This will hurt me...

The always excellent The History Blog this morning alerted me to a really interest project that sets about memorialising the Holocaust through the use of collected mail that offers an incredible, if disturbingly banal hint into the everyday workings of the events in Central and Eastern Europe during World War Two. As I’m always keen to encourage online efforts to present history in new and engaging ways, I’m more than happy to endorse this one. For mine, there is often no better way to emphasise the magnitude of an event than through personal, sometimes mundane, sometimes heart-wrenching, correspondence. The Spungen Family Foundation, through the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center, have put a collection of such documents in viewable pdf form online . Again, it’s well worth a click and browse.

Now, I do appreciate the sentiment expressed in today's ad, and (as ever) context is vital. When you're in the middle of a war a certain liberty may be taken with expression, so the jarring notion of a blonde, curly-haired scamp - let's call him 'Chip' - talking about "Jap kids" (in a strange and foreign font, no less) can be overcome. Yet what really concerns me about this ad is the odd lens through which the Sparton company have chosen (in 1943) to define what it means to be a "free American boy". Free speech and action, yep, no problemo. "Free American boys" should experience those delights. "Warm comfortable homes". Well, homes are a good start, and I guess you wouldn't want it cold. Comfortable? That surely is in the eye of the beholder? But yeah, comfortable is good, I guess. "Automobiles and radios by the million"? Yeah, you're starting to lose me here Sparton. "Electrical machines to keep and c...