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Tag / war

Documenting a Stasi Prison

On East German maps of the time, the prison simply didn’t exist, marked only with a blank space. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, unlike many other government and military institutions in East Germany, the former prison was not stormed by demonstrations, allowing the authorities to destroy evidence of what went on there. Twenty…

The Canary Girls and the WWI Poisons That Turned Them Yellow

At lunchtime, the women had to be separated in the cafeteria because everything they touched turned yellow. They were called the “Canary Girls” because of their bright yellow skin and green or ginger-coloured hair. With the nation’s men at war and male labour in short supply, Britain’s women had been recruited to ramp up production ammunition and were…
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How to Mess with the Nazis: The CIA’s Sabotage Manual for Ordinary Citizens

Trolling the Nazis. Sounds like fun right? During World War II, the OSS, (now the CIA) put out a “Sabotage Field Manual”, which described innovative ways in which ordinary citizens could sabotage America’s enemies by doing a range of disruptive things from starting arguments to starting fires. The OSS Director William J. Donovan recommended that the…

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The Living American Ghost Towns of Panama

If I’m honest, before coming to Panama, I really didn’t know much about its murky 20th century history with the Americans. In fact, I remember rather swiftly passing over the subject in history class (I went to an American high school in London). I wasn’t aware it was so recent and raw and that I’d still find…

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The Soviet Propaganda Fabrics We Probably Shouldn’t be Lusting After

On one hand, they’re undeniably beautiful and intricate patterns that could make a very attractive scarf collection were a fashion designer willing to give them a style comeback. On the other hand, if anyone were to take a second look at your scarf, they would find the image of a communist regime… These are the communist…

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Honeymooning on the Battlefields of WWII

In 1947, ex American GI Ernest Kreiling, toured the battlefields of Europe with his bride by bike. Photographer Anthony Linck followed the couple around France and Germany as they retraced his steps as a soldier. The unlikely road trip shows the raw war wounds of ravaged towns and Ernest is forced to revisit some difficult…

Walk through the Paris Flea Market in 1941

In 1941, Paris was under the heel of the Hitler’s army during the occupation of World War II. The photographer behind the lens is André Zucca, a French photojournalist and Nazi collaborator. It was the year he’d been contracted by the Germans to work as a correspondent for Signal, a propaganda magazine of the German Wehrmacht. His assignment: to support a…

How Navajo Code Talkers of World War II Saved the Day

When it came to winning WWII, there was one particularly powerful tool used by the USA. Their secret weapon? The rich, complex language of the Navajo people, which became an invaluable code used by soldiers to puzzle even the cleverest of enemy minds… The first 29 Code Talkers were sworn in at Fort Wingate, New…

That Christmas When Parisians Ate the Zoo

As a Parisian, I’ve learned a lot about the second time the German army occupied the French capital during the Nazi invasion of WWII. But what about the first time the Germans took hold of the city of Paris? One forgets they managed it twice. The winter of 1870-1871 was a traumatic time for Parisians, an ordeal that…

The Forgotten Doughnut Heroines of Wartime

The doughnut– America’s favourite indulgence– has an unexpected heroic history. Despite having been invented in the 1800s, the doughnut wasn’t popularised until WWI, when the ring-shaped pastries brought comfort to thousands of soldiers serving in the trenches during the brutal years far from home. The Salvation Army, a well-known Christian charitable foundation, became the first prominent organisation to…
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