Have a look with some more detail and photos!
Thanks to photographer Serge Baugniet we can do this through a beautiful series of photos that he made of the exhibition. The latter can surely be called a success with several hundred visitors, many of whom followed the extensive tour by Erik Bogaert. A lot was learned and sometimes also new information was offered by some visitors who shared the story of their family's experiences on that fateful Tuesday, January 16, 1945.
We would like to congratulate the organizers Filip Maes and Erik Bogaert on their successful initiative to promote the memory of this terrible period and thus help preserve it. On to the next!
At the entrance one was greeted by many exuberant citizens and a member of the resistance, all inextricably linked to the liberation of the city. With the front still nearby at the Albert Canal, not everything was of course all moonshine and roses. An interesting, aesthetic and diverse selection of documents and objects from the period aptly reflected all this in the first display cabinets.
An indispensable element in the story of the V-weapons is of course the terrible air war that broke out during WWII and cost the lives of countless civilians. A cabinet was also dedicated to this subject with, among other things, objects surrounding the deadliest bombing in the Benelux that hit Mortsel on April 5, 1943. The many times heavier attacks on German cities and the resulting urge for retaliation would have serious consequences for Antwerp and its harbour from October 1944.
The origins of the revolutionary rocket that would sow death and destruction in Antwerp during WWII lay a few decades earlier in a dream of space travel. This story, how this dream was hijacked for military purposes and the main characters also received the necessary attention.
With original parts and some beautiful scale models, the development and operation of both the V1 and V2 vengeance weapons was discussed.
A V2 turbine from the Bunkermuseum collection was also on display, obviously somewhat damaged after crashing into Antwerp at about 3000 km/h.
Even if none of the thousands of retaliatory weapons produced had ever been fired, they still deserve a deadly reputation because of the many casualties involved in their production and all the preparation. This dark theme was illuminated in an original way in a space that referred to the primary place of production, the hellish tunnels of the infamous Mittelwerk.
Unfortunately, less than 2 years after the first successful test flight, the V2 rocket could already be put into mass production and most of them would eventually be fired at Antwerp and its port. How this happened was explained with some beautiful scale models of the required equipment.
The extremely difficult and equally important task that awaited the Antwerp emergency services during the 175-day bombardment also received attention. There was a nice selection of objects to admire from the Fire Department, the Red Cross and, not in the least, the Passive Air Protection.
Some left town but most people moved to the basement as much as possible. A display was also put together on this aspect, a place where during tours Erik reflected on the life...
… and suffering in the "City of Sudden Death".
Appropriately, the fatal toll was depicted by giving V-bomb victims a name and sometimes a face, obviously only a small fraction of the more than 3,000 deaths that occurred over the 175 days. The display also brings the whole story back to the specific story that helped inspired this exhibition, that of Paula Impens (found on our V2 webpage).
Her name could be read in the funeral book of the St. Andries Church, together with many of the 58 fatalities in the Steenbergstraat on 16/1/1945.
To conclude, there was an overview of publications and memorabilia that appeared after the war around the V-weapon period. For a closer look at some of the photos in the cabinet please visit our SHAEF exposition webpage .
