WWII sites

Are you just interested in the military aspect or in all aspects of WWII? I'm mainly asking about the Holocaust. Poland is really good for Holocaust sites - camps/memorials/museums - especially Krakow and Warsaw. Berlin also has a good Jewish Museum, the outdoor Topgraphy of Terror, and close camps to visit (Oranienberg). Munich has Dachau nearby and a good Nazi Documentation Center and was the birthplace of Nazism. Prague's Jewish sites (group ticket) are fantastic, and Terezin is close.

There are some memorials and sights around Bastogne related to the Battle of the Bulge. There are a couple museums related to the West Wall defenses of Germany, then what is left of the "Eagles Nest", and a small display at Remagen, where the allies crossed the Rhine.

But generally, once you get into Germany, there really are not the large museums and battlefields that you might be thinking of, much of Europe was more interested in moving on after the war, rather than commemorating it.

Thank you for this information! It's exactly what I'm looking for. Undoubtedly depressed, but it's history. Do you know if the museums there have English signs? Thank you.

I would recommend the Battle of the Bulge sites near Bastogne, Belgium. You can see the foxholes where Easy Company of Band of Brothers fame fought, which I found very moving. Bastogne has a nice museum on the battle. There is an even better one in Diekirch, Luxembourg, which is an easy drive from Bastogne. There are many WWIi cemeteries—we visited the one in Hamm, Luxembourg where Patton and a couple of the characters from Band of Brothers are buried.

Hi Sharon, I'm also a big Second World War history buff! From your previous visits, it appears you have only really seen the War from an Anglo-American perspective. Here's some of my recommendations to get a broader more global perspective to the War:

Musée des Blindés, France - Located in the heart of the Loire Valley, in Saumur, this is the best tank museum in the world. They have many different tanks from WWI to Modern and from many different countries too, not just from France. It was a real treat from me, as they have some pretty rare WWII stuff, like a functioning King Tiger Ausf. B.

Wolf's Lair, Poland - Adolf Hitler's massive Eastern Front military headquarters in World War II. The site of the most notable assassination attempt against Hitler on 20 July 1944. Partially reconstructed with a small museum on site.

Owl Mountains, Poland - During WWII the Germans built underground tunnels here. In these tunnels is apparently where the train filled with Nazi gold is hidden. This tunnel network was part of Project Riese, which was a secret Nazi project consisting of several underground megastructures (for yet unknown reasons). The vast tunnel network runs under Zamek Książ, a large, originally medieval castle of the Duchy of Pless, and overlooks the Pełcznica river gorge.

Norway's Resistance Museum, Oslo - The museum collection focuses on Norwegian resistance during the occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany from 1940 to 1945. The museum displays equipment, photos and documents from the war years. While the French résistance was the most publicized, there were many resistance movements that were equally successful, like in Norway, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia.

Museum of the Second World War, Poland - located in Gdansk, this is the single best WWII museum I have seen, so rich with details, not only on Poland's involvement, but of the whole world war, even to the extent of the Japanese perspective of the war. The museum tells the story of the war in terms of politics, ideology, and civil population of multiple countries around the world.

Poland has done an exceptional job of documenting the wartime experience in new museums, and English is everywhere:

• The Warsaw Rising Museum in Warsaw is very interesting. I spent about 8 hours there, I believe, over the course of three visits.

• POLIN, the Museum of Jews in Poland, covers the wartime period as part of its expansive displays. It's another potentially full-day experience.

• Gdansk has a very new World War II Museum where I spent about 20 hours. I read every bit of English (which was everywhere) and watched all the subtitled videos. The typical visitor, obviously, would make a shorter visit.

• The Home Army Museum in Krakow covers the Polish underground state during the war. This is a much smaller museum. I thought it worthwhile, but I remember being a bit frustrated there. I think it was because of low light levels on the ground floor. At my age it was a challenge. I ended up using the flashlight on my cell phone.

Lyon, France, has a good Resistance Museum.

