War of the world
What makes the Imperial War Museum in London different from other, similar institutions around the world? Recently the museum’s curators have been given a once-in-a-generation opportunity to answer exactly this question.
In 2014 they unveiled a brand-new atrium, along with a new, permanent First World War gallery. Since then they have designed and built two other new galleries devoted to the Second World War and the Holocaust, which opened to the public on 20 October this year. With their opening, IWM London became probably the only major museum in the world to boast dedicated, permanent exhibitions to all three events under the same roof.
The new galleries are not without their surprises. When visitors first enter the new Second World War exhibition, for example, they will not see a display about Britain and Germany, but one about Italy and Japan. In the 1930s, we are reminded, it was not only the Nazis who expressed a desire for Lebensraum: Italy and Japan’s imperial expansion was every bit as rapacious.
Pride of place in this room is given to two extraordinary objects, both
