What I usually do is bind the items of an ItemsControl to an ICollectionView (usually ListCollectionView) instead of directly to a collection; I think that's what the ItemsControl does by default anyway (creates a default ICollectionView), but I might be wrong. Anyway, this allows you to work with the CurrentItem property of the ICollectionView, which is automatically synchronized with the selected item in an ItemsControl (if the IsSynchronizedWithCurrentItem property of the control is true or null/default). Then, when you need the current item in the ViewModel, you can use that instead.
You can also set the selected item by using the MoveCurrentTo... methods on the ICollectionView. But as I re-read the question I realize you may have another problem altogether; you have a collection of 'default' items and need a way to match them to specific instances. It would however be a bad idea to override the equality operators of the objects to consider them always equal if they are of the same type, since that has the potential to make other code very confusing.
I would consider extracting the type information into an enum, and put a read-only property on each object returning one of the enum values. Then you can bind the items to a collection of the enum values, and the selected item to the enum property of each object. Let me know if you need an example, I may have made a mess of the explanation :).
What I usually do is bind the items of an ItemsControl to an ICollectionView (usually ListCollectionView) instead of directly to a collection; I think that's what the ItemsControl does by default anyway (creates a default ICollectionView ), but I might be wrong.
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.