I believe Invalides in Paris covers the WWII period.

Falaise, France (in Normandy), has a museum focusing on the civilian experience during the way, including the Resistance.

There's a WWII Museum in Catania, Sicily. I missed it, but it has been mentioned positively on this forum.

I believe the huge German History Museum in Berlin covers the wartime period, but I haven't been there yet.

Kyiv, Ukraine, has a major WWII museum. The basic material has been translated into English, but the human-interest stories about individual participants were generally only in Ukrainian (and perhaps also Russian; I don't remember).

Bletchley Park in England has interesting exhibits on the codebreaking activities that took place there.

The Dutch Resistance Museum in Amsterdam is good.

The Danish Resistance Museum in Copenhagen moved to a new location just last year.

The Channel Island of Jersey has a small, museum-like memorial to war-time slave laborers who were forced to build Nazi fortifications. The site is called the "War Tunnels", I believe.

There are many memorial sites at former transit, concentration and death camps that have museum-like explanatory displays. Most are in Germany or farther east, but one (Camp des Milles) is in Aix-en-Provence, France. In addition, there are holocaust-related sites in many cities (again, often toward the east) that had large Jewish populations prior to the war. I've been to many of those sites, and I was impressed with how accessible they generally were to English-speakers.

There are also museums/memorial sites telling the story of Nazi oppression in the occupied countries. In former Iron Curtain countries the same buildings were often used afterward by the Communist authorities as they attempted to suppress dissent. So you'll have sites like the House of Terror in Budapest that cover both the WWII period and the Cold War period.

Here's an interesting article on the WWII sites on the Channel Islands.

There are number of concentration camps that can be visited. It is a truly depressing experience to see, but worth doing.

Other:
Estonian war museum: https://esm.ee/exhibition/permanent-exhibitions/world-war-ii
The Danish Freedom museum: https://natmus.dk/museer-og-slotte/frihedsmuseet/
The Norwegian occupation museum: http://www.forsvaretsmuseer.no/nor/Hjemmefrontmuseet

There is an excellent museum outside Arnhem in Holland documenting Operation Market Garden:

https://www.airbornemuseum.nl/

OMG - thank you all so much. I will check all out to put a trip together (for next year). Sharon

Once your trip is planned, check out a site called "thirdreichruins.com". You can check by city / area and see photos taken just after WWII, and photos of the same place much more recently. Hope this helps.

Near Limoges is Oradour-sur-Glane.

Most definitely, the Tank Museum suggested by Carlos in Saumur. How extensive geographically are your covering.?

Other cities/countries have tank museums too. If you do go to Warsaw, there is the Polish Army Museum as well as that in Prague...very extensive coverage. Also there is the tank museum in Helsinki.

Above all, if you're in England, the Bovington Tank Museum in Dorset. Take the train from London Waterloo. Prepare to spend a day there.

For German military sites (museums, burial sites, battlefield memorials, etc) I suggest:

Berlin-Karlshorst, Seelow, the museums in Koblenz, Rastatt, Potsdam, Zossen-Wünsdorf (south of Berlin), the British military burial sites in Berlin and Kleve (British and German) in the lower Rhine area, Numerous sites in Germany and Austria...all depends on the level and depth of interest if you intend on tracking them down.

What about naval war history sites in England and Germany?

Berlin, Berlin, Berlin. You cannot get more of a picture than Berlin--the rise of the Nazis, the war, and its effects and the subsequent division of Europe are all centered in Berlin. The Jewish Museum in Berlin also gives an amazing picture of Jewish life in Berlin before the Holocaust; centuries of Judaism in Europe are represented. It isn't just the Holocaust--but it makes you understand the Holocaust better by knowing what came before. You can also visit the Bendlerblock and the remains of the Kaiser-Wilhelm church. Similar bombed out churches exist elsewhere in Germany and Europe. Or Track 17 or Bayerischer Platz to better understand the daily impact of the Nuremberg Laws.

