Chicago area has more than its share of immigrants from Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union those lives have, one way or another, been touched by World War II. Soviet military veterans, guerilla fighters and survivors of many stripes - Siege of Leningrad survivors, survivors of Nazi prison and/or labor camps and, of course, Holocaust ( Read more... )

A version of this was posted on Facebook on March 7I was at my mom's place on Monday and Tuesday (for reasons those who read her LJ already know about, but which aren't really germane here). We both had stuff to do, but during one of the quieter moments, my mom showed me a few photo albums she retrieved from Grandma Nina's archive. There were ( Read more... )

Yesterday marked the 72nd anniversary of the lifting of the Siege of Leningrad. The Siege was partially lifted a year before, but it wasn't until January 27, 1944 that the Nazis fully, completely pushed out ( Read more... )

tweelore linked me to a very interesting set of photos. For those who can't read Russian, it takes a bunch of photos that were taken during the Siege of Leningrad and partially superimposes them with modern views of the same locations. I've actually been to most of those locations. Growing up listening to my grandparents' stories about the Siege, it was ( Read more... )