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It’s virtually impossible to feel how fast time flies until it passes right behind us, leaving the sense it was only yesterday we had our first day at school or said ‘I Do’. Present moments sneakily turn into memories, and it’s a never-ending cycle.

But thanks to the invention of photography and people who stood behind the lens, not everything gets lost in history. People, places, events that happened years, decades and hundreds of years ago are all made immortal by the camera.

One such mesmerizing gallery is curated by the Lost In History Twitter account dedicated to sharing photos that they say “throw light on our past.” Below, we selected some of the most incredible and interesting photos shared there, so pull your seat closer!

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Icy_Question_4977
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I read a lot of mystery books about the Orient Express, and it is described as very luxurious and beautiful. I can see now why

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Some time ago, Bored Panda spoke with Lisa Yaszek, a Regents Professor of Science Fiction Studies at Georgia Tech where she researches and teaches science fiction as a global language crossing centuries, continents, and cultures. We found out about the cultural and societal significance of old photos, as well as the meanings behind them. It turned out that old photographs can tell us more about life in the past than you will ever learn from history books.

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Laura Henderson
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Amazing, rising literally from the ashes. I do hope she didn't die horribly of radiation poisoning...

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First and foremost, it’s important to understand that old photos affect our perception of time in unique ways. According to Lisa, they do that “by making abstract historical events visually concrete, giving us an emotional connection to eras we might not otherwise know very much about, exactly, through books or family stories.”

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She gave an interesting example: “I was really taken by images of Japanese-Americans in WWII U.S. internment camps, young people protesting low wages for teachers in the Great Depression, female engineers working for the Space Race, and little kids protesting Daylight Savings Time—my own son especially appreciated that one…"

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#8

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Mr. Cinder
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

What are the cannibals going to eat? They're nothing but bones. What a horrific picture.

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Another way old photos alter our perception of time is by showing that people in the past had just as rich and complex lives as we have today. Lisa explained that “we tend to assume that in the past, women were limited to work as wives and mothers, and we certainly see a number of images here celebrating women’s work in the home.”

But the reality couldn’t be further from the truth. “We also see women doing all sorts of work in the public sphere as well—everything from attending school graduations and working on supercomputers to taking back the streets of postwar London and bouncing drunks out of bars,” the professor explained.

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LisaMarie
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1 year ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The part in Schindlers List which upsets me the most is when they are told to carefully write their names on their suitcases as they will get them back when they get off the train. You then see the suitcases being brought to the sorting areas and the contents being put into various piles like this. The fact that they gave these prisoners a glimer of hope (that their possessions would be returned to them) while knowing what was in store for them is just heartbreaking 😥

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Katinka Min
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It was a way to control them. If people know 100% for sure, that they will die, they will lose their fear and can just overwhelm the guards.

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Fiona Parky
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The way they psychologically managed this was to reduce people to less than an animal, less than human. Every time you think about people, think about that. I will never, ever consider someone to be beneath me because of religion, race or sexuality and this is exactly why. I might not agree with you, or even like you but you’re still a person.

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Anonymous
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

There are a select few that I would exempt from being classified as human. Pedophiles, for example

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David Brown
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I once met someone that didn't believe the Holocaust actually happened. The ignorance was mind blowing. It's hard to argue what happened when you see the true nature of the events that took place. There's thousands of wedding rings in that box and that doesn't represent the people that were unmarried or to young to marry. It's a heartbreaking piece of history that should have never been let take place.

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Laura Henderson
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Needs to be seen by everyone. The horror of the sheer numbers, the callous mass execution that resulted from normal citizens being brainwashed.

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ShellsBells
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

"Hope lives when people remember." Simon Wiesenthal, survivor of Mauthausen concentration camp, writer, and Nazi hunter.

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Rebecca Broscombe-Adams
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Seeing possessions in huge numbers, particularly childrens shoes made me the most upset at Yad Vashem in Israel.

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marianne eliza
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

If this sickens you, check out the gold fillings and teeth pulled from the mouths of the dead. At least I've been told they were dead at that point but do we really know?

