, saying he wanted a new conversation about East Germany. Then his own past became the news.
Fourth Spy Unearthed in U.S. Atomic Bomb Project
His Soviet code name was Godsend, and he came to Los Alamos from a family of secret agents.
Georgette Elgey, 90, Dies; Wrote Epic History of Postwar France
A former journalist, she spent nearly 50 years producing an acclaimed six-volume work on the Fourth Republic. Her own life held plenty of drama of its own.
A Yearslong Battle Over Kafka’s Legacy Ends in Jerusalem
The arrival in Israel of a final batch of the writer’s documents serves as a coda to a legal saga that many compared to a Kafka novel.
Ancestry Digitizes Millions of Holocaust Records
Some say it’s a play for customers; others say that’s irrelevant because anyone can search the documents at no cost.