Shhh this was written a while ago but like osu’s blog is confusing don’t judge me
anyway
While in London, I’ve learned a lot about the British portrayal of many aspects of the Second World War, especially in the Imperial War Museum and the Churchill War Rooms. It’s been amazing to see so many things in one city that’s so unique.
First of all, I was surprised to see that there seemed to be relatively little coverage of aspects of the war for the Soviets and the Eastern front as a whole in the Imperial War Museum, which went into heavy detail about many other aspects of the fighting. Of course, I would not have expected them to have focused on the region because the museum was from a British point of view, but I was frustrated by how little I saw because the Eastern front was very important in both World War One and World War Two. This has often happened in American accounts and coverage of the war that I have seen over time, especially in the classroom as well as the World War Two Museum in New Orleans, which means I have wanted to spend more time in particular to learn about the Eastern Front, only to find similar coverage of the topic here.
A lot of the coverage of the fighting was based more on the aspects of machinery and fighting, and not so much on the human aspect of the war, which I found to be different from many American museums I have been to over time. This is especially true in relation to the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C., which focused on remembering the events. In particular, there was a part of the exhibit that had a model of Auschwitz; this model demonstrated what would happen to those sent to the camps in a very methodical way. It also had many first-hand accounts from survivors, which did attempt to add to the humanization of the victims, which I have seen many other accounts focus on. Either way, both the Holocaust exhibit in the Imperial War Museum and the D.C. Museum were very good thought they did different things.
Getting to see a V2 rocket, a T34 tank, and many other war weapons in person was interesting; seeing them in pictures can help one visualize, but definitely not as well as looking at them in real life. I had no idea that so many of the weapons were as large as they are. I also really liked that the Museum tried to incorporate newer technologies as much as possible to make the exhibits more interactive, as well as present more info on certain topics to those interested. It was really cool that the World War One Exhibit did what it could to make it appear as though visitors were going through trenches, and went into detail on what one would experience there, from the gas attacks, to the rats, and to the fear of death that those who fought had to deal with.
Overall, I found the museum to be amazing, but there was so much to see that there was no way I could have gotten to all of it in the course of one day. London has been a great city to visit and I have learned quite a lot! I hope to have similar experiences in Bayeux, Berlin and Paris.