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| Audie Murphy, the most decorated soldier of WWII played himself in the movie about him. This is his"uniform" he wore in the movie |
On the rainy Tuesday, Laurie and I went to the World War II Museum in Wakefield, RI. In a word...AWESOME! I've been to a lot of museums including all of the Smithsonions. I can tell you that if you love history, this small museum is one of the best.
Obviously, the museum has artifacts from WWII. There are multiple small rooms absolutely crammed with stuff. They have so much memoribilia that it is almost piled on the floor up to the ceiling. When I go to a museum, I usually end up seeing a couple of things that really stick with me. For example, I was blown away at the Museum of Fine Art when I came across stones from the Temple of Athena in Athens.
At this small museum, my jaw was on the floor almost the entire time. I could not believe that there was so much history in this place. There were artifacts from the US soldiers, Germans including Nazi propoganda, Russians, and even stuff from the Japanese/ Chinese theater of the war. On top of all of that, there were costumes from John Wayne, Lee Marvin (The Dirty Dozen) and others from Hollywood war movies.
Nazi's are the worst people as a group to ever live. The horrors they caused is worse than disgusting, it is tragic. So when I tell you that there was a lot of Nazi stuff, I am not glorifying it, Numbers do not tell the story. Knowing the statistics about how many people died in concentration camps, work camps, and battles will still never allow us to understand the suffering. Seeing items from Hitler and other leaders of the Nazis is a strange feeling. Being that close to pure evil is unnatural. Knowing that Herman Goering's DNA could still be on his nightshirt or that Heinrich Himmler (leader of the SS) actually touched a piece of paper that he signed eighty years ago is a strange feeling that I can't explain.
The cost of admission is ten dollars. We took the tour lead by a volunteer. The tour lasts almost two hours and I am glad we took it. Even the tour leader can only scratch the surface of how much stuff is in the museum, but he pointed out so many things we never would have noticed on our own. As I said, some of this stuff is right on the floor because they have so much of it.
The one thing that got me a emotional was a striped uniform that the prisinors in concentration camps had to wear. It is rigtht out in the open on a manikin and we were allowed to touch it. I was thinking about what this poor person had to go through. I do not know their story, but even in a best case scenario that they lived, how much death did (he?) see? How much did he starve? What family members died or were never seen again? I thought all of this when I touched the uniform. I knew that just on the inside of that materiel a man lived in constant fear, hunger, and surrounded by death. I got a little choked up.
There is no doubt that we will go back. We will probably go again in the winter. I won't take the tour again, since I see no need to make the volunteer talk to us for two hours again. We will take our time and walk around and see if we can notice things we did not see before. Below are some of the highlights that I could not believe were in the collection. One last reminder, even though I took photos of Nazi items...facism is very bad and Nazi's were/are evil.
One more last thought before you look at the photos below, I'm glad all of this stuff is saved and we can all learn from it. As Doctor Indiana Jones said many times "that belongs in a museum"
Below is actual volcanic sand from the island of Iwo Jima
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