Articles

Read McCracken's Oskar Schindler piece here

Read McCracken's Wall Street Journal article about Joseph Olbrich

Read the Wall Street Journal article

Read the Christian Science Monitor article

Read the Christian Science Monitor article

Carlos Perez could have been an artist or a gangster. Photographer Donna DeCesare helped him choose Read the Smithsonian Magazine article

90-year-old Josef Schoengraber sentenced to life in prison for ordering the murder of 10 Italians. Read the Christian Science Monitor article

Contributed two chapters to the EU's book on crisis response 1) Democratic Republic of Congo, 2) Syria's Iraqi Refugees.
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Yodeling, sure. But fingerwrestling? You bet. Austrians and Bavarians strap on their lederhosen and sit down for some good ole fashion fingerhakeln.

The whole thing started with a hole in a fence around an abandoned military barracks in central Copenhagen.

Parents in the neighborhood tugged at the hole to widen it. Soon it was big enough for their little kids to scramble through to play in the grassy open spaces within.

I stood just outside the storefront, leaning against the door frame waiting for a delivery. On the fractured sidewalk in front of me, a man napped on the seat of his motorbike, his arms folded across his chest, his legs draped over the handlebars. Settled into his daytime slumber, he was cocooned from the mad cacophony of the street, where masses of motorbikes tipping with payload, sped about in all directions, dismissive of signs, signals, or even an iota of order.

On a wickedly cold Chicago day eight years ago, I walked to work, made my way through the newsroom cubicles, entered my editor's office, gave her three weeks' notice, and then sat down at my desk. I had stunned myself. Less than two years before, I'd moved 1,000 miles to take this job as an assistant editor, and suddenly I was about to move several thousand miles more to get away from it.

In the land of Freud and Reich, there seem to be as many sexologists as saints.

The "Trabi" car, Tisza sneakers and Kofola Cola were all quickly abandoned in favour of their Western counterparts when Eastern Europe invited capitalism in. But today, riding on a warm wave of nostalgia, these communist-era products are back – and sales are booming

There are few better places to sample Austria's finest wines than in a Heuriger – as long as you follow the rules, as Patti McCracken explains

Discover centuries of history and breathtaking scenery on one of Austria's most popular cycling routes

A couple of years ago, several London cabbies walked into a hospital and had their heads examined.

Researchers at a local university wanted to find out who had the biggest brain, so 50 volunteers, including 16 London cab drivers -- the study's target group -- agreed to have their gray matter analyzed under an MRI to determine their cerebral size.

As it turns out, London cabbies have big brains, indeed.
Read the St. Pete Times feature

The village of Tyneham, in the peaceful, green English countryside, was not a victim of German bombs during World War II. It was destroyed instead by friendly fire.


Read the St. Pete Times feature

The setting for Kenneth Graham's beloved children's book is a town so cute it should get its cheeks pinched.

Read the St. Pete Times feature

Living abroad is nicer if it's free of charge -- and it can be if you swap your home with somebody

It was a blue Chevy, and it was the autumn after the summer of love, and they were four girls on an American road trip, far from home, about to walk into a dark and broody bar somewhere in Colorado.

The kodachrome has clouded with age, the vivid yellow of my mother's bathing suit refashioned into a soft and muted tone, and the sharp whites of the boat now paled and blended into a once blue sky.

We sat at a table near the window overlooking a slim patch of river -- a rather unremarkable river, except in the way it slithered by unnoticed on its way out of town. The air was still, so thick and still, and it was intolerably, menacingly hot on this summer day. My colleague and I downed our coffee, and having finished our breakfast, hung around a bit longer to go through the stack of newspapers in front of us.

"Wien darf nicht Istanbul werden," read the sign. "Vienna must not become Istanbul."

When killing restores family honor.

We went to a different cafe this time. Normally, we went to the one with the shaded garden and delicious soup, secreted away on a side street and just up a couple of blocks from the local newspaper, where I was working as a consultant. But on this day, it was just me and Alma, my interpreter, so we decided to go someplace I hadn't been before.

RIBNITSA, TRANSNISTRIA-I ask myself what is a nation.

I am traveling in the backseat of a car, and Vitalie sits to my right. He has been animated and chatty on this trip, but as we roll toward the border he becomes withdrawn and anxious. He works his hands into fists and shoves them under his legs. His back stiffens and he turns his head away from the window, refusing to look at the policeman who has come around to his side of the car and wants to see his passport.