Inside, she discovered water-damaged photographs, corners curled and images blurred. Faint silhouettes of people—perhaps a mother, father, and small child—peered up at her from the ravaged paper. Next, she lifted a stack of journals wrapped in cloth. The topmost journal’s cover bore the faint inscription “1939.”
Pages of journal entries described a family’s fear of global war and the possibility of aerial attacks. One passage told of frantic nights listening to radio bulletins, uncertain if bombs might someday rain down. While the U.S. wasn’t heavily bombed, terror alone had driven them underground.