Concentration camps. If you want to understand WWII, you must understand the camps. Bergen Belsen and Dachau are good (can I use that word? it feels wrong) choices, but nothing compares to Auschwitz. Absolutely nothing can prepare you for that. And if you are in Krakow you can visit the Jewish museum there--one of the most visceral museum exhibitions I have ever seen--and the Schindler factory.

Warsaw, Warsaw, Warsaw. That city's history will make you truly feel the depth of WWII history. The Ghetto uprising. The Warsaw Uprising. Ghetto art hidden in milk jugs and found long after the artists had died. A downtown built of stolen facades because the city had been destroyed. Lines in the street marking the boundary of the ghetto. This city had such intense fighting and street battles. It, like Berlin, sports bullet marks in buildings around the city.

Or Munich University's White Rose sites. It's not far to the Eagle's Nest from Munich.

Stumbling stones throughout Europe are stark reminders of the fact that these were real people who lived normal lives.

Dresden is a city rebuilt. You don't see the traces directly, but if you hear its story and then see the buildings, you see the power of their current existence.

Prague's Pinkas Synagogue walls are lined with the names of 78,000 local/regional Holocaust victims. Again, when you see names and birthdays you realise just how real the Holocaust was--not just "six million Jews," but individual lives with real stories, real emotions, real hopes. Or visit Lidice and learn about the reprisals carried out there.

You cannot escape WWII history in most of Europe. Almost anywhere you go was affected. Some things should be commemorated--resistance, memorials to victims--and some should not be sites (for example, Hitler's bunker is not a place one would want to commemorate or visit. It has been paved over and is now a parking lot, and rightly so). So consider what it is you want to see based on its historic context--what, to you, are the most powerful messages or lessons from the war? What events spread that message, and how is it kept alive?

Take a look at tracesofevil.com and see how ordinary towns look then and now.

In 1943, during the Battle of Kursk in WWII, the largest tank battle in history took place between the Red Army and German Wehrmacht near Prokhorovka several miles north of the city of Belgorod, Russia. Following this engagement the victorious Red Army had the offensive on the eastern front for the remainder of the war. The battlefield and related monuments are impressive as is the Belgorod Diorama Museum.

And not to mention the American Cemeteries scattered throughout France, Netherlands, etc.

Ortona is a pleasant Italian seaside-resort town where Allied troops, mostly Canadian, fought house-to-house. Some call it the Western Stalingrad, although on a much smaller scale. Today there is a nice, if modest, museum devoted to the battle.
I agree that the Amsterdam resistance museum is well worth a visit. However, its name is perhaps misleading. The main theme is not just the organized Resistance, but rather how the ordinary inhabitants managed to survive occupation. Its dominant theme is to ask visitors what choices they would make to save themselves under very harsh conditions.
Bletchley Park outside London is vital to understanding how Britain eventually turned back the German threat. Try to go when there is a demonstration of a reconstructed Bombe machine, the massive apparatus that decoded German messages and is considered a forerunner of the modern computer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombe

Staying in England there is the IWM at Duxford if you like WWII aircraft, the tunnels at Dover, and Bletchley Park. Also, there are a number of airfields that still exist. I visited Spanhoe airfield that is privately owned a few years back since my father flew C-47s out of it during the war. It is near Uppingham. Not specific to WWII is the Royal Navy museum at Portsmouth. It is a very good museum. To me the highlight was Admiral Nelson’s flagship, HMS Victory. In France is Pegasus Bridge. Originally called the Bénouville Bridge after the neighbouring village, is a road crossing over the Caen Canal, between Caen and Ouistreham in Normandy.

Well, forum members have given you enough sights for the next 10 trips, lol but I'll add another suggestion.

If you find yourself in Paris, do consider doing one of the Paris Walks which covers WWII sights. I've done the one on the Right Bank twice and found it deeply interesting. Knowing where the various German Army/SS, etc were housed is chilling as is having the guide point out chips in buildings from bullets. There is one on the Left Bank but the day I did it the group was large and the guide was not one of the best I've had with this company.

