
Ghost of WWII: 1940's meticulously overlaid on modern day - fnazeeri
http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/the-ghosts-of-world-war-iis
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jacquesm
The Euro-centric view is that Europe is the battlefield of the world, and that
Poland is the battlefield of Europe, and during World War II that was more
true than ever before or since.

The cities of Rotterdam ('the city without a heart') and Dresden still tell a
pretty grim tale today if your eyes are open to it, and Warsaw and Poznan have
plenty of places where the repair still hasn't caught up with the damage.
There isn't a month that somebody doesn't dig up a piece of ordnance (in some
cases very large bombs) when working on their houses or doing public works.

Be grateful for the world you live in and strive to minimise war, it wasn't
always this peaceful and the chance is that it will not always be.

Europe is still quite anti-war (in spite of the apparent ease with which some
countries, including mine joined the Iraq adventure) there are lots of older
people here that still remember what it was like. But we tend to forget and
when the last of them dies and stops reminding us how bad war really is the
risk is very large that past stupidities will be repeated.

~~~
ugh
What Europe can be quite proud of is how not only war was avoided during the
last decades but also that war was made less likely over the decades.
Suggesting that there could be war between Germany and France would be crazy
today but certainly wasn’t always.

That’s not just some flimsy anti-war sentiment which can change as new
generations take over, that actually has something to do with lasting change
initiated by the war and post-war generation after the war. The EU is the most
visible symbol of that change and for all the flack it gets, European
integration made war less likely.

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jacquesm
Agreed, it's less likely. But idiots like Wilders are pushing the exact same
buttons that a certain Austrian guy did and there is a real risk of him or
someone like him rising to power.

There are more and louder voices for the break-up of the EU in the last 3
years than I've ever heard in my lifetime.

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helveticaman
Well, yeah, money's on the line.

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ugh
Money’s on the line and that’s just the reason why the EU won’t suddenly
disappear.

One of the nice things about a common market (even if it is only partially
reality) is that it leads to economic interdependence. Companies can invest
wherever they want, companies can sell stuff to wherever they want, people can
work wherever they want. There is money to be made and the economic shock
waves of making that impossible by leaving the EU would probably be way too
much for any EU economy to take.

Maybe the Euro was a bad idea and won’t survive. (My prediction would be that
it will.) That won’t, however, be the end of European integration.

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euccastro
Except the casino part of the economy has vastly outsized the productive part.
More money changes hands in a day in currency speculation markets alone than
does in the productive economy in a year. Thus, what favors the short term
gains of a few wealthy gamblers can take precedence over what benefits the
people at large.

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pvg
<http://sergey-larenkov.livejournal.com/>

Original source, also lists the locations.

There are also places in a number of these cities where limited amounts of the
ww2 damage are left un-repaired, as a memorial and a live version of these
composites.

~~~
konve
Thank you.

This one just... froze me.
<http://pics.livejournal.com/sergey_larenkov/pic/000029eg/>

~~~
naa42
The photographer has started with the photographs of Saint-
Petersburg/Leningrad, where he lives. The siege of Leningrad [1] was one of
the most atrocious events of the WWII in Europe.

[1]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leningrad_Blockade>

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brc
As remote as these images might feel, it's important to remember that some of
our parents and grandparents went through this time. We always feel that the
world is a peaceful place, but things got this bad in a very short space of
time. Certainly in a shorter space of time than the war in Iraq has been going
on. Things can fall apart very quickly, and the ones who fight for peace the
most are those who can remember once proud buildings with artillery damage,
and soldiers on the streets with weapons ready.

Peace is a fractious and rare state in human history, it's easy to forget that
in a modern life. That's where the power of these images lie.

~~~
grigory
While I agree with you, I wanted to provide a different perspective on how
"remote" these images might seem. (I might be misunderstanding meaning you're
putting behind that word. If so, please forgive me!)

I'm Russian, and I grew up in different parts of USSR and later ex-USSR. All
of my older relatives were, in some sense, involved in WW2. A big part of my
family died during that time - some killed in fighting, some from hunger, some
from random bullets, some because of repressions of that time... That war
greatly affected every family I know, usually in most tragic ways. So to many
people over there, such photographs are not "remote" at all - they are an
integral part of their own history.

At the same time, it is saddening to see a new generation grow up oblivious to
what their grandparents went through... People forget so easily!

~~~
brc
clarification : remote as in 'a long time ago'. As you say, the new generation
sees black and white images and thinks it happened a long time ago.

I was specifically speaking about families like yours, who have lived through
this, my point being it might feel remote to a young person raised on a life
of peace and prosperity, but for many people it is very real.

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panic
It would be really neat if this were interactive — that is, if you could paint
on the modern image to reveal the 1940s image underneath.

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JacobAldridge
I don't know any of these locations, so I'm sure these are even more amazing
for people familiar only with their current state of being. I particularly
appreciated image 15 with the soldiers carrying the Soviet flag underneath the
modern German flags.

~~~
torpor
The pictures of the Heldenplatz (here in Vienna) are particularly sobering,
considering that its a very bright and vibrant place these days .. oh, except
for the one week a year when the Austrian military put on their big displays
there, of course .. that is a bit freaky.

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ahlatimer
Here is another set with a similar idea:
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/edrabbit/galleries/721576231031...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/edrabbit/galleries/72157623103181304/page2/)

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jonursenbach
Kind of depressing that most of the US will never have something as cool as
this due to this countries lack of appreciation for dated architecture.

~~~
JacobAldridge
That, and the fact that the last war to be fought on US soil pre-dates the
invention of film.

(US Civil War ended in 1865; film was invented by George Eastman in 1884)

Lamenting the lack of architectural appreciation remains worthwhile.

