Monday 21 February 2011

Dutch resistance museum


This, after a fortnight back on Blighty (or floating in the Atlantic in it's North westernmost seas would be more accurate), is the last of the planned blogs on our wee Netherlands expedition. It was a delightful couple of days and it's been lovely looking back over it, noticing how busy we'd been and posting about it here.

Our last port of call was the Dutch resistance museum. I had been concerned that it may be all about a history of Ohms in Holland but, after a little consideration we thought that this was unlikely and went round anyway (they did have the above electrical device for those who might have been disappointed when presented with a Dutch history of the second world war). There are not many photographs from here as there aren't really that many exhibits which stand out as spectacular or odd, but in dealing with everyday life from a time which really wasn't all that long ago then that is what you might expect. This is a museum where you have to take the time to read the notices that go with the exhibits - they are well written and take you from before the war right through to liberation. We spent quite some time reading our way round here and I recommend it to anyone who likes a good informative museum.

 You see plenty in pictures but I can't say I'd ever seen a concentration camp suit in real life.


A colander and a chamber pot made out of two German helmets after the war.


A liberation poster


There was part of the exhibition which related to the Dutch East Indies (Java, Sumatra, bits of New Guinea and other parts of that area) ,the Japanese invasion of 1942 and the eventual independance of the islands from the Dutch empire after the war.

75000 pouches of tea, two of which you see below, were received by the Dutch government in exile in London from the Dutch East Indies. In 1941 they were dropped by the RAF over 10 Dutch cities with the attached labels which read, "The Netherlands will recover. Greetings from the Free Dutch East Indies: Keep your spirits up!"

3 comments:

Sultan said...

Very cool museum!

Sandy's witterings said...

An excelent museum Laoch.

Crafty Green Poet said...

Excellent museum, I'll need to visit that when I'm next over in Netherlands