French soldier’s room unchanged 96 years after his death in the first world war | Hacker News Reader

French soldier’s room unchanged 96 years after his death in the first world war

theguardian.com

176 pointsbenbreen32 comments

The French Ministry of Defence has a public database of soldiers who died on duty during the 1st World War. I just found the entry for this officer: http://www.memoiredeshommes.sga.defense.gouv.fr/en/ark:/4069... The most interesting part is the Images link (with an eye): it will show you a scan of the official death certificate from 1918. There are 1.3 millions soldiers in this database. 3 of them from my family.

Also, http://www.greatwar.co.uk has links to many foreign sites with information on those who died in e.g. Italian or Belgian service. http://www.greatwar.co.uk/research/military-records/ww1-war-....

It surprised me to see that many of the british data sources are of the "visit the official archive or buy digital access" kind. Also, judging from a few samples at http://www.naval-military-press.com/cd-rom/, most of it is Windows only, and not priced for impulse buyers (for example 220 pounds for a database of all British who died)

Also check this 70 years untouched Paris apartment: http://www.messynessychic.com/2012/05/09/the-paris-time-caps...

It'd be nice if there were more than just small thumbnails of the room.

I thought the thumbnails were intented for mobile users, but apparently not. Having no nice pictures kind of misses the point.

My thoughts exactly. I went there to see pictures, not read the article. The pictures are tiny...

Well I read the article, but at the same time if the article's whole point is about how unchanged this room is and how we should see it I expect a gallery of images showing off the room.

that all I could find: http://www.lanouvellerepublique.fr/Indre/Actualite/24-Heures...

This has great historical value. Someone should come there with high resolution cameras and make a 360° street-view like panorama. I would love to see this room and learn how people lived then.

I doubt it's typical or even genuinely untouched. Maybe he was a tidy-freak, or maybe he tidied it specially before going to the war. But it's surely not a typical person's room. That takes away some of the historical interestingness.

The whole thing exudes the great sadness of the loss of a child. War sucks, but we keep doing it.

they keep doing it.

Who is "they"? If your home was being invaded, as France was, you'd do it too.

Nope, we.

The room appears to be filled with a lot of interesting personal effects, but it's hardly "unchanged." Looks more like a museum exhibit than a room someone would actually live in.

Just how cosy and natural this room looks like.

I really doubt there can't be a museum who would transfer the room in a permanent installation.

Yeah, but along the way you'd lose an ephemeral something. You'd stop having a single place in space frozen in time, and start having a collection of artifacts in a museum. Artifacts from the first World War are not so scarce as a room unchanged for a century.

You can certainly keep the room intact.

In Oslo there's a museum called Norsk Folkemuseum [1] (Norwegian Museum of Cultural History) that includes 160 buildings that were dismantled and moved - some of them from other parts of the country.

Ranging from a stave church built ca. 1212 [2] that was moved to the present location in the 1880's, to a collection of five buildings built in the 1800's in an old part of Oslo that were moved to the museum when that part of Oslo was re-developed in the 1960's.

[1] http://www.norskfolkemuseum.no/en/

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gol_Stave_Church

Of course but the chance of that room to be changed, destroyed, dismantled etc is quite hight as it relies on owner's good will and luck.

Also, you could visit it !

Like the famous untouched apartment in Paris. Never really understood what it became except they sold painting they found in it.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/8042...

I visited the Getty Museum this summer and found the displayed rooms of European apartments quite great and interesting, as I was fascinated by the Napoleon III ones at the Louvre.

Wow, the cigarette pack still smells of tobacco after 100 years?

Even more so, I'd say. Tobacco smelled something years ago. Nowadays, it's just awful pestilence.

Oh, I would have just expected all the volatile vapours to have already gone.

Who forgets the hat to their uniform when they go off to war?

His effects were probably returned to his parents. They probably didn't bury him with is hat on.

That's not the sort of hat you'd wear when fighting in a trench, either.

Wow. The inspiration for Ray Finkle's parents?

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