On-line reading

My attention span and time to read are getting shorter and shorter during these summer days and nights.  Please excuse me as I recommend an interesting series of articles from Slate.com that was published last January.  Sarah Wildman has written Paper Love:  Inside the Holocaust Archives, a fascinating series on the huge post war archives established by 11 countries at Bad Arolsen in Germany.  They were closed to the public for many years and only since 2008 have their myriad contents been open to researchers.  If you are an historian this is a treasure trove beyond imagination of source documents.  It is, of course, treasure documenting one of the worst crimes against humanity, but Sarah Wildman shares an interesting tale of her excursion to examine them and solve a small family mystery.  Pictures too!

After you read them, you will be certain this should be made into a full length book. There are so many questions to be answered and so many stories to tell.  I love to read about old mysteries solved through archives and talking to elderly people who remember and reading old diaries.  This probably stems from being the daughter of a genealogist and tracking my mother all over towns looking through courthouse records and cemeteries.

In any case, this series is fascinating, and I will be the first in line to read her book, if she writes one.