My grandfather sat in a work Nazi camp during World War II, and during that time he kept a diary. His widow kept all the correspondence, censored letters and then of course the diary.
My uncle has tried to transcribe it, but never completed it. I'm not quite sure if it was illegibility or lack of time, but it never came to be a closure to the endeavor. A year back I asked my grandmother to have a go, and as of now I have it in my possession. I have tried to transcribe it, and I've come a fair bit into it. Severe damage to the book (originally a calendar) caused by humidity and time makes it a time-consuming undertaking, and the problem is time. It's fascinating reading and in particular a strong feeling of time travel back to my grandfather's experiences and hardships during this time. I feel that I know so little.
I have an ambition to complete the transcription and hopefully publish it for family, perhaps even online and make it digitally accessible for interested. It would be quite a place for future generations to have a digital searchable database with diaries, letters, documents and photographs from World War II.
A connection between now and history in order for us to fight ignorance. I hope to do my bit.
mandag, februar 11, 2008
war stories
Abonner på:
Legg inn kommentarer (Atom)
2 kommentarer:
this is a fascinating story, morten - i hope you'll have time to transcribe it finished some day... it will be important for your descendants, i believe. and the time and aging of the book quality wont stop :(
that's very true. i hope i'll be able to finish it, it's a fascinating time document and a connection to the past. there's so many things i'd like to do, it's all a matter of priorities i guess...
Legg inn en kommentar