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 With a particular focus on reaching young people, the mission
of the New Orleans-based National World War II Museum is to
illustrate the purpose, execution and enduring meaning of the
global war that ended in 1945.
The "Road to Berlin" exhibit, set to open on Dec. 13, is the
first of two exhibits planned in the sprawling complex's
"Campaigns of Courage" pavilion. The "Road to Tokyo" is due to
open in 2015.
"This is the building that answers the question, 'How it was
won.'" said Owen Glendening, a museum official. "It has been
designed for the next generation. There's a lot of stimulation."
The exhibit starts in a room made to feel like a North African
hut and explains why the United States, having been attacked by
Japan at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, begins its war effort not in the
Pacific, but by fighting against Nazi Germany in North Africa -
an imminently more winnable campaign.
It proceeds through eight more rooms replete with faux-newsreel
footage, period objects, such as a Howitzer artillery piece as
well as German and American soldiers' winter gear, and
interactive stations that allow visitors to follow the story of
a particular soldier or civilian at multiple points during the
war.
Ending in what is designed to evoke a bombed-out German city,
the experience is not intended to sanitize or minimize the vast
scale of destruction the war wrought, Glendening said.
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The museum was founded in 2000 as the National D-Day Museum with
exhibits on Normandy and the Pacific. The U.S. Congress designated
the complex the National World War II Museum in 2003.
New Orleans was chosen as the site because of the American war
effort's reliance on the amphibious "Higgins Boat," which was
invented and mass-produced in the city.
The museum has since expanded to include the Solomon Victory
Theater, which features the large-screen documentary film "Beyond
All Boundaries," and a pavilion with U.S. aircraft dating to the war
hanging from the ceiling.
Another building, the Liberation Pavilion, which will cover the
closing months of World War Two and the years that followed, is
planned to open in 2017, completing the bulk of a $325 million
expansion project.
(Reporting by Jonathan Kaminsky; editing by Jill Serjeant and G
Crosse)
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