~~~
palish
_Lamenting the lack of architectural appreciation remains worthwhile._

Why? Humans conform nature to our needs. If we need a better building, why
shouldn't we tear down an old one? All of the previous building's history will
remain documented in, say, Wikipedia.

This is probably just the worldview of an inexperienced kid though.

(This is an honest question, not a statement of opinion.)

~~~
brc
Everything in the world has a U-shaped value curve. Most valuable when it is
new, at some point it loses value, may even become worthless. Down the track,
it will become priceless and irreplaceable. Note 'value' here isn't strictly
monetary, it can be cultural as well.

Dropping buildings in the midst of the U never gives things the chance to
recover and move past fashion. Most buildings discarded are due to the design
being old and out of date. But old buildings in a city plant the cities
history in time and allow it to tell a story. Remember that 'Gothic'
cathedrals were so named because the term was in regular use as a description
of something vulgar. The Notre Dame in Paris was at one stage due for
demolition until the story of Quasimodo re-inspired the public to keep it -
the restoration is still ongoing.

Buildings can be re-purposed and still keep their charm. The mistake is in
discarding things just because they are old.

It's very true that not all old things are worth keeping, but the benefit of
the doubt must go to the building until the current fashion has moved into the
past.

Also, in the case of Berlin, a lot of damaged structures have been reinforced
and kept standing as they were at the end of the war. It reminds the city of
what can happen if continual efforts towards peace are not made. These scars
on the landscape are a constant reminder of the cities turbulent past, and
help develop a sense of the story of the city while walking around.

Buildings are the ultimate encapsulator of society - it's where we live, die,
make decisions and create history. As such they have a special importance in
being kept to tell that story to newcomers.

~~~
nostrademons
Much of the Northeast has this flavor. I dunno if you've ever been to the
Boston area, but many of the buildings have this same sense of history to
them. In the leather district, you've got former tanning factories which
became porn studios which became software offices and yuppie lofts. In
Maynard, you have old textile mills from the industrial revolution, which
became DEC in the 50s and 60s, which became Monster.com in the dot-com boom of
the 90s, which are now used for web2.0 startups and consultancies. In Lowell,
you still see the old textile mills and canals alongside the remnants of the
Wang Labs towers and newer businesses.

From what I know of NYC, it's much the same, with bohemian lofts where old
tenements once stood.

That's one of the things I miss most about New England, having moved out to
California. Here, everything is cookie-cutter suburbia, built in a hurry
during the 70s and 80s. There's none of the charm or history of the Boston
area. I can walk around downtown Lowell and say "This is a charming city, even
if it's a little economically depressed." I can't really say the same about
San Jose, even though it's cleaner, safer, and much more well-off.

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jacquesm
'Old' in Europe is more like this:

<http://pics.ww.com/v/jacques/buildings/dscf1025.jpg.html>

or this:

<http://pics.ww.com/v/jacques/buildings/dscf1021.jpg.html>

The oldest parts of this building date from the 12th century:

[http://www.engelmunduskerkvelsenzuid.nl/images/foto_kerk_2.j...](http://www.engelmunduskerkvelsenzuid.nl/images/foto_kerk_2.jpg)

I've actually had an office in the 'carpet factory' in Toronto, which was an
industrial revolution age textile mill, amazing building, white pine roof
beams that were easily 1 1/2' on a side in the section that we were in.

Fortunately some of those buildings remain, but an enormous number of them got
torn down.

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arethuza
I'd have said "old" in Europe is more like this:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skara_Brae>

Skara Brae had been abandoned for 1200 years when Troy fell!

For a building that can actually be used, how about this:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Hercules> (1900 years old) or the
Pantheon <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheon,_Rome> (~1900 years).

Although my favourite is Hagia Sophia:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagia_Sophia> \- a youngster at almost 1500
years old.

~~~
jacquesm
Wow! That's more like 'ancient' ;)

The other buildings are in daily use though, which is why I used them instead
of old Roman buildings and such.

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naa42
Another interesting idea is to compare modern satelite view on google maps
with aero photographs from WWII. Here is Leningrad/Saint-Petersburg, which is
depicted on many Sergey Larenkov's photographs:
[http://wwii.sasgis.ru/en/?lat=59.945749&lon=30.331364...](http://wwii.sasgis.ru/en/?lat=59.945749&lon=30.331364&z=12)

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ericboggs
These photos are beautiful. Thank you for sharing.

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torpor
This set of data is just screaming to be turned into an iPhone app .. imagine,
you're somewhere in Europe. The GPS figures out where, and gives you a picture
(modern-day) to wipe your fingers over .. revealing the WW2-era pic
underneath.

For some European cities, this would be killer .. I know a lot of people who
are interested in the history of Europe from the perspective of WW2, and this
could be quite an intriguing application to develop ..

~~~
Hume62
Don't think I have read about any well-funded startups in this area yet, but
boy there's a business opportunity here. Aside from the major historical
locations, most every state/city in the US has a "historical society" of some
sort that has thousands/millions of old pictures laying around. My own
(Minneapolis) had a project many years back where they went around and took a
pic of every single house in the city limits. I'd like to be able to go to a
cool neighborhood and point my phone to a street corner and see what was
there, sort of my own interactive history lesson. Rather than each of these
government agencies or museums figuring out how to do an aug reality app on
their own dime, someone needs to build the template/service and offer it up.

~~~
torpor
This is really a great idea. I'd love to be involved in such a startup ..
iPhone/Android/PlaszmaOS/Angstrom developer here, ready to be recruited!! :)

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Ayjay
looks good!

mozz on fedang

