One hundred thousand witnesses to the terror of Joseph Stalin’s rule are stored on 12 computer hard disks compiled by Memorial, a Russian human rights group based in St Petersburg. Several terabytes of data include thousands of hours of audio histories, digital versions of faded photographs, video evidence of mass graves. With a few computer keystrokes, one could retrieve a faded denunciation written by a son against a father, or hear a ghostly voice reciting a forced confession or naming her “co-conspirators”.
It is the most complete public record of one of the most terrifying periods of modern human history, and mysteriously, it was also the target of a raid by Russian police on Memorial’s headquarters on December 4.
