The story begins with an air of mystery and intrigue. The museum itself has existed for ten years but it's only in the past year that it has begun to advertise itself just a little. I found it purely by chance last November when Googling for museums in the area. I have yet to find anyone else who has heard of it, so it was quite exciting. It's the Museum of World War Two and it's located here:
I'm deliberately being obtuse because the exact location isn't disclosed on the web site and we only received the address because we were granted permission to visit with a date and time, on which to do so. We were asked to state our interest in the museum - that is, we had to explain our reasons for wanting to see the War artifacts on display. After a series of e-mail exchanges it was agreed that we could visit on 8th May, 2010, which coincidentally was the 65th anniversary of V.E. Day.
We already knew roughly what to expect, having studied the web site at some length, but I still wasn't quite prepared for the impact of coming face to face with the genuine (and extraordinarily well-preserved) posters, flags and uniforms from Nazi Germany which were found in the first section of the museum. Signed and handwritten papers and documents and countless small personal items belonging to Hitler, Goebbels and other top-ranking Nazi officials were in display cases, but you could actually reach out and touch the sleeve of Hitler's uniform (I didn't) or an SS officer's hat. I spent long enough in that small section of the museum to begin to see why the German people, after the 1920s depression welcomed what appeared to be better times. At the same time, you could see the darker side. So many things were banned or forbidden. There were enamel signs proclaiming that Jews were not welcome, or that "we greet with Heil Hitler". Such things made me shudder and I imagine that they made some Germans shudder too.
This is an interactive hands-on museum in the sense that many of the artifacts - not replicas - are on open display and the visitor is allowed to pick them up to look more closely. Interestingly, few people did, and very little was touched. It all looked too fragile to me. In the Holocaust section there were two inmate uniforms and some guard uniforms. I was almost afraid to do so, but I picked up and examined the crude wooden soled shoes of a concentration camp inmate and wondered who their owner had been. There were rusty nails in the soles, presumably for reinforcement. The uppers were of stiff, rough leather. Another pair looked like a pair of sandals, and yet another appeared to have been woven from straw and were more like slippers than shoes. In stark contrast the SS guards had handsome black uniforms and weapons which were designed to impress and instill fear. In the same section of the museum is the letter sent to Otto Frank after the war, describing how Anne and her sister died.
More to come...
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