Imperial War Musem
Monday 07/23/2007 3:01 PM (In the United Kingdom: 8:01 PM)
Next, I headed across the Thames to get to the Imperial War Museum. I wanted to see the Holocaust Exhibit, but I was sidetracked by the "Children's War" exhibit, which focused on British kids' experiences of World War II. I snapped a couple of photos, but then I was a little too overwhelmed to keep at it:
It wasn't the images so much (though I looked for a mini replica of that statue in the gift shop and didn't find any), as it was the recordings and stories of kids' experiences -- I wrote "British" kids before the pictures, but it also covered the experiences of kids who were sent to England to escape the war in the rest of Europe. There was a bomb shelter and exploded bomb casings (is that the right word?) and there were items that kids were able to bring with them when they fled (often without their parents) to England. I'm sure my reaction has a lot to do with being a mom myself (and one who's away from her kid), but parts of the exhibit were almost unbearable.
Then I moved on to the Holocaust exhibit. I had two hours left before the museum closed, and it wasn't enough time. I was moving really slowly, watching every video, reading every document. There's not much I can put into words about it, and we weren't allowed to take photos of that exhibit. After these two exhibits, though, the next photo seems like a gross understatement:
"Bombs" is the word above the eyes. It's a piece of the Berlin Wall, graffitied before it came down.
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