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IAmSomeone
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Why are people so horrible sometimes? Poor people, they just lost everything like this... And a lot of everything :'(

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Lizzie Smith
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

And this is only a small proportion of the wedding rings stolen from m**dered Jews. They were regularly taken and melted down into bullion. The book Inside the Gas Chambers by Shlomo Venezia tells of the true horrors.

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Beth Sanfilippo
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I want to cry: Such sadness: horrifying massacre: unfortunately we’ve learned nothing:

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Lucy
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

So devastating & heartbreaking. I'm a granddaughter of my grandparents who where in Polish labor camp were survivors & I remember the horror stories of what they went through. Even my grandparents said that what they witnessed being done to the Jewish made them realize that they were lucky even tho many died also in labor camps.

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Jocelyn Olson
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This hits me in my soul. To see the number of people murdered in the Holocaust represented by a wheelbarrow of wedding rings puts the loss of life into a whole new perspective. So many killed by one insane madman with a very unhealthy power addiction and for the most ignorant of reasons... truly heartbreaking.

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S
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Yo f**k the holocaust thats so heartbreaking and unnecessary

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Monica Hall
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Pardon my insensitive question… if these are the rings of the victims, why do they ALL look exactly the same?

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Sally Kane
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Majority of Jews married during that era with plain yellow gold bands. I married in 1972 and our rabbi told us even then, that we had to get married using gold bands.

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Plague doctor
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1 year ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The worst part of this picture is that even though Hitler caught with blatant evidence of these concentration camps he still denied every part of it.

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Jessica Julian
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

May all those who perpetuated this tragedy be screaming in Hell, now, and forever.

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Doug
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1 year ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

In Auschwitz, the warehouses stolen property was kept in were nicknamed Kanada (German for Canada). It's believed to have come from people's perception that Canada was a land of plenty. https://thecjn.ca/perspectives/opinions/kanada-at-auschwitz/

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Notyomama
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

While this saddens me to the extreme, the Holocaust was not the only atrocity that the Jewish people have experienced. My evil stepmother knew I loved to read and learn so she "gifted" me a bunch of books when I was 9. One of those books was The Books of Rachel by Joel Grossman. While it is a fictional story, it depicted the horrors of The Inquisition quite well. It inspired me to do research and I did several research papers ,in high-school, on the subject. There was a very small paragraph, in our regular history books, about it. This particular book focused on The Spanish Inquisition that targeted the Jewish community. It was an awful time in human history. BTW, this book is NOT suitable for a 9 year old. But, then, neither is The Pit and the Pendulum. Oh well. Guess I got an early start.

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Unsound Mind
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Wow this broke me a bit and honestly I have tears in my eyes. So many rings

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M L.
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Those all look the same- like rings for machinery- is thus picture been verified...?

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Gluten_free
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

That is how many wives are still waiting for their beloveds to come home, but they never will

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Trish Smith
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Oh, so heartbreaking!!! :( I hope all those poor murdered souls are at peace now.

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Alexander Superlex
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

that n****r Hitler gots one hell of a p**n shop inventory going there

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Moreover, old photographs remind us of something we tend to forget: “that people in the past have had many of the same challenges and triumphs as we have, and that we can look to them for inspiration regarding how to make sense of the present and build new futures,” Lisa concluded in this in-depth interview we had.

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Firstname Lastname
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

TIL goats like bananas. Looked into it, and in addition to hay and grains, I learned they also eat "foods like fruits, dried fruits, veggies, graham crackers, cheerios, Cheetos, and even corn chips."

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Nathaniel
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

"Stop, Hammer time! You can't touch this, You can't touch this, You can't touch this, Break it down!"

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Laura Henderson
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

... And it wasn't just Germans who were brainwashed by Nazism. Let's not forget that.

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Laura Henderson
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Terrible working conditions. It's literally what Zorro rescues "the disappeared ones" from in the movies.

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Note: this post originally had 42 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.