Here I saw a bit outdated tutorial about it... It creates your own thumbnails. You need to use " sorl-thumbnail " now-days for thumbnails generation and storing it's a bit easier and more right way IMHO...
Your widget (with extra feature of handling postfix in file name) might look like this.
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.