You may luck out and get things working by just setting the file type to binary. That should be sufficient to get all the mangling of $Id$ etc. undone, and if that was the only problem, your files may work. Or not – corrupted files are a problem no matter how you broke them.
I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.