“The Atlantic” WWII Retrospective, and a Young Airwoman’s Recollections of Barbarossa, 70y Ago

This summer, The Atlantic began running a weekly retrospective of World War Two—a series of photographs from different eras and theatres of that great war. The photographs are riveting, calamitous, heartrending. Seventy years ago this summer, the German army invaded the Soviet Union, breaking a non-aggression pact between Stalin and Hitler and raining unimaginable destruction upon Ukraine, Belarus,…

Impermanence Is Here to Stay

    A garden teaches many things: how to dig in and get dirt under your fingernails; the art of patience; and the constancy of impermanence. My friend and hero Anna Timofeyeva-Yegorova, the wonderful Soviet combat airwoman whose memoir I edited, taught me those lessons as well. For more than half a year I lived…