Memorial de Caen
 A Hawker Typhoon in the Mémorial |
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| Data | |
|---|---|
| place | Caen , Normandy , France |
| Art |
historical Museum
|
| opening | 1988 |
| Number of visitors (annually) | 400,000 (2007) |
| Website | |
The Caen Memorial is a museum in Caen in the French Normandy . It documents Operation Neptune with the Allied landings on June 6, 1944 ( D-Day ) in Normandy and the subsequent battles to liberate Normandy from German occupation, and embeds this in the European history of the 20th century from the First World War until the fall of the wall . It is visited by around 630,000 visitors every year.
history
The museum goes back to an initiative of the former mayor of the city, Jean-Marie Girault . It was built over the former command bunker of the commander of the German 716th Infantry Division , which is also accessible.
On the 44th anniversary of the Normandy landing, on June 6, 1988, it was inaugurated by the then French President François Mitterrand and by twelve ambassadors from the nations involved in the struggle in Normandy. An extension was added later. The majority of the museum is owned by the city. During the conception of the permanent exhibition, the collaboration between the sponsor and the young historians of the Paris Institute d'histoire du temps présent (IHTP) was discontinued after differences of opinion, which is why critics have criticized the museum for not taking a committed standpoint, or even a naive one in some areas Convey an image of history .
construction
The visitor can choose between four departments:
- The Second World War with its prehistory from the Peace Treaty of Versailles through the Holocaust to the capitulation of the Axis powers,
- The events of the war in Normandy ( Operation Overlord ),
- The period from 1945 to the end of the Cold War ,
- The command bunker of the German occupiers can also be viewed via an outside staircase (or elevator).
The exhibits are labeled in three languages (German / English / French). The exhibits include a. the beret of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery and a German Enigma -Kodiergerät.
There is a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Gallery in the basement . South of the museum is the Parc international pour la Liberation de l'Europe , a large garden that commemorates the Allied participants in the liberation of France from the occupiers.
Services
The Mémorial has audio guides, also in German, and specially designed for children. It shows several films in the cinema, has a café, a restaurant and a care center for small children, as well as a médiathèque and a book and souvenir shop.
literature
- Michèle Périssère: Mémorial. A museum for peace in Caen . In: Hans-Martin Hinz (ed.): The war and its museums . For the German Historical Museum , Campus, Frankfurt am Main a. a. 1997, ISBN 3-593-35838-7 , p. 193 ff.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Marc Zitzmann: The traces of violence - How five major museums in France make wars of the past visible . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . No. 264 . Zurich November 12, 2012, p. 33 .
- ^ Reference on the Mémorial website , accessed on May 4, 2014
Coordinates: 49 ° 11 '50.9 " N , 0 ° 23' 2.1" W.