Upthread someone mentioned the Dutch Resistance Museum which I thought was very good but there is also a newly re-opened (2019) Resistance Museum in Paris that I found interesting. Not all the signage was in English but I got the gist of most things (my French is poor).

https://www.museeliberation-leclerc-moulin.paris.fr/en

You're absolutely right, Pam. I do have enough suggestions for the next 10 years. I'm so excited!! Thank you all.

Nuremberg!

As acraven mentioned, there is a WWII museum in Catania, and while not large, it is very interesting and well done. It is interactive to a point, and reflects that very difficult period of time from the locals’ viewpoint.

You cannot escape WWII history in most of Europe.

That is true, even in neutral countries you can find traces of WWII history.

In addition to the grand sites mentioned by others above, I have an alternate suggestion. I live a couple of streets north of le Canal du Centre in Burgundy (Bourgogne) France.

The name may be unfamiliar to some, but that canal was designated specifically and by name in the Armistice between Nazi Germany and France as the demarcation line between occupied France and "Free" (i.e., Vichy) France. In other words, I live on the southern edge of what once was occupied France.

For anyone who may spend a moment thinking about why a canal might be constructed, it shouldn't surprise them to realize that such a canal would run straight through populated and often industrialized areas. After all, that's why the canal (constructed in the late 1700s) would have been built.

So imagine what daily life would have been like for people living in areas through which the canal passed. To get to work, people had to cross from one France to the other. School children had to carry their papers to go to school each day. Delivery of materials and goods was complicated and in some cases prevented by the demarcation line.

If a person would like to gain an understanding of just how life was under such circumstances, the Centre d’Interprétation de la Ligne de Démarcation in the tiny town of Genelard in Burgundy provides such insight. Situated right next to the canal, the museum documents daily life in this part of France during this difficult period.

It's a remarkable, albeit small, museum. If you live in France long enough you'll appreciate how hard it is to learn about life in France during the war. Oh, it's easy to learn about the resistance. It seems everyone's family was active in the resistance. And it's easy to learn about the Free French Army marching and fighting alongside the conquering British, Americans, and Canadians. But for what life was like for average people, the documents they had to carry, the hardship workers and schoolchildren endured, I've found no place better than the Centre d’Interprétation de la Ligne de Démarcation in Genelard.

It's not worth a visit solely to see it, but if you're in the area, it's definitely worth a stop.

"To get to work, people had to cross from one France to the other. School children had to carry their papers to go to school each day."

Sammy, interesting you mention that. Those that have been on the Paris and Heart of France tour likely also stopped at the winery Chateau Selles-sur-Cher where the winery owner talks about the history of the Chateau. The girls crossed over the Cher River daily to go to school and were searched for messages going and coming. The messages they carried to the Nuns and back to their parents were, of course, memorized and not to be found.

Both of these are on my list for the next time I’m in town.

In Reims France. The museum of the surrender.

https://www.reims-tourism.com/musee-de-la-reddition/reims/pcu0000000000585

And in Florence Italy. The American cemetery.

https://www.abmc.gov/Florence

I would certainly agree with the suggestion of a visit to the American Cemetery south of Florence. As well as the individual memorials, there is a good description of the allied advance through Italy, and the different armies which took part.

Reading all of the above suggestions, I've bookmarked this page.
When in Berlin, a trip to the Wannsee House is time well spent. Couple that with a solemn visit to the Gleis 17 memorial, which is not too far away. These two locations will take up the better part of a day.

Wannsee House sounds fascinating. Thanks, Tim.

If in Berlin, I'd highly recommend a tour of the last remaining WW2 bunker and gives a look at how people in Berlin lived during the war.
Berliner Unterwelten tour

Guernsey is a bit out of the way but could also be added to your list. It was occupied during the war and liberated on May 9. It has a very interesting history, even before the war.